Homeward Bound: Your Epic Journey

Have you thought about why it is that so many of the best adventure stories or epic quests end where they begin: at Home?  Homer’s Odysseus takes ten years to get home to his wife and son in Ithaca following his participation in the Peloponnesian wars. Dorothy’s whole purpose once in Oz is to return to her family farm in Kansas where Auntie Em will be anxiously awaiting her return.

Home is where the heart is, we say, so that even our everyday adventures at the workplace or venturing forth for groceries can become itself a mini Hero Cycle that is ultimately Homeward Bound.  And every time a baseball player steps up to the plate for his or her turn at bat? You’ve got it: the Goal is to make it back around to Home Base via the arduous adventure through three challenging turning points guarded by the Basemen who stand ready to waylay the hapless voyager.

So, why Home? Wouldn’t it make more sense for an adventure tale to be about going somewhere other than back to where the story began? Do Frodo or Bilbo Baggins really need to get back to the Shire in order for their epic saga to feel complete, their quests fulfilled? For that matter, what then does the final scene in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings add to this epic cycle when Bilbo and Frodo actually leave with Gandalf on the elvish vessel to cross the great waters, never again to return to the Shire? What’s that about? Yes, even on a grander scale: Going HOME!

So, where is this mythical, mystical spiritual Home to which all good heroes—like you and me—ultimately are destined to Return?  Call it what you like: your Shangri-La, Ithaca, or Xanadu; all are metaphors for where we are all really headed with our journeys from the cradle to the grave, and Beyond.  Life is ultimately uncontainable; our conscious Spirit moves us inevitably onward to transcendent Reality beyond this pale plane of material illusions and temporal diversions. Home is a realm beyond places in spacetime where we have never really left; we are always Here-Now! Our projected journey ends where it begins because it is not really about going anywhere at all but rather, it is about remembering who we ARE and what our Source, IS.

Your Life is An Epic Journey

 

 

You are a mystic life adventurer! But you know that, right? This month we will explore the Life Metaphor Life is an Epic Adventure, with the archetype of Mystic as our ally and guide.

James Hillman, archetypal psychologist, wrote in Healing Fiction about the healing power of your own Life Story. He made a distinction in his therapy practice between a “case story,” which a person brings to the therapy process, and a “soul story,” which a therapist can help the person to identify and own. The case story is just the facts, the weave and warp of situational events that have added up to where a person feels himself or herself to be in life.  But those same facts, told in terms of their meaning, their impact and significance to the person’s sense of life purpose, goals and desires, comprise the soul story instead.

With Life Paths I will introduce a technique I call the Parallel Myth technique. This method will provide a way to transform your basic Life Map—charting your significant, shaping experiences and their relative impacts on the person you have become—into a soul story. As a short version here, let me invite you to simply think about some Epic story in a novel, film, play or myth form that you have always identified with.  How? Why? What about that story or one of its key protagonists reminds you of your own life and your own epic life adventure?

Now then, write a brief, synoptic story that merges the story you have identified with and meaningful facts from your own life. Assign yourself a protagonist’s name, and write this synoptic story in third person, highlighting your own most dramatic challenges, successes, loves and dreams. Write a page or two encapsulating your life experience from the perspective of this ‘merged’ storyline.

I like to remind my life mapping clients and students of the following awareness:

You are the stuff that myth is made of, and myth is made up from the stuff of your lives.

Now then, go forth and prosper!

I welcome your insights and I invite you to share your stories. Let’s enjoy a conversation!

The Multiple Threads of Your Life Story

I’d like to invite you next to consider whether your Life Story might actually be playing itself out according to more than one Genre.  This week I have introduced you to three story types or genres that Life Stories represent: Comic Epic-Adventure, Tragic Epic-Adventure, and Episodic. You can determine which of these patterns your overall conception of your Life Story weaves by reviewing the sequence of Life Chapters you can identify by naming the event frames that have transpired between the critical Turning Points of your life’s Adventure (see the last two week’s tools in the right panel about identifying and naming your own Life Chapters).

Now then, might the same person’s Life Story be simultaneously Comic, Tragic and/or Episodic all at the same time? This is a profound question, for which I can say the answer is, Yes.  There are many layers to a Lifetime, after all.

One way by which a person’s Life Story might be of multiple genres over time is simply in the sense that the Life Chapter you are in right Now—which I have called your Threshold vantage point—influences how you reconstruct your story. This is paradoxical, of course. If in the process of reflecting back about your Life you realize you stand in the Now at a relatively calm and aware precipice, then you are likely to name the Life Chapters you identify between your pivotal Turning Points in terms of a Comic Epic Adventure that has brought you to this Vantage Point of being a Threshold Dweller. On the other hand, if you are currently in the throes of a Dark Night situation, you might be more likely to reconstruct how dire events and repeating traumas have delivered you into this tragic Mess. (Please allow just for the moment my slightly droll attitude here, which cannot do justice to the real turmoil you might be experiencing.) Furthermore, if you find yourself currently on a sort of Lark of an adventure, relatively carefree and open to unexpected twists and turns in the Road before you, then perhaps you are more likely to reconstruct your Life Story as an Episodic, picaresque adventure.

There is a more profound way, though, by which your Life Story might be transpiring according to multiple genres–and multiple story threads!– at the same time. This involves what Carl G. Jung or James Hillman or Carolyn Myss would describe in terms of Depth, or Archetypal, Psychology.  If you accept–and not everyone will–that we are each of us inherently “multiple”, all the time, because our personal unconscious domain houses a cast of archetypal character images or modes that exist under the surface of our conscious awareness yet they influence our perceptions and attitudes through dreams or ‘nudges’/ ‘impulses’, then you might be further willing to entertain the possibility that these unconscious aspects of Self may actually be construing THEIR Life Stories distinctly from your own conscious Life Story viewpoint. Perhaps you have an Inner “Wanderer/ Idealist” archetype sub-self in you. Then this figure might construe the life s/he shares with you as an Episodic Adventure, even while you may consciously be more goal directed on a Comic Epic Quest. Or maybe a ‘part’ of you that was squelched from early childhood trauma is in a Tragic mode and this colors all your experiences with a tinge of skepticism or sadness, even though for the most part you are consciously feeling happy and successful.

I find that for Life Mapping, referring to Archetypes is very important and potentially very helpful and illuminating, so that in Life Paths I will be introducing a fresh new approach to working with some of your Archetypal “cast and crew”.  I also realize that Archetypal Psychology is not everyone’s cup of tea, outright at least. So in Life Paths I am also offering an alternative to thinking in terms of or making contact with your ‘depth’ archetypal impulses directly; you will be able to opt for simply reflecting upon your LIFE THEME values and qualities, instead.

For those willing to ‘sink’ to such depths (naturally), try reviewing the three Genres: Comic Epic Adventure; Tragic Epic Adventure; Episodic or Picaresque. Can you identify with MORE THAN ONE of these story types as having been or currently active in your life? I invite you to actively contemplate, talk about, or write/ journal about these multiple dimensions of your life.

A third way to go about exploring your own Life Story Genre multiplicity is by simply reviewing one Life Chapter at a time. Sometimes each chapter is a Story in itself, and different Life Chapters may have taken their own forms as one of the three Genres we are exploring this week. Maybe your earliest Life Chapter as a Child was Episodic but your middle years were/are more focused as a Comic Epic Adventure. Maybe one of your chapters was distinctively Tragic but you survived and discovered a pathway to a more positive storyline. (If so was there a meaningful transition between these?)

So what’s the point of all this complicating what seemed pretty simple at the start of the week? As humans we are Meaning Bearers and Meaning Creators. That is, our lives “Make Sense” because of our sense-making capabilities. If we are not entirely happy with the Story we construe ourselves to be living out right now, we can “switch horses midstream”, if we choose to.  We can look ahead to creating and re-modeling the Story as we choose! We are not locked into any storyline beyond our own control.

Have you seen the Will Ferrell/ Emma Thompson/ Dustin Hoffman film, “Stranger Than Fiction”? I highly recommend it. A man (Ferrell) living out a fairly dull, overly routinized Life Story as an IRS agent comes to the awareness that he is actually a character in a famous writer’s story! The author (Thompson) always kills off her characters in the end. So an English professor (Hoffman) asks the man to try to determine whether he is the character in a Comedy or a Tragedy. I won’t tell you the ending but suffice to say, there is a definite turnabout needed!

******   ******

I Welcome YOUR Comments, Insights and Stories as you reflect upon or entertain these ideas in relation to your own Life Adventure!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your Origin Story

[Welcome to Better Endings for Life Paths. I invite you to visit the Weekly Topics page to see the series of Life Mapping topics and tools we will be engaging here. I will introduce a topic on Sunday, then present the weekly activity tool on Tuesday, then entertain further discussion and share responses to the life mapping practices on Fridays. You are welcome to share your Comments, insights and stories at any time. Feel free to review earlier weekly topics and tools in order to practice the sequence of Life Mapping activities you can sample with this site. Better Endings to You!- Linda Watts]

As a cultural anthropologist, I am quite familiar with Origin Tales. Every cultural group has an Origin Story in the form of a cultural legend or “Creation Story” that serves to define where they “came from” as a People and what their Core Beliefs and Values are all about. The Navajo (Dine) Peoples, for example, tell of emerging from underground worlds and that their Holy Ones (Yei Bichaii) built their Creation Hogan within the protection of four sacred mountains. This sacred geography is their Dinetah, their sacred Place.

 

Individuals also have Origin Stories. Where do you begin to tell the dramatic story of your own Life History?  Our lives are MYTHIC; they are the very stuff that Myths are made of (and vice versa). Therefore, as you embark on a Life Mapping adventure, a Quest of self-discovery that can help you to define or to reclaim and manifest your Life Dream, it is important to begin by expressing your Origin Tale. You may use the weekly Life Mapping Tool shown in the right panel.  I encourage you to journal or to actively think about or contemplate, or discuss with a loved one about your OWN Origin Story. You may do this by simply completing the following prompt:

I AM WHO I AM TODAY BECAUSE: …

 

When I looked up “origin stories” online yesterday, I found an interesting, quite different twist on this universal idea.  Many of the online accounts I found refer to Origin Stories of popular Superhero figures, like Superman, Spiderman, the Green Lantern or Captain Marvel (see the Weekly Quote in the bottom panel, below).  This has a lot of relevance for Life Path Mapping, because this approach will equip you to regard and to celebrate yourself as a heroic protagonist in your own Life Story!

What special powers did you attain because of your Origin Tale? Are you ready to release and nurture your unique insights and talents for the betterment of yourself and the world at large? Your unique Life Story has brought you to your vantage point in this Present Moment. From here you can go forward to Realize Your Dream. But first, you must reflect on the journey you have travelled to Here, in order to recover your Strengths.

The Life Maps Process, which I am inviting you to sample over the next six months with this blog, is a Rites of Passage journey. Rites of passage universally include three stages: Separation, Transition, and Reintegration.  Telling Your own Origin Tale is a rite of Separation; it helps to lift you from your daily routine so you can look back upon your life. It is the beginning of a “time out” of sorts, an opportunity for self-reflection.

So start a Life Mapping Journal, as you please, which may be in the form of a record of your contemplation, dreaming, and/or active imagination experiences as you engage with some Life Mapping tools. And please, you may begin by taking time out to reflect:

I AM WHO I AM TODAY BECAUSE …

What insights open to you about who you are as an Epic Adventurer based on YOUR Origin Story?

******   ******

I welcome your insights, Comments and stories. I will share your insights if you wish for me to (use Comments or see Share Your Story tab), or you can send your insights privately (see Contact tab).