Reflections on Archetypes and the Hero Journey
I wrote this essay as a final assignment in Barb Osburg's Mythology class as part of a Master's program at Webster University in 2002. Now, I am exploring the essence of trickster wisdom and it feels relevant. Hence, I am posting it here.
Some would call Joseph Campbell a wizard since he has faced the metaphysical dragons and determined himself invulnerable, except for that ultimate dragon, Death, who trumps all. Unless, as Don Richardson, author and lecturer at Fuller Seminary, writes, God has placed "eternity in their hearts" - "their," meaning the meta-cognitive corporate consciousness of every culture the world over. Since, in the Apostle Paul's words, what can be known about God is "evident" by means of his creation (Romans 1:19), even the kings of the earth can be required to "kiss the Son lest he be angry and [they] perish in the way" (Psalm 2:12).
Obviously, magic, shamanism, occult arts, and various other manifestations of spiritual power exist and impact the material world regardless of whether or not they are acknowledged or invoked. Festivals and ritual re-enactments routinely re-assert the claims of various gods, demigods, and mythologies over regions and people groups. These, according to George Otis Jr., of the Sentinal Group, are doors into the realm of the spirit, or Madeleine L'Engle's metaphor, "wrinkles in time."
An ingenue-innocent who explores these various stories might marvel when echoes resound beyond natural boundaries and past trade routes without experiencing any dis-equilibrium. But, when the paradoxes penetrate past the innocent's mind they make muddles of any rotely parroted religious dogma. Thus, the first abandonment comes, full of disillusion.
Now, orphaned and alone, the menacing melancholy becomes a sublime monster who mocks all the meaning that once made sense. The loneliness lingers until its listlessness becomes unbearable and transforms the orphan, John Walker-like, into a wanderer.
Is it a wanton wondering or a quiet quest for truth that turns the weakling into some terrible Taliban, garbed like a medieval warrior hiding in a robber baron's den? What satisfaction comes to the "martyr" when, dying like Samson, he pulls the pizzaria's pillars down? Which wizard empowers him: Osama?
Does it even matter because all the apocalypses agree that the end is? Or, is there a magic that is deeper still, as the Lion, Aslan, insists, of which the White Witch knows nothing, a magic roar reverberating from before the beginning to after the end, proclaiming "I AM" the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25)? I choose to be an innocent, protected; an orphan, adopted; a wanderer, returned home; a warrior, commanded; a martyr sacrificed in the service of the Wizard of Wizards who defeated the dragon and who holds the keys.
c. 2002, 2009 by Lesley Barker
Some would call Joseph Campbell a wizard since he has faced the metaphysical dragons and determined himself invulnerable, except for that ultimate dragon, Death, who trumps all. Unless, as Don Richardson, author and lecturer at Fuller Seminary, writes, God has placed "eternity in their hearts" - "their," meaning the meta-cognitive corporate consciousness of every culture the world over. Since, in the Apostle Paul's words, what can be known about God is "evident" by means of his creation (Romans 1:19), even the kings of the earth can be required to "kiss the Son lest he be angry and [they] perish in the way" (Psalm 2:12).
Obviously, magic, shamanism, occult arts, and various other manifestations of spiritual power exist and impact the material world regardless of whether or not they are acknowledged or invoked. Festivals and ritual re-enactments routinely re-assert the claims of various gods, demigods, and mythologies over regions and people groups. These, according to George Otis Jr., of the Sentinal Group, are doors into the realm of the spirit, or Madeleine L'Engle's metaphor, "wrinkles in time."
An ingenue-innocent who explores these various stories might marvel when echoes resound beyond natural boundaries and past trade routes without experiencing any dis-equilibrium. But, when the paradoxes penetrate past the innocent's mind they make muddles of any rotely parroted religious dogma. Thus, the first abandonment comes, full of disillusion.
Now, orphaned and alone, the menacing melancholy becomes a sublime monster who mocks all the meaning that once made sense. The loneliness lingers until its listlessness becomes unbearable and transforms the orphan, John Walker-like, into a wanderer.
Is it a wanton wondering or a quiet quest for truth that turns the weakling into some terrible Taliban, garbed like a medieval warrior hiding in a robber baron's den? What satisfaction comes to the "martyr" when, dying like Samson, he pulls the pizzaria's pillars down? Which wizard empowers him: Osama?
Does it even matter because all the apocalypses agree that the end is? Or, is there a magic that is deeper still, as the Lion, Aslan, insists, of which the White Witch knows nothing, a magic roar reverberating from before the beginning to after the end, proclaiming "I AM" the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25)? I choose to be an innocent, protected; an orphan, adopted; a wanderer, returned home; a warrior, commanded; a martyr sacrificed in the service of the Wizard of Wizards who defeated the dragon and who holds the keys.
c. 2002, 2009 by Lesley Barker
Labels: Archtypes, Aslan, C.S. Lewis, Don Richardson, Joseph Campbell, Madeleine L'Engle, wisdom, wizards
posted by Lesley | 10:12 AM
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