The imitation of Christ is joyful participation in the world’s sorrows. The hero’s journey is about the courage to seek the depths, the image of creative rebirth, the eternal cycle of change within us, and the uncanny discovery that the seeker is the mastery that the seeker seeks to know. It was the most amazing trip I’ve ever gone on.

I began my hero journey in 2000. I wanted to find out who I was, and I’m not sure that ever ends. Facing the truth about myself was the worst part, but emerging intact and transformed was the best.

“The hero’s journey always begins with the call,” wrote Joseph Campbell. “One way or another, a guide must say, ‘Look, you’re in Sleepy land. Wake up. Come on a trip. You see a chasm. Jump. A whole aspect of your consciousness, your being, has not been touched. So you’re at home here? Well, there’s not enough of you there.’ And so it starts.”