"What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a Butterfly" -Richard Bach
Punchy.
Since I am out of work and until I am back I am trying to stay busy everyday. To tell you the truth keeping busy is a way to keep me from going crazy or getting too depressed while looking for something new. This week I started a new process at the gym. I am going through a program called the Hero's journey. Beginning this week I stretched, did about a half mile of footwork drills, did my program, walked another half a mile, then relaxed in the pool. I have also made a list of things that I need or want to do around the house, so I can do things and feel like I am at least getting things done.
The program got me thinking about the Heroes journey. It is something that Joseph Campbell talked about. the idea is that the Hero leaves what is known and enters the unknown. While there they may have some helpers or mentors to teach them the way, often later they will go it alone without the mentor. At one point there is a death or transformation, and with time they return to the known transformed or changed. This is a theme that follows many world religions and many myths and stories.
In this case it had a particular meaning to me. Over time I have learned that whatever it is that you are given in life it has its own progression. If you hold on too long, it will be taken from you when the time is done. Years ago when I left my last job, it was very much that way. I had been unhappy at that job for years but it was time to let go that time it was also not my choice, but it turned out for the best as the Job at the University came along. I am not sure what the future holds for me, except that you and your mom will be there with me but I know something great is coming.
The point here is that sometimes to transform, you have to die to something to do something better or greater. With the Heroes journey it does not have to be a literal death, but is often a metaphorical one. In some cases it is a letting someone down or something failing. In Star Wars for example I would say it is when Luke Skywalker looses his had and finds out that he is the son of his enemy. It transforms him, literally changes him, In my case the loosing the job feels like a metaphorical death. But what has come from it is turning inward, and beginning to focus on exercise and myself for a time, At one time I thought that this was the worst time to loose my job, and in some ways that is so, but it also allows me the time to do what I need to in order to make myself ready for the change that your birth will be in my life. I can't say everything that will change, as I do not know it totally yet, What I do know though is that I have been giving things a deeper thought. How will I help form your experience of life? Who will I need to be to give you the best I can?
I do not know what the future holds. but I do know is that it will work out, and soon I will be able to see and hold you and that alone means the world to me.
Love you kiddo
-Dad
