Pondering The Hero's Journey

In  my Men's Group meeting recently we talked about how the group got started 20 years ago. with a workshop on how to be a man, acting out some ideas from the Hero's Journey, by Joseph Campbell. The conversation around Hero's Journey has been really exciting for me. Here is an excerpt from an article I found plus some of my thoughts for your entertainment..

This is from a blog by a man who seems to have gone through a trans-gender crisis to become what he could call a man. And yet reading it, I am further convinced that there are so many ways to be a man that we ought just stop using the term, say a "person"  and be done with the struggle and the angst to find something that doesn't exist…

"What makes a man? It’s not just my question then, but one for all of us, and the answer depends on how much one can extricate oneself from the war cry of a society intent on destroying femininity, enforcing a reductionist binary, and flattening complexity. Every man I’ve known well enough to get a little drunk with has eventually addressed the dilemma: how to be yourself in a world that expects a monster or a hero, but never a new dad struggling with how to raise his own child under the weight of a bad relationship to his own father, or an effeminate straight man struggling to accept himself for who he is when his own family can’t believe he’s not gay."

Read more: http://www.utne.com/mind-body/what-makes-a-man-zm0z13mazros.aspx?page=3#ixzz2MIm3ilCk

Thomas Page McBee writes about gender and culture for TheAtlantic.com, Salon, the San Francisco Weekly, and the Phoenix, where he is an editor. Reprinted from The Rumpus (October 12, 2012), a literary website with a focus on publishing good writing.

I want the Hero's Journey to end with the Prince being found and turned into a frog and hopping away leaving behind no trace except his wet footprint. That frog has a lot to say to me,  is just as interesting as the Prince, and a lot less dangerous….

Poem

The Archetypal Quaternion

As for me now
Pondering
Lover Magician Warrior King
Being an empty boat
I choose my Act
To carry the day
All I need
Are a pair of oars
Lover and Magician
Will do
Their own
And all the work
Of the other two

Donato  Mar. 2  2013

Poem

Hero’s Journey

Let us be done with
Heroes
Internal or ex
If Theseus had come back
From that Minotaur he killed
Become a frog hopping away
Instead of a Prince in honour
We would now live
Closer to Paradise
Not the hellish effect
Greek ideals have brought
To the life of our Planet home

Donato  Mar. 3  2013