Contemplating the Hero’s Journey

Accepting the call to adventure

Since January, I have been a practice client for a Purpose Guide-in-Training.  On its website, the Purpose Guides program asks, “What is Soul? What is your purpose? What is your mythopoetic identity?” You know, just a few easy questions.  When I first saw the opportunity, I thought it would be great professional development for me as a coach, but it wasn’t long before I realized that, in fact, I needed to experience this program, not so I could garner more tools to use with my clients but so that I could experience a deeper level of awakening myself. 

The program offered by Purpose Guides includes a variety of tools and practices for understanding our “Soul’s Purpose”—the unique calling that each of us is fitted by evolution to fulfill. Meditation, journaling, forest bathing, dream analysis, and other reflective practices are all a part of the menu of practices PGI asks us to try at least once.  But one early practice that I began in January has stuck with me: reading mythology.

As a young person, I used to read illustrated versions of the Greek myths. I had an audio recording of story adaptations from Edith Hamilton’s Mythology and listened to the likes of Cupid and Psyche, Baucis and Philemon, Atalanta, Galatea, and Andromeda.  I remember the images cultivated in my mind’s eye, the interplay between magic, human characteristics, and fate that made these stories something between fable and entertainment. As I grew older I discovered other stories, like CS Lewis’s Narnia books, Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials series, and Neil Gaiman’s fantasy novels. Perhaps it’s no surprise that I wrote my honors thesis on Paradise Lost. To me, the questions of instinct, destiny, and self-determination have always been interwoven. Was Adam’s choice to beg a helpmeet not the first true temptation?  If God allowed the snake into the garden, would Eve have been human if she didn’t take a bite? 

But until this point in my life, these questions of instinct, desire, and destiny have always felt like something to contemplate when I am out hiking or on a long drive. Something about the Protestant cultural values I was raised with made me suspicious of anything I wanted to do. If it sounded fun, didn’t that mean it was a temptation? If I was hungry for it, didn’t that mean it wasn’t good for me? If it sounded relaxing, wasn’t that just a form of laziness? I operated in accordance with the precept, “All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.” And I was on a mission to be excellent. 

Perhaps these juxtapositions seem extreme, reading them in black and white.  But as a college student trying to formulate my ideas of professionalism, so many of these ideas about hard work,  sticking with things, overcoming challenges, and always reflecting on what could be done better were affirmed. As I progressed from a teacher to a grad student to a high school principal, I began to think that every outcome I was associated with could be attributed to something I did or didn’t do.  I took successes and failures to heart and responded to both by doubling down on my efforts. As I look back on it, was both an incredibly growth-oriented and simultaneously self-centered way of viewing the world. And it was incredibly exhausting. 

After four years of being blessed with the challenge of leading the Expeditions program at Summit Public Schools, I stood in the southwest corner of rainy Dolores Park in San Francisco. It was a Sunday evening in January. In an hour I would take my sister to SFO to fly home. As I pictured myself going to sleep alone in my apartment and getting up at six the next day to go to work, facing challenges such as union negotiations, staffing shortages, budget shortfalls, and credentialing issues, I burst into tears. A feeling I had been repressing for some time broke through, that I had given what I had to the program and I was no longer suited to or excited by the challenges it now posed.  I knew as my sister and I stood at the top of Dolores Park with the mist falling around us that I would give my notice, spend the next six months preparing my successor and my team, and move home to the East Coast. My tears slowed. Now I just had to do it. 

Since PGI brought mythology back into my life, I now recognize that on my own personal Hero(ine)’s Journey, I had been refusing the “Call to Adventure.” Over and over in my last year as a principal, my instinct had told me it was time to move on and return home. I batted its messages away, thinking they were evidence of my weakness or laziness. I soldiered on, recognizing the quickening flare of frustration with myself and others as I served in a role that was no longer right for me. My body protested with unexplained GI pain and acne. My sense of possibility narrowed and flattened. And finally, the surprise of that wave of tears hit me with a suddenness and a certainty that would not be ignored. 

Like Harry Potter, who receives three letters from Hogwarts before Hagrid is sent to fetch him, I couldn’t imagine the magical world that awaited me once I surrendered to the call. I did not get a wand with a feather from Fawkes the Phoenix, but I did receive a new understanding of what my instincts mean and new confidence in following them. Instead of expecting myself to continue to get better and better in my work and personal relationships on a linear or parabolically increasing trajectory, I began to realize that descent into the underworld was necessary and even desirable for my ultimate transformation. As any fan of hero stories knows, there is a big difference between being dragged kicking and screaming to the ordeal and going willingly. Not only am I going willingly, but I have had the chance to prepare my heart and body for an unknown test to come. 

Perhaps this seems like another form of grandiose thinking, imagining that I, just a normal white lady from New England, could be on a Hero’s Journey. What do I have in common with the beautiful Atalanta, who had speed and golden apples that she threw to catch the attention of her would-be suitors and break ahead again in the race for her hand in marriage? How can I imagine myself as courageous and competent as Hermione, who had brains, work ethic, and a Time Turner to boot?  I can only answer these questions by saying that my Inner Critic, who has been so active for so long, wants to have something to add to the conversation about my archetypal identity. 

I’m not sure where I am in the arc of my Hero’s Journey. I have a sense that I crossed a threshold somewhere between standing in Dolores Park in the rain on January 3, 2020 and telling my team that I would not return for a fifth year at Summit. I walked further into the unknown when I left San Francisco with no concrete destination and as I gathered the courage and resolve to start my own business. I have met a mentor in the form of my coach Eve, helpers in the form of friends who have supported me in making my new home, and even a goddess along my way——Ivy, a consummate gardener, who has given me plant starts and taught me how to cultivate the earth.  My sense is that I may have faced some trials but that I have not made it to the Inmost Cave and the Ordeal. I feel a quickening when I think about it, imagining with excitement how I may emerge changed on the other side. 

One last comment from my Inner Skeptic: “How do we know that the Hero’s Journey holds true? Is this some escapist fantasy?” All I can say is, as I’ve shared my discoveries with other friends, no one has laughed or criticized. As I grow familiar with the stages of the journey, I see it reflected in countless other stories and films, many of which I wouldn’t’ve classified as mythology or fantasy. James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small.  Gerald Durrell’s Corfu Trilogy. Jane Eyre. Jonathan Van Ness’s Over the Top. Inner Skeptic, I would ask you: Could we humans find ourselves so fascinated by these heroic journeys if they didn’t ring true? 

Let me leave you with this beautiful poem by Adrienne Rich: 

"Prospective Immigrants Please Note"

Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go through.

If you go through
there is always the risk
of remembering your name.

Things look at you doubly
and you must look back
and let them happen.

If you do not go through
it is possible
to live worthily

to maintain your attitudes
to hold your position
to die bravely

but much will blind you,
much will evade you,
at what cost who knows?

The door itself makes no promises.
It is only a door.