DOW: Wake Up

To learn more about Jonas and his story go to the Wake Up website.

Chasing Lainie

Without a thought…without inspiration…without a reason…I have walked to you.  I cannot put my finger on one attribute you hold, but the picture was burned deep into my mind.  Was it the high cheekbones, the slight slope of the nose?  Was it the perfection of your full lips, the hair as black as night, or crystal blue eyes that held more mystery than the deepest ocean?  Could have been a combination every physical feature, these are merely a visage of what you hold deep inside.  Within is the beautiful insanity of an artistic sage with a compassion that can never be equaled

I've never had the pleasure of meeting you.  I've never seen you.  I've only imagined that you exist in this world.   I have never smelled your sweetness.  I have never touched the tips of your fingers, but you are out there…I have felt that much.   Are you a ghost from my past life?  Temptress bent on quickening my madness?  Are you the specter taunting me from a distance on this road?  In time all will be revealed…or will it.

Does your existence even matter?  At this point your only true significance is what I hold in my mind.  The potential of your manifestation is a fence called choice.  At one side you live and the other you remain a thought.  Solitude has built a savage desire within for our paths to intersect.  This thought process, I have discovered has become more of an obstruction, a road block that sits on my path keeping me from the vast space of infinite potential.  The pitiful truth is that I have put you there.

In my life I have sat in the presence of extraordinary power of the feminine.  Although I have only allowed myself to experience a small few both physically as well as emotionally, I must admit that I have been deeply in love with all of them.  For this I am grateful.  The level of connection was of course a compromise of give and take based on our comfort level.  In each encounter one of us made have wanted more, but what transpired was what was necessary for each party in that moment.  It was a dance of simplistic perfection.

As I have found myself obsessing over the idea of you that I hold inside for all those that have become before this moment.  I will continue to love each of them for the time shared together.  I know that I will undoubtedly love more as I walk.  I no longer desire the thought of you. A devilish obstruction that taints the infinite potentiality that is at my finger tips. 

I will continue to walk.  I will continue to enjoy those I will share the road with from time to time.  I will continue to walk, and near then end if I meet what ever it is that you are, maybe we will walk together into the next world.  Until then…I will continue to walk toward my word of fearlessness.  Who ever you may be…one or many.  I invite you to join me.

We All Have A Path

The Hero's Journey
By
Joseph Campbell

1. Departure

The Call to Adventure:
The call to adventure is the point in a person's life when they are first given notice that everything is going to change, whether they know it or not.

A. Refusal of the Call:
Often when the call is given, the future hero refuses to heed it. This may be from a sense of duty or obligation, fear, insecurity, a sense of inadequacy, or any of a range of reasons that work to hold the person in his or her current circumstances.

B. Supernatural Aid:
Once the hero has committed to the quest, consciously or unconsciously, his or her guide and magical helper appears, or becomes known.

C. The Crossing of the First Threshold:
This is the point where the person actually crosses into the field of adventure, leaving the known limits of his or her world and venturing into an unknown and dangerous realm where the rules and limits are not known.

D. The Belly of the Whale:
The belly of the whale represents the final separation from the hero's known world and self. It is sometimes described as the person's lowest point, but it is actually the point when the person is between or transitioning between worlds and selves. The separation has been made, or is being made, or being fully recognized between the old world and old self and the potential for a new world/self. The experiences that will shape the new world and self will begin shortly, or may be beginning with this experience which is often symbolized by something dark, unknown and frightening. By entering this stage, the person shows their willingness to undergo a metamorphosis, to die to him or herself.

2. Initiation


A. The Road of Trials
The road of trials is a series of tests, tasks, or ordeals that the person must undergo to begin the transformation. Often the person fails one or more of these tests, which often occur in threes.

B. The Meeting with the Goddess
The meeting with the goddess represents the point in the adventure when the person experiences a love that has the power and significance of the all-powerful, all encompassing, unconditional love that a fortunate infant may experience with his or her mother. It is also known as the "hieros gamos", or sacred marriage, the union of opposites, and may take place entirely within the person. In other words, the person begins to see him or herself in a non-dualistic way. This is a very important step in the process and is often represented by the person finding the other person that he or she loves most completely. Although Campbell symbolizes this step as a meeting with a goddess, unconditional love and /or self unification does not have to be represented by a woman.

C. Woman as the Temptress
At one level, this step is about those temptations that may lead the hero to abandon or stray from his or her quest, which as with the Meeting with the Goddess does not necessarily have to be represented by a woman. For Campbell, however, this step is about the revulsion that the usually male hero may feel about his own fleshy/earthy nature, and the subsequent attachment or projection of that revulsion to women. Woman is a metaphor for the physical or material temptations of life, since the hero-knight was often tempted by lust from his spiritual journey.

D. Atonement with the Father
In this step the person must confront and be initiated by whatever holds the ultimate power in his or her life. In many myths and stories this is the father, or a father figure who has life and death power. This is the center point of the journey. All the previous steps have been moving in to this place, all that follow will move out from it. Although this step is most frequently symbolized by an encounter with a male entity, it does not have to be a male; just someone or thing with incredible power. For the transformation to take place, the person as he or she has been must be "killed" so that the new self can come into being. Sometime this killing is literal, and the earthly journey for that character is either over or moves into a different realm.

E. Apotheosis
To apotheosize is to deify. When someone dies a physical death, or dies to the self to live in spirit, he or she moves beyond the pairs of opposites to a state of divine knowledge, love, compassion and bliss. This is a god-like state; the person is in heaven and beyond all strife. A more mundane way of looking at this step is that it is a period of rest, peace and fulfillment before the hero begins the return.

F. The Ultimate Boon
The ultimate boon is the achievement of the goal of the quest. It is what the person went on the journey to get. All the previous steps serve to prepare and purify the person for this step, since in many myths the boon is something transcendent like the elixir of life itself, or a plant that supplies immortality, or the holy grail.

3. Return


A. Refusal of the Return
So why, when all has been achieved, the ambrosia has been drunk, and we have conversed with the gods, why come back to normal life with all its cares and woes?

B. The Magic Flight
Sometimes the hero must escape with the boon, if it is something that the gods have been jealously guarding. It can be just as adventurous and dangerous returning from the journey as it was to go on it.

C. Rescue from Without
Just as the hero may need guides and assistants to set out on the quest, often times he or she must have powerful guides and rescuers to bring them back to everyday life, especially if the person has been wounded or weakened by the experience. Or perhaps the person doesn't realize that it is time to return, that they can return, or that others need their boon.

D. The Crossing of the Return Threshold
The trick in returning is to retain the wisdom gained on the quest, to integrate that wisdom into a human life, and then maybe figure out how to share the wisdom with the rest of the world. This is usually extremely difficult.

E. Master of the Two Worlds
In myth, this step is usually represented by a transcendental hero like Jesus or Buddha. For a human hero, it may mean achieving a balance between the material and spiritual. The person has become comfortable and competent in both the inner and outer worlds.

F. Freedom to Live
Mastery leads to freedom from the fear of death, which in turn is the freedom to live. This is sometimes referred to as living in the moment, neither anticipating the future nor regretting the past.