The other day I was interviewed by Susanna Liller for her YouTube series on the Heroine’s Journey. What fun! Here is the link: https://youtu.be/n5E5kUy-Pzc. .
I think we are all on a Hero’s (or Heroine’s) Journey, all our lives long. We are always in transition — from infancy to adolescence to adulthood to aging, and then on into the Great Mystery. (Those who report Near Death Experiences all agree that THIS part is wonder-full—wondrous, exciting, warm, welcoming, loving; a Coming Home; the Beloved running to meet us, arms outstretched.) For more about NDEs, look at the link below.
Right now I’m in another Heroine’s Journey transition, as I sell my Washington DC apartment and move permanently (as much as anything is permanent in this temporary world) to Massachusetts. Leaving Washington, my home since 1958, where my family has lived for 300 years, where every alley holds memories—has been physically exhausting and emotionally and spiritually harder than I imagined. Letting go. Giving up. Giving away. Moving on. So here I am at another step on the Heroine’s Journey.
The podcast audio version on her website is: https://susanna-e-liller.mykajabi.com/podcasts/the-real-life-heroine-s-journey-podcast
It’s not easy. How do you recognize a “Knowing,” the subtle guidance of intuition? How do you learn to trust the Still, Small Voice of God, the nudge toward a new path? The first part of your life seems to be about acquiring abilities, confidence and Stuff, and the second about shedding them. I wrote about this in my novel, The President’s Angel, a book I’m sure was dictated, “channeled,” since it speaks so profoundly of things I don’t even know. It’s the story of a President of the United States who sees an angel; and the course of history is changed. The book offers a plot interrupted by “commentaries” on what is happening on this strange planet where we find ourselves. In one passage I found myself writing about loss.
‘In those days people were terrified of nuclear war. It had become a metaphor for the terror of their souls. . . . As soon as people named something of value, they found they were afraid of losing it. The more they valued it, and the more precious it appeared to them, the more they feared its loss, which would bring that sharp reminder of the void. Yet life is nothing but loss, beginning with the loss of the darkness at birth, when comfort explodes into pain, then the loss of childhood, the loss of innocence, the loss of friends, the loss of much-loved animals, of brothers, mother, father, the loss of investments, the loss of homes with their creaking floorboards and cribs and cozy nooks, the loss of jobs, the loss of dreams, and the repeated loss of self-esteem, and always hanging over them the loss that would be produced by their own death, the loss of the self that they would not even have gotten to know before it would be gone. Which to say, the loss and extinction of the whole subjective world.”
There is also a freedom in loss, in letting go. but the freedom also requires trust. Do I trust that the Universe is on my side? Do I trust the goodness of the spiritual dimension? Do I trust myself? Forgive my fears, my blunders and human nature? Here are many YouTubes on NDE’s that put things into perspective. For the truth is, there is no loss. There’s always MORE!
As for NDE’s, look at the wonderful book by Barbara Bradley Haggerty’s FingerPrints of God. I’m especially taken by the story about the woman, blind since birth, who died during surgery, then came back to tell the surgeon everything she had seen and heard, including all the colors! Or Proof of Heaven by Dr. Eban Alexander, a neurosurgeon who was in a coma for a week and even brain dead, yet came back to report what he had seen. Or this which is only one of many others on the web:
(1) DR MARY NEAL AMAZING NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE – YouTube
The fact is, we are ALL on The Hero’s Journey, the Heroine’s Journey. It’s called life.