Third Week of September: The Hero’s Journey Begins

“It’s the End of the World As We Know It”

Song Title, R. E. M.

This week, at the equinox, marks the beginning of fall. Many people feel exhilaration around this season. The chill in the air is exciting and new after months of heat, and it wakes us out of the slow stillness of late summer. Every season brings a transition in the natural world, but the change that happens at the summer solstice is a subtle one of light subsiding. The outer world merely goes from warm to warmer; growing, to overgrown. In the fall, change is obvious and dramatic—one short season taking us from overblown late summer to the barren beginning of winter. The equinox ends the seasons of light and begins a six-month phase where darkness prevails.

Spring and fall both have a fresh sense of adventure to them. Spring brings the hard work that comes with the onset of nature’s growing season, and the promise of material fulfillment in the summer. The rewards of spring are tangible and the work straightforward: we dig the ground and know we’ll get flowers and apples and tomatoes for our effort. Our course work aspirations have been equally concrete: we’ve explored the science of miracles and manifestation, practiced principles of prosperity, and learned how to take in the joy of it all. The adventure of fall is a more frightening journey into mystery and the unknown. Nothing is clear or straightforward and the ultimate rewards are the unexpected buried treasures we find within—the fruits of darkness rather than of light.

As the outer world’s light dims, the shadow realm becomes more accessible. Things that aren’t seen or even considered in the light of the growing seasons, when attention is turned toward outer results, are more palpably present. Darkness takes us into the world of death and makes the clear boundaries between this world and the next less distinct. Fall is when the past comes back to haunt us. It starts a season filled with religious and secular holidays that take us right through the beginning of winter: Rosh Hashanah, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa and more. These are holidays that revive tradition and bring families together to rekindle memories, good and bad, and remind us of who’s no longer present. More people die during the darker months than in the lighter seasons, so we’re more likely to be attending funerals this time of year or coming upon an anniversary of a loved one’s passing. And, of course, there’s Halloween. The holiday that once gave death its due, honoring the “thinning of the veil” between this world and the next, now mostly makes light of all that we fear the most.

But this deep dive into the dark is all ahead. This week we’re balanced at the threshold between light and dark, one foot in each realm, at the beginning of a hero’s journey. Though change happens regardless, some never step willingly into the dying and darkening phase of life that fall represents. In his classic book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell writes of this as refusing the call to adventure: “Often in actual life, and not infrequently in the myths and popular tales, we encounter the dull case of the call unanswered; for it is always possible to turn the ear to other interests. Refusal of the summons converts the adventure into its negative. Walled in boredom, hard work or ‘culture,’ the subject loses the power of significant affirmative action and becomes a victim to be saved. His flowering world becomes a wasteland of dry stones and his life feels meaningless.”

Even though the alternative of living unconsciously, buffeted by unwanted circumstances, is a painful existence, it’s easy in its familiarity. It requires no bold choices. It takes courage to leave life as we know it and choose our own destiny by walking willingly into the symbolic underworld of fear, death, and the unknown. It’s a profoundly healing journey and one that rewards us with many previously hidden treasures of Self. Just as the ruling force of light in the spring urges us to reach for our dreams, fall’s darkness compels us to reach just as high, toward a pinnacle of perspective and wisdom. At that peak, we discover our true power and purpose, and cease to be defined by our fears.

We’ll begin the healing journey of fall this week with a single step: a symbolic step of willingness to leave the comfortable familiarity of life as we know it behind in order to claim the Self we truly are. We’ve spent two weeks preparing the way for a healing as significant as we are willing to accept. The consequence of true healing is that it changes us; it doesn’t just remove a symptom so we can continue living the old life in the old way, with a little less inconvenience. It brings about “the end of the world as we know it” and starts us on the hero’s journey. Joseph Campbell describes this as “a mystery of transfiguration—a rite, or moment, of spiritual passage, which, when complete, amounts to a dying and a birth. The familiar life horizon has been outgrown; the old concepts, ideals, and emotional patterns no longer fit; the time for the passing of a threshold is at hand.”

(For more on the hero’s journey, I highly recommend the excellent book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces.)

Exercise: The Healing

The following meditation includes some work with the past. As a psychological exercise, it’s a helpful one for making peace with our history. However, I’d like you to stretch your mind open a bit further to see this exercise as an experiment with the fluidity of time. The introduction to this course mentioned briefly Helmut Schmidt’s amazing research documenting the power of the mind to affect events in the past, and in another lesson we experiment more extensively with time. As was addressed in last week’s lesson, healing follows intention in much the same way as water follows a streambed. Our beliefs about the nature of reality and what’s possible define the limits of our healing experience. So, instead of imagining yourself performing an exercise of psychological healing, imagine that, together, we’re melting through the illusion of time and accessing the state of being where all moments of time are one. In that one instant of All Time, we will change an event in the “past” because in spiritual reality, all events are present now. You don’t need to decide if you believe this or not. Just let your mind “boggle” around it a bit and imagine what it would feel like if you did believe it to be possible.

This visualization is a bit long, so make sure you have some uninterrupted time for it before beginning. If you haven’t already, I recommend giving attention to last week’s “Questions for Thought” before going into the following spiritual work. Do whatever you find helpful to prepare your space to create a sacred atmosphere. You might even want to save this exercise for the actual day of the equinox.

Be aware that this is extremely powerful work we’re doing. The power of group energy; the spiritually significant seasonal energy, with its perfect balance of light and dark; the foundation that’s been laid in previous lessons—all these come together to create an opportunity for a life-changing healing experience. Much of what happens in this course takes place outside of conscious awareness. As we invoke the archetypes represented by each season, and add the power of group spiritual work to our own conscious intention to grow, we set a current in motion that draws our subconscious creative mind into the process. It’s like we create a river that carries each of us, even when we’re not paddling. So even if you hold doubts, or feel that you haven’t given your full attention to the preceding lessons, or don’t fully comprehend it all, know that a healing process is still taking place that’s fueled by more than your own energy. This could be a turning point in your life if you choose it.

Meditation

Relax your body and quiet your thoughts with some deep, slow breaths. Turn your attention inward and let your sense of identification shift from the small self of your personality and body to your spiritual Higher Self. Imagine yourself as more than your body, thoughts, emotions, and personal history. Recognize yourself as a beautiful, radiant being of light and see the Higher Selves of other students in this program now joining you. We’ve all gathered, beyond the illusionary limits of space and time, in a magnificent, sacred arena in the spiritual realm. Together we form a powerful circle of healing and support. First you see those who are currently in this program and then, because in the spiritual realm time is an illusion, you also see the lights of all the souls who have in the past and will in the future gather in this circle created by our intent. Recognize how much stronger we are together than separately. It’s not necessary that we ever meet face to face. Our joined intentions are enough to quicken our growth, awaken our intuition, and amplify our healing power. What has seemed difficult in the past will come more easily now. Take a moment to feel the energy of the circle building.

Now, picture a beautiful, shining light at your heart and at the heart of every person in our circle. Imagine us all—many souls, past, present, and future—sending an emanation of light from our hearts up to a giant orb located over the heads of all of us. Grow this energy strong and bright, a ball of pure undifferentiated healing light to be used as each of us most needs it.

Knowing that healing has already begun, bring to mind a condition in your life that you would like to heal. It may be a physical condition; it may be an emotional condition or one pertaining to the relationships or circumstances of your life—something that feels out of alignment with your highest good and happiness. See what feels most important and identify one condition rather than a list of complaints. Listen to your inner guidance to discern where you have the most passion to heal, not just where you think you should heal.

Bring this condition vividly to mind, being aware of all the ways it limits you; all the pain and dis-ease it causes in your life. Identify how the experience of this condition affects your body: notice where you carry any physical and/or emotional distress. Give your full attention to this pain, discomfort, and unhappiness, letting these feelings get a little bigger. We so often do anything we can to avoid feeling; in this moment, just be with it. Don’t try to push it away. Recognize that letting uncomfortable feelings surface now will help release them from your body and mind.

Let these feelings draw you back into the past to a time when you were very young, when you needed something and didn’t get it. Let a memory float into mind. Don’t choose a memory—just let it easily come to you. Don’t try to figure it out or question whether it’s the right one. Trust that it is. You may go back to the physical manifestation of the condition you wish to heal; you may go further back to the emotional roots; you may not know why you’ve gone back to the time you did. That doesn’t matter.

Let yourself re-experience this time in your life as if it’s happening now. Step into the younger body; see your surroundings; notice who’s with you and who isn’t. Allow events to play through as if for the first time and experience not getting what you need. Feel the emotions of it. Let tears come if they need to, or let yourself rage in your imagination. As you open to feeling the anger, sadness, fear, or powerlessness, imagine that, as these feelings come up, they’re leaving you. Take whatever time you need for this before going on to the next part.

What you’re going to do now is change the past. To help you with this, you’ll be joined by a guide. Your guide will be the perfect healer and helper for this task. It won’t be any person you’ve ever met, because all human personalities have imperfections and limitations. This will be a spiritual being or spiritual aspect of yourself who will appear to you in whatever form you most need: strong enough to protect you, loving enough to accept you unconditionally, wise enough to know exactly what you most need, and willing and able to give it to you.

So let your Guide come to you now. Notice the gender, age, and physical characteristics of your helper. Feel him or her close now, touching you, saying your name. If you don’t feel completely safe, completely loved, and accepted in exactly the way you most need, send this Guide away and call another. When you have just the right one, take a moment to just be in his or her presence. Let yourself be filled up by the tremendous love this being has for you….

Now, with your Guide, return to the scene from your past when you didn’t get what you needed. Know that something about this time of your life set a pattern in place—a pattern that has shaped your experiences ever since, setting limits on the health, love, and well-being you’ve allowed yourself. Also know that the linear order of time is an illusion and doesn’t exist in the spiritual realm. So, let us now invoke the power of our healing circle to soften the illusions of the physical realm, allowing us to access this moment from the past in order to create something different. All you need for this is your imagination.

With your Guide present to assist you, let this scene from your life play through again, imagining it vividly with yourself in it, only this time change it so that you get what you need. If you need protecting, imagine your Guide keeping you safe. If you need to speak words, or cry tears, or express rage, imagine yourself doing so safely. If you need love, support, acknowledgment, or respect, imagine having exactly what you need. Whatever the people in your life aren’t there to give, your Guide supplies perfectly. Completely transform the scene until it feels better, until you feel at peace in it.

Now, picture the people who weren’t there for you. See them as frightened, hurting children, also in need of protection and love. If you can give this to them, do so. If you’re not yet able to give this, picture each of them with their own healing Guide, giving them the love and protection they never received. In this way, you’re starting a healing ripple back in time, perhaps affecting generations.

With your Guide still present, come fully into the power of your current, adult self. Picture the person or people from your earlier scene and hold the intention that healing and forgiveness now happen between you. Imagine that all bonds of pain are released so there is nothing tying you together except love.

Once again, become aware of the orb of healing light we created above our circle. Imagine infusing this moment from your past with all the power and beauty of this orb. Imagine healing light completely melting away any pattern of dis-ease that started in this moment. Picture it healing all the other people who participated in this past experience. Let the light erase everything but love and harmony.

This may be as far as you take your healing. The next step is optional. If this is your stopping point, simply be with your Guide for as long as you like and when you’re ready to finish, thank your Guide, thank the souls in our circle, thank all the unseen spiritual forces of light and love who’ve been with us, and come back with some deep, full breaths.

To proceed, thank your Guide and let her or him go—this is the guide of your past/present life as you know it and will not be with you in your next step. The full magnitude of your healing lies one step further, beyond a threshold that is now coming into view, and you will have another guide for this. This next step is one you may take now or later. The “step” isn’t impatient for us. Each of us has our own path and timing; sometimes to sit at the threshold and take stock is exactly the right thing to do. It’s important to listen to your own inner wisdom regarding this because the power of group spiritual work is significant. As we hold the intention in the context of this circle to fully claim our healing, it may happen more quickly than we expect. It may never be possible to live our ordinary life again. Along with the desired gift of healing, we may receive other, less welcomed gifts: compulsions to act where we’ve become comfortably passive; the ability to see ourselves so clearly that we can no longer honestly claim the role of victim; the knowledge that we’ve outgrown circumstances of our lives before we know what will replace them; a new inability to be who others want us to be; and any number of other forced evictions from our comfort zone.

So, simply stand at the threshold for this moment. See who waits one small step beyond to guide you through the realm of your own self-created demons. This Guide will wear whatever face you need it to. So, look now and see who’s there. Who you see may be completely different from the Guide of your past, but be assured that your new helper’s love is just as big.

Fully experience this moment between worlds—the Guide of your past is gone, the Guide of your next step won’t intervene until you’ve chosen to cross the threshold. This moment is for you alone to decide.

If you decide to stay where you are, recognize this to be a powerful place of taking stock before moving on. Your spiritual work is to practice self-love, for when you truly find compassion and acceptance for who you are, for where you are, and for all that’s been, you’ll be ready to take the next step.

If you choose to cross the threshold, taking the first step of the Hero’s Journey, do so now and feel a rush of healing power fill you: body, mind and spirit.

There’s nothing more to do. Your journey will find you, as will your healing. It’s no longer yours to know how or when or what; your intentional step has surrendered up your ego’s plan to a higher plan. Feel yourself now bathed in a golden light and take a moment to be with your new Guide, who may have something to give you, show you, tell you, or offer you for the journey ahead. Just take it in, surrender, and know you can trust the process of life.

When the experience feels complete, let it go, but know your Guide will remain with you even when your attention is elsewhere. Thank both of your Guides, thank all the souls in our circle who’ve participated in your healing, thank the unseen forces of light and love who have been with us in this work. Take some deep breaths to bring yourself back to a normal waking state. Stretch a bit to feel more grounded and back into your body. Come back feeling refreshed, alert, and peaceful.

“It’s the end of the world as we know it … and I feel fine!”

R. E. M.