Heading Home
[mid-August, 2007, on our way home]
The other day, i sensed Felix was sad, not in a “today was difficult” kind of way, but in a “life is hard” kind of way. Nothing overt, just a feeling. And equal to that was the feeling that it would all be OK, that Felix would get what he wanted from life, with a lot of hard work, and that it was OK to live in this world again.
When i got home, i went straight to him and held his shoulders with loving gentleness and told him simply “Felix, you're going to be all right. It's going to be OK for you Prince.” I knew it so surely. He listened; he absorbed. Another day of psychic rehab.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 18, 2007 11:01 AM, PDT (con't)
the key for us is to keep the sacred learning alive, while not blowing this up into some monstrosity that threatens to overshadow the rest of his life. we all have challenges ('challenges' rather than 'limitations'); we all have traumas and crazy stuff in our lives. the key is not dwelling there, but learning from the hard hard lessons in life and finding ways to see the blessing in everything that comes our way. we'll have to live that ourselves to make it real for him. we'll surely try.
Joseph Campbell breaks down one of humanity's most enduring archetypal stories, that of the hero/heroine. There are three stages, and the hero's journey is often undertaken unwillingly, quite by accident. First is separation from the accustomed life; then initiation into the “higher silences”; and finally, return.
Frederick Turner in his book “Beyond Geography” writes of this: “Stumbling somehow out of the wonted paths of life, the individual senses dimly the presence of a wholly different order of things, even a different world. The choice then is either to go on and explore this otherness or to return to the light of normal life. It is safer, of course, to choose the latter course, for the Other is dark, unfamiliar, and seems to speak in vague syllables of a kind of annihilation. Acceptance of the call amounts to acceptance of the possibility of so radical a personal alteration as to constitute death.”
We each journeyed. We had no choice. We were allowed to return. Blessed be.
I know my story in this. Every day i watch Felix's being written. He's the one who breaks into tears at times and sobs on my shoulders “I didn't die, popi.” He's the one who has a hard time making friends, who feels out of place and awkward a lot of the time he's out in the world. He met Death at a young age and survived, but he struggles to understand what that means for Life. He counts his scars and hopes that someone is as interested in them as he is. My story of the Fall is like a latter chapter in a book of striving to reconnect with my Divine origins. For Felix, it's the first chapter in a young man's wondering “Who am i?”
Felix's story is just beginning.
