Getting A Better Understanding of Our Lives: What Do We Do When the Unknown Takes Shape and Emerges from the Darkness of the Woods?

Last Sunday, around 2 pm, just as I was beginning an afternoon meditation, a black bear emerged from the woods behind my home. At first, I didn’t realize what it was. It was hidden by bushes and flowers, and all I could see was its massive side. Then it walked right by the door of the den where I was sitting. I went to the door, thinking my presence there would scare it away. It ignored me. It just continued on its way toward the front of the house, where my wife had earlier put out bird food.

 

I’ve seen bears before, several times. Four years ago, in the early morning, one came right to our front door and raised its paws as if to frame the window and look inside at the bird food stored there. I then went to the door, clanging 2 metal rods together; it immediately ran off. Not this bear. I shouted at him and he just leisurely walked on its way. Its presence was almost overwhelming; so, of course, I got my phone and, from inside the house, I followed him around taking pictures.

 

But at that moment when I first saw but couldn’t identify what it was, it seemed like a black cloud was walking through the yard and into my life. It felt like the unknown was taking shape and emerging from the darkness of the trees, a force both beautiful and fearful. All else was forgotten.

 

Maybe what was taking shape was the silence that resides before speech and memory can be born, and it shook me with its immense size. Maybe all such large, wild animals can seem almost mythological to us. Our Paleolithic ancestors, when not consumed by fear or the drive to hunt for food, were likewise overwhelmed when such animals appeared. And instead of taking photos, they drew bears, bison, or elephants, etc. on the walls of a cave. And then they could more deeply appreciate, remember, study, or spiritually enter the awareness of the animal. Such wild animals even today can allow us to touch the ancient lives of our ancestors.

 

When the bear came out of the woods, what message was my life perceiving in it?  Clearly, it took me out of the realm of the usual. And, yes, it was also a great story to share with my friends and family, and you.

 

When it came to the front of the house, I once again got out the metal rods. But it didn’t run off until I walked out the front door shouting and clanging the rods together. It then disappeared—for the moment. Later, I heard a noise, like a window shaking. It was the bear ripping from a window a bird feeder mounted there, and I had forgotten to take down. When I once again clanged the rods together, it grasped the feeder in its arms and ran off.

 

The depth of meaning that any event can hold for us is rarely, if ever, clear. Nor can it be encompassed by words. To truly understand our lives, we need some humility about our ideas. But I did realize one lesson: when we delay doing what needs to be done, we pay a price. And it can come to bite us, or to steal our bird feeders and rattle our windows.

 

One of my favorite books is Joseph Campbell’s A Hero with a Thousand Faces. This book greatly influenced George Lucas in his creation of Star Wars and other movies. The movie follows Campbell’s analysis of a cycle or pattern that heroic characters have possibly followed in their path to enlightenment, redemption, or saving lives. It can be seen in widely divergent works of literature, myth, and religion such as the story of the Buddha and Bilbo Baggins, Edmond Dantes in The Count of Monte Cristo to Gilgamesh, the hero of the first story ever written. It can be seen in The Odyssey and ET….

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

The Myth of Today: The Call Is Not to Enter the Dark Forest by Ourselves, But, by Ourselves, to Call Others

I’m sitting here, feeling my hands on the keyboard, noticing my breath is a little short and jumpy.  Anxious. Worried. A dark curtain is hanging out behind my right ear. And I notice a desire to do something to part that curtain; to change the situation of our world today, or at least bring some calm to myself, so the anxiety will explode into bits of nothing, or into the past to be studied like ancient history. So, I can feel the joy that deeply wants to be felt.

 

A friend calls on the phone. I take a deep breath and we talk, which lifts me out of the anxiety. A little mindfulness and the voice of friendship can do that. We all need that voice.

 

So much is changing. So much is threatened. And it’s difficult to see how we can influence a change for the better. But just as the voice of a friend helped lift me out of the grip of anxiety, joining with others, and feeling the yearning and the need to act, together, does the same. There might be fear there, that is true. But also light, hope. A sense of the future emerges, that there can be a future. That there can be joy and love in the future.

 

This is one way we dissolve anxiety. We see that it’s there, name it, and then do something to alleviate it. Worrying can deprive us of ourselves. Learning, planning, acting can give us the strength we need, so we feel we have strength and power. It is a kindness that we give ourselves, and kindness is so needed to change the world. Kindness to ourselves and others helps us part that curtain so we can see ourselves more clearly, with more perspective.

 

And getting a larger perspective is a second thing we can do. We can do that partly by taking walks in nature, studying mind-body disciplines like martial arts, yoga, and meditation, reading history, politics, science, literature, humor, etc.

 

I remember reading Joseph Campbell’s book, The Hero with A Thousand Faces. This is a powerful book to read and share with students and friends. It can open doors to widely divergent works of literature and religion that otherwise might be closed, such as the story of the Buddha to Bilbo Baggins. From Edmond Dantes in The Count of Monte Cristo to Gilgamesh, the hero of the first story ever written. From Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz to Star Wars and Close Encounters.

 

Campbell’s book explicates the hero cycle, a pattern that heroic characters have possibly followed in their path to enlightenment, redemption, or saving lives. One part of that path is The Call to Adventure. The movie Star Wars begins with Luke Skywalker living with his aunt and uncle. He is enveloped in his normal world, knowing nothing of who he is and feeling distant from the battle taking place in the universe around him. He is asked by Obi Wan Kenobi to join in the quest to rescue Princess Leia. He refuses. At first.

 

Then he goes home to find it, and his aunt and uncle, burned. The struggle has become personal, and he is ready to heed the call. George Lucas used the hero cycle quite very deliberately in creating the movie….

 

**To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

 

***Photo is the Lion Gate of Mycenae, Greece.