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According to Joseph Campbell, the ultimate goal of the Hero's Journey is for the Warrior to return home to bring new knowledge or leadership to his people. He or she takes the experience gained during war or quest and turns it into something of value for society. The Warrior archetype is a powerful one. It transcends gender and culture. It is part of the human psyche to seek out the Hero's Journey. It lives at the heart of many of the Great Myths and stories, such as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. In the Iliad, Odysseus is drawn out unwillingly from his home to go fight in Troy. He uses his wit and cunning to help defeat the Trojans. The Odyssey tracks his journey home. It describes how he wanders lost for ten years, facing monsters, confronting the dead, and dealing with temptations that would prevent him from ever returning. In the end, he is able to return to his wife and son and, through the use of cunning, regain his household. In the Sumerian stories of Inanna, she goes forth to gather the basis of civilization by tricking Enki, God of Wisdom. She gathered from him the crafts of smithing, the ability to make decisions, the skills of the hero and the warrior, the art of speech, the ability to farm and raise livestock, the holy shrines and the knowledge of how to both kindle and extinguish fire. When Enki realizes he has been tricked, he tries to regain his treasures, only to find that Inanna added womanly arts and music to them and was using them to bring prosperity to her people. In another tale, she ventures into the underworld to try and also take sovereignty of it. She is stripped of everything; her goddesshood, her queenship, and all of her markings of civilization. She hung from a meat hook for nine days before she is rescued by Enki's servants. She returns from the Land of the Dead to the Land of the Living and brings the wisdom of the Underworld with her. The Hero's Journey finds expression in modern epic novels, such as Tolkein's Lord of the Rings where the smallest of creatures, a hobbit, is drawn into a great war and, after many challenges, returns home forever changed. The Hero's Journey winds its way into modern movies such as Star Wars, Harry Potter, and The Matrix. The mythic cycle of the Hero ends when he or she comes back and contributes to society, whether it's Inanna bringing back the gifts of civilization, Prometheus bringing back fire, or a small hobbit named Frodo Baggins restoring peace, security, and order to Middle Earth.
When veterans return from military service, they return to communities that have changed in |
Swords Into Plowshares |
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Turning Swords into Plowshares : How Pagan Paths Assist Veterans in Adjustment to Civilian Life Kimberley Long-Ewing, PhD, Circle Sanctuary Based on a Paper presented at the MAAR Conference Chicago, Illinois, April 1st, 2006 |
