FINDING THE HERO WITHIN

Today is my mother’s birthday. She would have been 92 years old today had she lived to see it.

It is hard to believe sometimes that she has been gone longer than I had her in my life. Mama 35 years. Daddy 25 years. I was a child when I lost mama and a young adult when daddy passed.

Sometimes the memories feel as faded as this old photo and other times like yesterday.

The funny thing is when life gets tough and I get so tired, I feel them near me, no matter my age. In those instances, time has no effect on me. I exist in that moment and this moment.

It is their absence that reminds me how much we need those we love and who love us, care about our well-being and happiness, in the daily living interacting with us.

The loss of that in the daily living is mythological for me like Atlas holding up the heavens as punishment by Zeus. Life goes on whether you want it to or not, and it doesn’t acknowledge the passing of a life force from this life because that is the natural order of things.

The above thought serves to remind me of the “hero’s journey”. How that affects story when I am writing, but more importantly how that applies to our lives in the day-to-day.

We are all on a journey the moment we are born. The interesting thing is we will make this journey cycle many, many times in our lives.

Change is the one certainty like death that will come to us all.

In my life, once more, I am in the ordeal of that cycle in the hero’s journey. It is odd how you lose your perspective somewhat, it’s like looking through smoke, so you cannot figure out and find solutions to problems you normally solve faster.

You become the hero succeed or fail. Just like the hero in a book.

The 12 Stages of the Hero’s Journey.

The great thing about a story is you can redo, rewrite, revise, edit or tell a different story. Life does not work like that.

I know when I was young I often had the thought or wish to be a heroine in a book to live and experience many lives.

At age 7 I read, Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. I crawled into my mother’s deep walk in closet with a flashlight and read the book in my own little world.

I have been a voracious reader all my life thanks to my mother. She taught me to read before I started Kindergarten.

She would take me to the library weekly allowing me to check out the books I was interested in reading unlike school that restricted access to books based on your grade level.

I was an only child, so books, stories, became a huge part of my life. They were friends and playmates, but more than that they expanded and enriched my world. Thank you, mama, for that gift.

I started writing this post because I found myself in the depths of depression feeling so alone, discarded and soul deep hurt, however in the writing of this post, I am better.

I remember. I am loved and I have known love deep in my soul. A gift that I can never lose nor can it be taken away because it lives in me.

It is part of my being, my essences, my worldview, and influences my actions and choices every day. I am who I am because they lived.

I am so grateful for that. It’s so easy to forget that sometimes in the linear time frame our lives move in through the years.

Love is the element of forever in a continually changing world where nothing last forever, but then some things do.

My favorite quote by me, LOL.

The best thing about being a writer is you don’t have to make excuses for pretending. It’s part of the job. Where do all the stories come from, as Jack Sparrow pointed out?

I believe it is the human condition that makes us all heroes and villains, saints or monsters. Life is the mythology of living that creates the stories of our lives and imaginations. ~Juneta

My story is worth living. My mama always told me, “Neta, you can do anything you put your mind to and stick with it.” (I’m still learning this lessons by the way@@)

The gifts are something I have to keep reminding myself of when life gets rough and I need to find the heroine within myself.

Happy Birthday, Mama!

You are always part of me. Thank you for the gift of you.

We have found that thought is the creative activity behind every constructive enterprise. We can, therefore, give nothing of more practical value than our thought.

Creative thought requires attention, and the power of attention is, as we have found, the weapon of the Superman. Attention develops concentration, and concentration develops Spiritual Power, and Spiritual Power is the mightiest force in existence.

~Charles Haanel 23: Intro~

Hero’s Journey Outline (Christopher Vogler).

The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell Audiobook on YouTube

https://youtu.be/YqIJUJmnc-Y

 

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