The Hero Enters

As you enter the circle of your own true story, Take a moment and notice who you are and where you are and how you perceive yourself in this moment. Stand and face East. This is the direction of the rising sun. Close your eyes and picture the light of the rising sun, orange and warm entering your heart and honor this opportunity to begin a new experience.

Your first step in the circle is to identify who you are in your story.

You know that you are the hero of your own story, but traditional tales provide you with a way to see you as the hero anew.

Let’s learn a little about who the hero is. Heroes begin as themselves and become more than they were. Here are some of the ways that Heroes begin.

The Hero often lives, initially, in paradise. She is cared for and loved until an event occurs that shatters her world, The ship sinks, the mother dies, something in life breaks and must be mended. The ego is asked to reevaluate everything it ever knew.

One of the most interesting categorizations of the hero archetype can be found in the Tarot. The Tarot begins with the fool. The fool has set out on a journey and is about to step off the edge of a cliff. This is how the journey begins. The first several Major Arcana cards represent steps in the hero’s journey. The fool is at the beginning representing a state of innocence. The next archetypes are the Magician, the High Priestess, the Empress, the Emperor, and the Hierophant and they represent the development of personal power. The next Major Arcana card is the Lovers and this represents the development of relationship power. The Chariot and Justice represent power that is responsible to the larger community.

Another way to experience the hero is as an innocent. The hero is often young or at least untested. At first she is easily tricked and naively reacts to whatever is thrown her way without being a proactive agent in her own life experience. This newborn hero is unaware that she is experiencing anything out of the ordinary. She flits through life unaware that the precipice is all too near.

In the beginning the role of the hero is reactive. She has an experience and then reacts to it, or she has an experience and is victimized by the experience because she has no power at this point in her life. She has not developed the life skills needed to cope with the experience.

Sometimes the Hero is defined by her lack of something. Something has been lost. This is usually wealth, health or a parent. Sometimes, something needs to be found. This can be a sibling or a magical elixir. It must be found for the sake of the kingdom, family or the community. Needing to seek the water of life, for example, to heal the ailing king.

Sometimes the hero is an innocent victim of circumstances. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The people around her made the wrong decisions or told lies as if she could perform magic.

The hero is a dynamic force in the story. From beginning to end the story is her story to tell.

Next I plan to talk about the antagonist in the story. The Trickster.