I have discovered a key to crowlaborating with the great mystery, and aligning with our ephemeral human range of experience, is to locate yourself in your own mythic story. As a great lover and student of myth, and an innately symbolic thinker, asking for an image that helps me establish my place in the greater story of my life is something that has always been natural and helpful to me. When I can see that I am winding, blindly through the labyrinth, or on a quest for the hidden well, battling the demons at the gate of my longing, or reuniting with my lost love, these mythic images give my experience a home and a deeper meaning. The image offers my various human states a place to rest especially when feeling is unsettled or despairing – finding the image helps me know where I am on the map. This practice, of asking for an image, a poetic phrase, or a mythological counterpart to my present experience, cultivates a deep knowing that my life is an unfolding story and knowing that the page will eventually turn helps me know this is only a chapter, there are more to come, and this too shall pass.
It’s also helpful to mark your place in the story because it illuminates more clearly the soul’s task in that particular moment on your quest. If you are falling into the underworld your task may be to surrender, to let go of your attachments and identities so you can encounter more deeply, the part of you that has been under the surface. If you are at the kitchen table of the crone, then your task is to be honest, for she will know when you are lying. If you are curled up, cold and shivering after many, many, many days searching far and wide for the elixir that will cure the ailing King, then your task is to cultivate your fortitude and change your perspective so you can see the fairies pointing the way. (more…)