This week marked what I consider the second most important event in my entire life in this incarnation (after my birth itself) though it's still more symbolic. It's a professional one in nature, but it will also affect my entire life from now on. I've received an "official ticket" to crossing the threshold for a kind of "hero's journey" of my own - a concept used by later scholars to refer to the idea originally presented by Joseph Campbell in his seminal work The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
"Hero's journey" is a kind of typology of heroes and their adventures, which are seemingly external but actually internal, as narrated in various myths and novels. Campbell enumerates the following 17 steps:
- The call to adventure
- Refusal of the call
- Supernatural aid
- Crossing the threshold
- Belly of the whale
- The road of trials
- The meeting with the goddess
- Woman as temptress
- Atonement with the father
- Apotheosis
- The ultimate boon
- Refusal of the return
- The magic flight
- Rescue from without
- The crossing of the return threshold
- Master of two worlds
- Freedom to live
Naturally, I don't consider myself a hero, but since this is the first time in my life that I feel I'm embarking on such an internal adventure of this magnitude, I allow myself to call it my "hero's journey". In retrospect, I reached the first stage about one year ago when I felt instinctively I shouldn't remain in the present "comfort zone" or "cave" for my spiritual growth.
When I started telling about my plan of this journey to my close friends and colleagues, all of them objected. I myself continued refusing to accept this call, until I experienced one unprecedented incident that seemed a misfortune back then but turned out to be a blessing later, which in turn served as the decisive catalyst that made me decide once and for all to conquer the fear of uncertainty and take a calculated risk so that I might not regret for taking no action for the rest of my life.
I started to try crossing the threshold about a month ago even before I got this "official ticket" to do so. As is expected, I've already encountered the so-called "threshold guardians". They are internal, of course. In my case they are trust, humility and harmony with others, that is, I still have to improve these character traits of mine to cross the threshold completely.
I can't even imagine what awaits me after crossing this threshold though I do try to plan by calculating the risk and preparing myself the continuation of this hero's journey to the best of my knowledge. But one thing seems to be certain - my life won't be the same. Many people who found themselves failing to dissuade me have decided to leave me, but on the other hand I have found new supporters though naturally not many. I have also found two people who have already undergone their own hero's journeys before me whom I consider my symbolic mentors and from whose experiences I would like to learn for my hero's journey.