Some years ago, about 15, I began my Hero Journey, it began with my gradual abandonment of the familiar and my descent into the unknown. I did not know here at the time, but Maria began her hero journey at the same time.
Tonight, I felt the call to read about the Hero Journey from Joseph Campbell’s wonderful book, Pathway To Bliss, in the chapter titled The Self As Hero. I dedicate this reading to Maria, and also to myself. We both survived.
I feel the need to somehow commemorate this journey, it changed my life. I believe it changed Maria’s as well.
Audio, My reading of the Hero Journey as described by Joseph Campbell:
I love to write at night, Maria loves to work on her art in her studio at night. Two or three times a week, after we finish dinner and talk about the day, she goes off to her studio with Fate, and I go off to my study with Red.
I work on the blog and post some of the photographs of the day. The blog is the story of my life, it was created to sell books, but that was too empty a goal or purpose. I consider in my living memoir, my great work.
I went out to do the final chores of the night – close up the chicken coop, check on the sheep and donkeys and their water. I heard a thumping and banging from inside of the barn, but when I opened the gate, it stopped.
I came out and sat Maria standing over her sewing table, in her element, making her art. i love the feeling of the two of us in our darkened workrooms, working together but yet apart.
I could write all night, and sometimes I do. In the hot days, I get drowsy in the afternoon. At night, I never get drowsy.
I went back into the house to get my wide angle fast lens and camera and took this shot of the studio at night. It is mystical to me.
Up in the country, you find people when you most need them or they find you. Ray Telford is a handyman with a genial, honest nature and good ideas. He helped us rebuild the back of the barn, which had been steadily eaten by the donkeys over the past few years.
He put up new boards and heavy chicken wire. He just build two new gates for the back of the Pole Barn, to keep the animals in for shearing or vet visits. He’s putting hinges on the other two gates, this is where people stand during the Open House to watch the shearing (Saturday, Columbus Day Weekend, 2 p.m.).
Ray is also going to take out that ugly plastic window on the side and replace it with an old barn window. A farm is a needy child, it always needs something, and one never gets to all of the things that need to be done.
The barn is probably 200 years old, it needs some love. We are grateful to have Ray in our lives.
Our barn cats are mostly porch cats in the summer, they grace the porch with their presence. Minnie sleeps there at night, Flo vanishes to one of her many hideouts – the barn, the front porch, the woodshed. In the daytime, in this hot summer, they choose the porch to lounge around on. I think they have come to love the garden.
I met with Susan Popper for two hours today at the Round House Cafe, I was editing a piece she had just written on obesity, and it was an intense experience for both of us.
Susan can barely talk about the subject without crying and feeling great pain, and I was there to talk to her about structuring a piece like that, breaking it into manageable pieces and providing an outline.
She was crying for much of the time, but crying never bothers me, it is, to me, just another way of talking, and some of the strongest women I know cry a great deal. I wish I could cry more often than I do. Emotion often sparks the best writing in people, Susan is on fire.
In my editing her piece, I get myself detached – the editor has to be steady – and we got through the process. Susan is a great listener and learner, she is coming out as a writer and a photographer and she is very good at both.
But this is a painful subject for her. She hid behind her obesity for years and lived in the shadows. It nearly cost her her life.
I didn’t want to take a photograph of her crying, it seems too invasive even for me.
And Susan explained, in her piece and in talking to me, that she has stopped feeling only shame about her self and her body, she has learned to see beyond the obesity and has discovered a loving, happy, joyful and intelligent person.
At the lunch, some friends came bye to chat, but they caught the emotion and quickly backed away.
This is the real Susan, the person I see and know, the person she has only recently met. Casting the shame aside, Susan is now only able to see who she really is, but is confronting her obesity in a calm and reasoned and determined way, something her shame about it blocked.
Susan likes this new way of seeing herself. She smiles all the time now, and she has the kind of radiant smile I love to photograph, again and again. Her story is very powerful and compelling, so is her smile.
I am eager to see the final version of her piece, she has worked hard on it. Her stories about the way people have always looked at her and judged her are wrenching.
Susan is now in my Writing Workshop which I’ve decided to continue for another year. The class has been pared down a bit, some people were too busy, others were not really interested in writing much, or in my teachings. No shame in that, but I want to keep the class focused on writing.
I’m also excited about starting up the class, we’re meeting again at the farm on Saturday mornings, the dining room has turned out to be a great place.
Susan is, in my mind, on the journey to authenticity, for me an essential part of being a writer. It’s hard to do and most people don’t want to do it, or can’t. Susan is doing it, and her smile is an inspiration to me, and I gather, to many others.
