Introduction

By Michael G. Mervosh, M.Ed.

PREPARING FOR YOUR HERO'S JOURNEY INTENSIVE

“A vital person vitalizes the world.”

- Joseph Campbell

“In between living and dreaming there is a third thing: Waking Up.”

The Hero’s Journey Intensive is inspired by our passion for ancient wisdom traditions as well as the mythic teachings of Joseph Campbell. Our wilderness journey intensives can provide you with a deeply personal and meaningful experience of a passage rite that may not be like anything you have ever encountered. We follow a transformational paradigm that we believe has guided the evolution of consciousness within all human cultures and traditions since the beginning of our awakening as a species on this planet.

Introduction

The journeying process has already begun for you. It has started with your heeding of an inner call or pull towards to a greater and more meaningful life. That is why you have signed on for this upcoming journey. It will require you to take leave of your home life and to let go of what is familiar and known. You will cross a threshold and courageously entering new terrain that hosts the unknown potential lying in wait within you.

You are likely to have adventures and ordeals as you meet with both your angels and your demons. You will have worthwhile encounters with allies and you will discover inner resources precisely when you need support and encouragement. You will be surprised by life-renewing adventures that are likely beyond your ego’s capacity to imagine right now. If you are courageous enough, you are likely to experience a felt sense of soul coming alive within you, along with a source of love and power capable of bringing that new life and new action into fruition. Finally, will return home to with the challenge to bring forth your boon to your home life and your people. This promises to be a remarkable, inevitable and unforgettable passage.

Crossing the Threshold

Gamble everything for love,

If you’re a true human being.

If not, leave this gathering.

Half-heartedness doesn’t reach into majesty.

-Rumi

Meaningful adventure cannot be entered into through one’s head. Those who try to approach journey worthy of the soul with their mental reasoning fail miserably and quickly. The gamble Rumi speaks of is really no gamble at all, but it does involve a sense of risking something worthwhile. In the end, seeking security becomes the final danger that lulls us back to the familiar things that don’t really work.

Security seeking is on the low end of the evolutionary scale; it is often the contrary counter-force to a heroic endeavor. It goes without saying that there are definite places to play it safe in life, and there are times for being perfectly reasonable. But this will not be a high commodity in the mythic realm of a re-vitalizing adventure.

So another toll to be paid to the gatekeeper of your soul, as you cross the threshold towards a meaningful adventure, is a wholehearted, fiercely loving presence. Those without it turn back in the face of the cold threat of risking security, the heat of intensity, and of the depths in inner diving. The threshold guardians within say to us – ‘get behind your heart, get real, be a vital human being living from your own experience and truth, or go back from where you came - go back home to the safe and familiar ways of thinking’.

When you are caught up in mental abstractions, conceptualizations or gymnastics, you can’t pass through to the depth of your own soul. You are simply someone confusing the menu with the meal.

On your Hero’s Journey Intensive, you will be asked to leave behind the person you already know well. We will ask you to let go of certain details about your personal history that could limit you - what we refer to as "credit card information" - upon your arrival on the mountaintop. You will be asked to refrain from immediately revealing your age, your occupation, your home place, or other usual identifying information that labels you in any way to yourself or to another. You will be asked to leave your watch in the car, as it will only distract from the larger dimension of time and space that we will be entering. You will go by whatever name you choose.

We will focus on being attentive only to the moment that unfolds before us and between us. We do our best to leave everything else behind.

What is required of you here is to enter into the spirit of the unknown-- the Great

Mystery of life and living beyond the usual -- and surrender to the potent uncertainty that is to be found there. It is the first of many, symbolic letting go processes that are required of the hero. Here we may begin to feel how tight our stranglehold is on controlling our environment in order to feel comfortable and "secure".

Yet when you have a clear awareness that you are literally stepping “off the paved road” and going where there is no clear path, this allows a certain "immediacy" to enter into your present moment existence that can bring you alive. Without crossing this threshold, without this relaxing of our ego state of mind, we tend to live "lives of quiet desperation", says Thoreau.

We can live for years in a kind of life-sapping sameness of routine, falling asleep in the safety of bland, lifeless roles of adulthood that are culturally sanctioned and reinforced. We tend to live in paths that are so well established that our senses are no longer stimulated or awakened.

Crossing the threshold from our everyday world into the non-ordinary time and space of the Hero's Journey Intensive is to enter the arena of uncertainty that comes with any true adventure. Here we can discover new meaning, taking the risk of new way of being that is far more life giving and sustaining - and connecting to the potency of your own masculine self while traveling this unknown path.

New life is an inevitable outcome from such courageous acts of surrender. Don Juan said it well to Carlos Castenada: "The path of the heart requires a full gesture, a degree of abandon that can be terrifying. (But) only then is it possible to achieve a sparkling metamorphosis... and there is just one simple thing wrong with you - you think you have plenty of time."

In order to prepare you for your threshold crossing, we ask you now to reflect on six questions. Spend some time thinking and wondering about them, listen to your heart and not your head, and then put together at least two type written pages summarizing your reflections.

Your authentic response to The Six Questions is to be emailed to us within the two-week period prior to your Journey Intensive. It will help us connect with you more quickly and more effectively.

Use each question as an arrow that points the way to some of the more obscure truths that lie within the depths of your heart. You may want to write more about these in the Personal Journal we are asking you to keep and bring to the Journey Intensive. Again, bring your wholeheartedness to these questions by giving them proper attention and care.

The Six Questions

What Calls Me To This Particular Journey At This Exact Time In My Life?

What of events of significance are presently taking place in your life? What kinds of transition are you facing right now in your life? What is it that is calling you to take this unique type of journeying experience now? What feels right about doing this now?

What Is It Within Me That I am Journeying For?

What are you seeking to discover about yourself and within yourself? Can you find language for this? What place within you do you long to know better, or need to know more fully? What kind of passage do you feel that you need? How would you name this passage you are undertaking for yourself?

What Is the Greatest Obstacle Or Threat That I Am Currently Facing In My Life?

What is the thing within you that is holding you back the most from living the life you feel matters to you? What is the specific obstacle or fear that keeps you from getting into what you most desire or need to live? What feels like the most insurmountable challenge that you are currently facing in your life?

What Is My Greatest Strength And How I Am Currently Using It In My Life?

Can you pinpoint and name one higher aspect of your own being? Can you speak to a particular asset or character trait with yourself that you know you can draw from and rely on when life becomes difficult? Can you give a specific example of how you are presently making use of this strength or trait in your life? Are you willing to use this strength to be of service to your fellow journeyers?

How Do I Need To Be Supported On My Hero’s Journey Intensive?

Tell us how you feel about receiving support from others. In what ways are you open to being supported, and in what ways to you have difficulty being supported? In what specific way would you like us to support you during your upcoming journey?

How Do I Need To Be Challenged On My Hero’s Journey Intensive?

Tell us how you feel about being encouraged and challenged to go where you haven’t gone before. In what ways are you open to idea of life giving challenges, and in what ways to you have difficulty with challenge? In what specific way would you like us to challenge you during your upcoming journey?

Entering the Forest

Stand still, the trees ahead and bushes beside you are not lost.

Wherever you are is called ‘here’, and you must treat it like a powerful stranger…

- David Wagoner

Now that you have committed yourself to this upcoming journey, and as you cross the various thresholds that take us to that "point of no return" within our psyches, the un-doing process begins. You will inevitably find yourself experiencing an inner kind of shedding or letting go taking place. You will be in unfamiliar landscapes within and around you. Here in this state of mind, we have various misadventures, misplacements and distractions, and we can be easily led astray by old fears. We feel lost, we lose things and we feel a sense of disorientation as we go beyond what we are most familiar with.

When old fears surface, keep in mind that they are like the gargoyles that sit above the entrances to all the ancient holy shrines and gothic churches. We have to pass by them in order to enter holy or sacred territory within.

These are the fears that question our judgment, challenge our courage and urge us to "turn back"! We can feel stalked by these old fears as they cling most desperately to our old identities, and they will show up in various forms of familiar resistances.

Resistance is to be expected and it manifests in a multitude of ways. We can re-experience isolation or alienation when we feel alone with old fears, and we begin to lose our connection to "the path with heart." In these moments, suddenly the taking the journey seems foolish, ridiculous, or unimportant. It starts to feel like too much of a hassle or ordeal. We have old doubts, or feel like it requires too much of an investment of time or money - we ask "Why am I doing this to myself"?

When this happens, we can encounter external obstacles to reflect our inner reluctance - life (or the lives of those around us) begins to feel as if it is falling apart and friends or family question the judgment or timing of such an adventure.

Remember that these fears and resistances are an inevitable and integral part of the hero's journey adventure. Thoreau again says that not until we are genuinely lost do we finally have the opportunity to find and understand ourselves.

Be easy on yourself as you face undoing, disorientation and resistances. If your nervousness or anxiousness speaks loudly to you about this journey, make sure that you give it a voice to another you can trust or confide it. Say it out loud – this is important to do. What is speakable is more manageable. Deep resistance is often is a strange kind of confirmation that you are on your true, life-affirming path.

What the inner gargoyles are really saying is "bring your fears with you". Know that compassion, attention and support will be there for you each step of the way—perhaps beyond your ability to fathom- as you go forward toward the new life awaiting you.

Allies and Synchronicity

"You know, the jackass doesn't have much sensibility. But even he gains spirit from

the company of his own kind. But when the jackass crosses the desert alone, how

many more blows it takes to get him there. Now this is what this poem says to you - if

you're not a jackass, don't cross the desert alone!"

- Rumi

“If you follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.”

- Joseph Campbell

Because the shadow side of the hero believes that one has to do everything by one’s self, and that we can also do this better than anyone else, we often do not factor into the equation the impact of allies and helpers that we will meet along our journey. We may also fail to consider receiving the synchronistic support and alliance of the spirit world.

When we are true to the pursuit of our own calling, the universe will at times provide us with numerous sequences of coincidental events that open up doors and opportunities that previously weren't available to us. Such is the surreptitious nature of synchronicity. It requires us to get current and pay attention in the NOW, and not dwell on stories or wounds from the past that limit us and stop us.

Even now, you may suddenly happen upon a particular awe-inspiring event with peculiar circumstances that to surprisingly emerges from an earlier chaos and confusion in your life. Watch for this occurring in your life now that you have committed to your journey.

During the Hero's Journey Intensive, you will also have direct opportunities to examine your way of relating to the support of allies as well as your alignment with Divine Will. You will have the chance to experience the power and life sustaining ways of mutuality among kindred people -- the strongly felt sense of a mutually desired connection and support. These will be the building blocks for a sense of belonging and worth.

You can also experience how directly helping others, as enrolling the help of others, keeps you from a spiral of self preoccupation that fosters a sense of failure as whenever is tested on your journey or in your life.

The Belly of the Beast

(Initiation & Surrender)

There is an unknown territory, a mysterious area where

the presence of death does not equal the end of life….

The point is to be able to undergo a little death

in order to find the genuine thread of one’s life.

Michael Meade

Any initiation experience is a life-altering event that transforms us as we go through a kind of metamorphosis. We feel a profound letting go taking place beyond our will, and we may feel like we are losing something that we have been deeply attached to. But we also simultaneously feel like we are finding ourselves entering into a wondrously new and more highly integrated way of being.

We can be propelled into such initiation experiences by an overwhelming force of desire, or we come to the place in our lives where we simply have had enough of our old ways and are determined and ready to make a shift out of an old way of being. This is how we bring ourselves towards a surrendering into new life.

An initiation or ‘belly’ experience may occur at any point in our Hero's Journey Intensive. It may happen during one of during of our experiential elements, or during one our evening councils, during a time of deep solitude, in a conversation or encounter with an ally, or even through a rich and meaningful dream during your journey.

This can especially happen in any random moment when you are caught “off guard”, but through your acquired discipline of ‘living in the now point, you could remain fully present and attentive to it.

An initiation experience is likely to be intimately linked to an encounter where you feel yourself being swallowed or enveloped by an inner or outward challenge-- the belly of the beast. The "beast" represents a part of the hero's psyche that is coming forward to be awakened, digested and transformed.

For example, the experience of being consumed by an old fear, getting swallowed into it's belly, and then finding your way out of it, can be one way of undergoing an initiation process that takes you to your boon. Or it may come about by being overcome by tremendous love and support, surrendering over to a new and larger territory of oneness, and then finding your way back to your an individual sense of self that is in good relation to a much larger world relatedness. Regardless of the method or form it embodies, the initiation engages us in a dynamic face-to-face encounter with long sought after parts of our greater Self or True Nature.

In many of the ancient mythological stories of the journey, the hero is often required to make a great personal sacrifice. The sacrifice is a sign of the initiate’s honorable intentions, demonstrating that the journey is not purely for our own personal benefit and gain-- but that our gain is to be for the benefit of all life.

Offering a sacrifice is part of the surrender is often necessary for higher consciousness to awaken, and the act of sacrificing something of value often brings us in direct contact with Divine Grace and Mercy. It is only by parting with something of symbolic value that we can return home with a clearer and vital connection to our true inner treasures. This kind of experience is deeply memorable, and will change us on a fundamental level; our lived experience is that somehow we will never be the same.

During your journey intensive, you will pay tribute to this act of humility through our ritual of The Giveaway Ceremony. The Giveaway acknowledges the importance of the circulation of energy, of the spiritual wonder and vitality bestowed upon the giver and also to the receiver. We experience a deep and abiding wellbeing of our bodies and minds.

Any thought, behavior or material substance that stays with us beyond its time begins to weigh us down and diminish our vitality. This holding on, ultimately rooted in fear, limits our creative self-expression and our capacity for new manifestation.

To remain alive and vital, we must be willing and able to continually outgrow ourselves, ever renewing ourselves, and we must learn to practice the art of surrendering to the natural ease and joy of this process.

The Native American Lakota tribe has an ancient phrase-- śkan, taku śkanśkan – which is commonly translated as “life force in motion”. Literally, it means “something in movement, spiritual vitality”. It is helpful for us to consider life force in these terms-- that is, as the vital movement of our existence. Living the adventure of an authentic hero’s journey moves us forward and brings us alive, throughout the course of our lives.

In choosing the gift you will offer to the Giveaway, please be guided by your deep desire to be vitally alive and free to live from authentic self-expression. Take the risk of letting go of something of significant value that has stood still for too long in your possession.

Choose something that has gifted you abundantly with its beauty, meaning and significance. Choose something that may likewise move another. Let your choosing take you to the edge of your (dis)comfort zone, unlike choosing a book, for example, that might be easily replaced. Choose something that creates a void in your life- space for some new vitality that is seeking to find its way to you.

It is essential to prepare for this ceremony by giving significant time and thought to the object from your personal life you will give away. If you are stymied, we suggest you make a list of five personal items of value that you think you could never part with - and pick one from that list.

Give adequate reflection time to what this item has represented for you, and what calls you now to part with it. Finally, wrap your gift so that its contents remain anonymous.

Discovery of Your Boon

"Ah, dear friend, need I say, but to the brim my heart was full! I made not vows, but vows were then made for me. Bond unknown to me was given, that I should be singing greatly, a dedicated spirit. And on I walked in blessedness which even yet remains."

- William Wordsworth

The boon-the pearl beyond all price for the hero- is the discovery of an embodied sense of vital life force energy, often co-arising with penetrating insight, awareness and irony. This will be accompanied by a sense of surprise, wonder and awe, combined with a sense of place, right timing and a peace beyond all human comprehension.

This inward experience is very intimate. It is like that of a deeply personal visit from a universal presence that cannot ever be described and could not in any way be ignored. It is the felt sense of the eternal bending down to enter us, as Campbell says above, in the field of time - which can only be found here and now, in this present moment. This is how eternity awaits us all. This is not something to wish for only once we die. It is something to journey for while we are living. It becomes apparent to us only with a journeyer’s awareness.

What brings forth the boon? Genuinely and wholeheartedly going through all the prior stages of the journey. It is inevitable, and it is unknowable in advance. It is always a surprise when it arrives, and it is always a joy to experience. Through the gradual surrendering and letting go of your ego’s hold on your experience of living, the soul shines forth – not on your terms, but according the to the call of the soul to you, and the experience of deep mystery unfolding through you.

We can’t ever guarantee how or even if this will take place for you, but we can assure you that the less you try to make it happen or bring it about, the more likely it is that it will come for you, in just the right time and way to be deeply rewarding and meaningful to you. You don’t have to believe this; you just have to be available to experience it.

The poet R.S. Thomas can bring this notion forth better than we can:

I have seen the sun break through 

to illuminate a small field 

for a while, and gone my way 

and forgotten it. But that was the pearl 

of great price, the one field that had 

treasure in it. I realize now 

that I must give all that I have 

to possess it. Life is not hurrying  

on to a receding future, nor hankering after 

an imagined past. It is the turning 

aside like Moses to the miracle 

of the lit bush, to a brightness 

that seemed as transitory as your youth 

once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

R.S. Thomas

The Return Home

“In loving the spiritual,

you cannot despise the earthly.

The purpose of the journey is compassion.

When you have come past the pairs of opposites,

you have reached compassion.

The goal is to bring the jewel back to the world,

to join the two things together.

We are not there until we

can say “yea” to it all.”

Joseph Campbell

The return home is likely to be the most challenging part of the journey for you. You will be presented with the opportunity and the challenge to bring back something of significant value to your family, friends, community, work and life-style. The fundamental gift of your return is the larger and more numinous presence that you will have discovered or reclaimed through the passage through the adventures and ordeals or your journey.

This presence will naturally seek to uplift all conditions of your life at home, and it will initially orient your heart more fully toward what it is that you have to offer to the world around you at large.

This dynamic meeting between the enlarged world of the presence cultivated within the sacred time and space of the hero’s journey, and the ordinary world and the life that you left behind, must be given considerable attention and care upon your return.

After all is said and done, the uplifting of the everyday world is the ultimate purpose of the Hero’s Journey. This phase of the journey requires your full attention in order to reap the full harvest of your efforts. Otherwise, the rewards and benefits of your Journey Intensive can quickly recede out of your awareness.

We strongly recommend that you clear some free time for yourself immediately after the intensive. That is one reason why we end on Saturday instead of Sunday. If at all possible, consider taking Monday off work.

Some participants find that bringing their Hero’s Journey Intensive experience into some personal process work with a skilled counselor or therapist is a considerable help in the reincorporation process. It is also helpful to keep the awareness and movement of your journey alive by continuing to journal about your ongoing hero's journey cycles at home as well as staying in touch with fellow participants.

We have provided a private Facebook group linked to the HJF website for dialogue among kindred participants who have experienced a Hero’s Journey Intensive.

The Hero’s Journey Integration Program also provides a supportive container for keeping the hero’s journey process alive at home. Please see the HJF website for further information on this program and other opportunities for continuing involvement. (You may also consider participating in the Support Staff Program for a future Hero's Journey

Intensive.)

Remember that it will take a number of months, and perhaps even a year or two, to fully integrate this upcoming experience into your way of being. It will be of immeasurable help to imagine the time and effort leading up to and following this Journey, as being integral to the Journey itself.

~ OTHER PREPARATIONS ~

PHYSICAL EXERCISE

While the initiation elements do not require any excessive physical demands, if you are not currently physically active, it is strongly recommended that you dedicate at least a half hour out of each day 3-4 times a week to do some aerobic activity such as walking, jogging, biking or yoga. We also recommend that you do some regular light stretching.

Choose something manageable, that you could enjoy. Enroll in a class if you need the motivation and support. It is best to choose an activity that integrates both movement and consciousness. And, plan now to continue a movement practice immediately following your return home from the Journey. Transformation must take place in and through the body if it is be to of any use to this planet.

READING

Here is a list of books that may support your preparation for the Hero's Journey

Intensive. None are necessary, but they may be helpful in providing some inspiration and focus for your preparation.

Primary Recommendations:

The Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living, By Diane Osbon.
Sacred Manhood, Sacred Earth, by Joseph Jastrab.
Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, by James Hollis.

Additional Recommendations:

Perhaps just choose one or two that stand out to you…

Nature and the Human Soul, by Bill Plotkin.

The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell On His Life and Work, by Phil Cousineau.
Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor, by Joseph Campbell.
The Hero With a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell.
The Power of Myth, by Joseph Campbell.
Iron John, by Robert Bly.
The Active Side of Infinity, by Carlos Castenada.
The Power of Now, by Eckhardt Tolle.
Transformation at the Base: 50 Verses on the Nature of Consciousness, by Thich Nhat Hahn.
The Secrets of the Talking Jaguar, by Martin Prechtel.
The Alchemist, by Paulo Coehlo.
The Soul's Code, by James Hillman.
The Essential Rumi, by Coleman Barks.
Ten Poems to Change your Life, by Roger Housden.
Fire in the Belly, by Sam Keen.
Men and the Water of Life: Initiation and the Tempering of Men, by Michael Meade.

Finally, above all else:

Stay as close as you can to your desire for a life that is

vital to your true nature and likewise

could enliven the whole of life.

Make your preparations for your journey as if

the quality of your life depends upon it.

Because it does.

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The Call To Adventure

The Call to Adventure

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice…

- Mary Oliver

Joseph Campbell said that those of us living in the Western world have both the freedom and the obligation of finding out what our destiny is. So what do we do if we want to find out what the deeper meaning and purpose for our life is, while we are in the midst of living in our day-to-day worlds? And what seems to be stopping us?

Could it be as simple as this - we’ve become over-attached to the security of what is familiar, and how we are provided for? Have we become afraid to go out beyond what we have already learned or accomplished, or perhaps beyond what we have failed at over and over again? What keeps us from going into deep into the unknown-ness of our world?

In today’s world, we may not ever have to really go for the true adventure of our lives, simply because we have not really answered call that came from within us. An inner call takes us out beyond the world we have always known, to begin the search for our own resources with the depths of ourselves, and to do the inner exploration to find what we have within us, and finally, to make use of these resources to be of service to life.

In the book Pathways to Bliss, Campbell poses questions such as this: “What is the great thing for which you would sacrifice your life? What makes you do what you do? What is the call of your life to you – do you know it?

How can you align more with the beginning of an authentic journey, and answer a personal call to adventure? How can you learn the difference between your fantasies and childlike wishes, and a voice or a felt sense from within that awakens you to action? Bill Plotkin has this to say about what happens when you hear the inner call to new life:

1. It is not an avoidance of responsibility, but rather a facing of something difficult, something unknown and frightening that summons you.

Far from feeling to you like an opportunity for escape, a call feels more like a compelling need to face an important challenge, to walk out into the night and toward a storm. You have a profound sense that something essential is waiting for you in the midst of a wilderness and your one true life depends on your being willing and able to find it.

2. It has paradoxical features – like déjà vu, where you know you belong to it, even though you have never before encountered it and can’t really explain it.

Joseph Campbell said the call feels “profoundly familiar to the unconscious – though unknown, surprising, and even frightening to the conscious personality”.

3. You have the feeling that the chapter of your life that you had just been living is suddenly, somehow over, whether you wanted it to be or not, and usually, not. What was formerly meaningful becomes ‘strangely emptied of value’.

4. The call is almost always unexpected, and sometimes even unwanted. Yet you feel summoned by destiny, as if your own future has grabbed you by the collar and is tugging you forward. You feel summoned forth, pulled forward, in ways that feel un-asked for but compelling. It doesn’t make sense to the ego, but to the soul there is a strong feeling of ‘yes’!

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Crossing The Threshold