For most of my life, I could not have imagined taking a flock of sheep out to pasture to graze two or three times a day. Life is filled with crisis and mystery, and if you are open to it, it will take you to places you have never imagined. The basic story of the hero journey involves giving up where you are, going into the realm of adventure, coming to some kind of awakening or realization, and then returning to the field of what we think of as normal life.
The first stage is leaving where you are, whatever the circumstances or environment. You may leave because your world is hollow or suffocating or repressive, and you are restless. You know there is more for you.
It may be that call to adventure draws you out, and you venture to an unknown place.
Always the realm of adventure is one of unknown forces, unseen challenges. Many – most – refuse the call, it is too dangerous, too fraught and uncertain. If the call is heeded, the traveler has engaged in a dangerous adventure, and what makes it dangerous is not bad guys and storms or monsters. It is dangerous because he or she is moving out of the known sphere and into the great beyond.
In myth, this is called crossing the threshold. Joseph Campbell calls this crossing from the conscious to the unconscious world.
What is the meaning of this path into the unknown? It is a powerful and evocative image. We live on this side of the mystery, in the realm of the pairs of opposites: true and false, light and dark, good and evil, male and female. The conscious mind returns and closes the door. The idea of the hero adventure is to walk bodily through the door and into a world where the old rules, our very sense of ourselves, our fears and conceits, simply do not apply.
It is also true in myth, and in my own practice, that one of the challenges at the threshold is often the encounter with the dark counterpart, the shadow, where the hero meets the darkness, in his own soul, sometimes in the world. It may be an enemy, it maybe the self, it may be the very beings we love.The struggle has to be resolved or the journey ends.
After this trial has been passed, there is a resurrection and rebirth. Magical helpers appear along the way – spirits, animals, wise men and women, fairies and angels, companions or advisers, tokens and images – to protect the hero and guide him along the way.
This is the journey of awakening, of self-realization.
At the end, I could return to the ordinary world or move forward into the new and the unknown. It is a frightening, wonderful, mystical experience. I could return to my urban life, nestled among countless neighbors, familiar people and convenient things, or I could end up in a green pasture on a cloudy summer day in the timeless experience of herding my sheep.
For better or worse, I have crossed the threshold.