1. Overcoming the monster (see April 26 post)
2. Rags to Riches (see April 30 post)
3. The Quest (this post)
4. Voyage and Return
5. Comedy
6. Tragedy
7. Rebirth
I heard the door click shut behind me. I was outside, but Austin was locked inside the neurological institute. I could look through the window in the door and see him, five years old and fiercely defiant, refusing to look at me, furious that I had admitted him into this place. At the time, I’d felt alternatives were few. Since he’d run out into the street and been hit by a motorcycle a year prior, Austin’s head injuries had led to more and more violent rages. He was no more than 45 inches tall, yet I was terrified of him. A week ago he had broken a family picture and tried to stab his older brother, Ryan, with a shard of glass. The week before that he had started a dangerous house fire from the gas stove. Yet I couldn’t imagine a reality that did not include this child, and all I could think of as I watched him through the door window was how to get him back home.
When this moment occurred in my life over 12 years ago, I didn’t think I was being called on a quest (after all, I was a mom, not a warrior), yet looking back, I can see how the quest archetype played out for me in this arena of my life. After Austin had been institutionalized for violent behavior for a few weeks, I got to have him home, first for an evening, then for a weekend. Given his fury at being admitted, I expected him to be delighted to be home. I was wrong. During his home visits, Austin would intentionally act out. He wanted to get back to the institute. He felt safe there, something he did not feel at home.
This realization led me to an in-depth study of feng shui, the eastern art of arrangement. I wanted to know if there was anything I could do in Austin’s physical environment that would help me get my boy back home for good. My feng shui studies led to a career change. After a life-changing week with my feng shui mentor, Carol Bridges, I took Austin home from the institution for good, yet this was not the end of my journey. I realize now, this was the “tool gathering” period. I was equipping myself for what was to come, and the next decade would be filled with more strange encounters and anguished moments than Ulysses’ Odyssey.
The call
At some point in our lives, we are all called on a quest, called to take on a task that we often do not feel we will survive. The call is as individual as the person being called. My calling grew from an awareness of how much of our lives happens below the surface of our awareness. I felt called to help my clients and students understand how the unconscious aspects of their lives (including influences in their environments) impacted them, whether they realized it or not.
Of course, this is not everyone's calling. I have had friends whose callings have been to stay sober or to battle breast cancer or to deal with an idiosyncratic and demanding parent. Each of these callings has led to unique journeys through hostile territory, yet each journey follows the same archetypal sequence of events. No matter what you have been called to do or where your journey takes you, knowing this sequence can provide support.
Your magic tools
Your magic tools have been slipped to you, possibly while you were plowing your way through another ordinary day. You may have received the gift of loyal friends or a sensitivity to others’ feelings or an active imagination. You may have received an elixir of charm or a hive of cerebral activity. Your shield may be your immaculate house or your optimistic outlook. Your sword may be your piercing insight or your humor or your dogged persistence. As you consider what tools are in your tool box, remember, magic tools are many and varied, yet they will enable you to get past difficulties that would otherwise block your progress.
Your companions
The quest is not a story type focused on a single character. When you embark on a quest, you’ve got companions marching through the muck with you. In fact, a large part of the first half of a quest is to realize how your interactions with others enable you to be more fully yourself. By sharing your gifts, and by supporting others on your journey, you fulfill the human need to be a part of a community, a community that both cheers you on and desperately needs your success. Your companions will not be able to go all the way with you, but if you don’t learn how to draw on and appreciate their strengths, you won’t get very far on your individual journey. Consider how your companions provide support on your journey. What are their unique gifts? How do they allow you to more fully be yourself?
Your goal
On a quest, you’re after something of great value. Regardless of how you describe the end-goal, a quest is never for personal glory. In fact, a sure way to distinguish between a quest “calling” and personal ego satisfaction is that the ego is only concerned with the self. If you hear yourself thinking any of the following, it’s your ego speaking:
- How will this help me?
- What can I gain from this?
- What will people think of me after I accomplish this?
A quest has a different aim, although it may be expressed in many ways. The quest aims to ensure a high and lasting quality of life for an entire community. A true quest may engender the following types of questions:
- How can I help make sure this is around for the next generation?
- How can I help restore innocence, beauty, and goodness in the world?
- How can I remove this threat to a happy, fulfilling existence and renew hope in others?
Your goal may be revealed to you in greater detail as you journey. My initial goal was to get Austin home, yet as I continued on my journey and encountered others who needed support, I realized my goal was really helping others make the unconscious conscious, in order to help them achieve a higher quality of life.
The journey itself
The journey is not always fun (consider nursing a parent through decades of dementia or battling years of chronic fatigue), yet no quest tale is composed of unending drudgery. Rather, the companions alternate through periods of difficulty and respite, there are times when you're battling a monster and there are times when the sun comes out and you rest. Regardless of how your journey unfolds, the quest plot is active. On a quest, things are always happening. You’ll think you’ve got it figured out and then another obstacle will arise. Thousands of years of collective narrative provide the following advice:
- Rest when you can.
- Take comfort in your friends.
- Allow others to help you through the rough spots.
- There is no better place for you to be than right here in the thick of it; escaping to some tranquil existence will not work.
- This quest will allow you to know yourself and share yourself more fully with the world.
Ignoring this advice leads to certain trouble. My personal journey was almost undone by my determination to do it alone. I remember getting calls at work that Austin had run away from school, or that he had been found unconscious in the driveway after huffing gas. I remember battling fatigue, self-pity, and feelings of inadequacy as I trained feng shui students, while running a store and writing books. In each case, I was forced to learn how to accept help from others. My support systems included my acupuncturist, my qi gong instructor, therapists and male role models for Austin, a few close female friends, and the restorative beauty of dozens of local canyon trails. Identifying any of the above advice that you may be ignoring will help smooth an already difficult journey.
The final ordeal
You knew it was coming. Throughout the journey you knew you’d reach the point where your friends would have to retreat and you would face a final ordeal on your own. St. John of the Cross called this “the dark night of the soul,” Jung referred to it as the “defeat of the ego.” Whatever name you give it, it’s the darkest, scariest place you’ll ever be. It’s when you look for hope and find it gone. It’s when old ways of seeing the world have crumbled to dust and you have no replacements. It’s when you can’t imagine how things could ever possibly be right again. But, it’s also when those peculiar strengths, insights, and gifts you’ve developed along the way are exactly what you need to endure and—finally—pull out of this dark abyss.
I won’t beleaguer you with details of my dark night, but I will share how unprepared I was for how long it could last. In my case, I spent almost two years in what felt like death. Perhaps if I’d read my classics or the Bible more thoroughly, I would have realized that Odysseus still has 12 out of 24 books to go in the Odyssey when he reaches his goal destination, and that Moses and the Israelites would spend 40 years in the desert after they escape the slavery of Egypt. The final ordeal, the one the hero/heroine must face alone, can take as long as the entire rest of the journey.
And there’s another piece that’s worth sharing here. Besides being lengthy, this portion of the tale is when the hero/heroine is required, not only to show self-reliance and independence from friends, but also to realign with a more universal “source.” In Jung’s terms, this is when the ego (“self” with a lowercase “s”) realizes that it’s not the ruler after all, and that true strength is to be found in connecting and aligning the ego’s abilities with what Jung referred to as “Self” with a capital “S.”
I’ve found it matters little what people call this universal source. What really makes a difference is whether they feel their lives are aligned with it. Alignment with source is an individual matter, yet it always requires two pieces:
(1) You must know what your strengths and gifts are and have mastered their use
(2) You must connect to your source to best use those strengths and gifts
As for me, my gifts were that I was determined, that I could piece together meaningful patterns in seeming randomness, and that my immersion in nature would keep me in touch with my source. I also found that years of study and an energetic practice would be required for me to overcome my ego’s fragile self esteem and my tendency to belittle others in my own defense. As for Austin, he is finding his own way, and I’ve become a supportive companion on his quest. As for you, I’d love to hear where you’re at on your journey.
A word on anticipating the call
As difficult as the quest journey is, it can be just as difficult to not feel called. After all, being “called” provides a unifying focus to our lives. It gives us a destination, as well as the motivation and means to reach that destination. Because a sense of anticipation and “being called” is found in many story types, we will look in detail at this situation in an upcoming post titled “Anticipating the call.” Look for this post after the individual posts on the seven story types.
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