Okay. So maybe we could start with some visualization exercises today.
That sounds fine, Rodney.
Fine, or fantastic?
I’m guessing you’d prefer I indicated the latter.
Great! Let’s get started.
Okay.
What do you think of when you see this image?
Somebody that’s about to find out why they shouldn’t engage in team-building exercises.
How’s that?
That’s a botched trust-fall waiting to happen.
You don’t see someone who’s scaled a peak and is dynamically engaged with life?
Nope. I mean, he could also be some megalomaniac. Or some shitty American tourist in Meso-America somewhere, pretending to be a Mayan priest demanding hearts cut beating from the chests of slaves with shards of obsidian.
Okay. Let’s try another.
I mean, when people go to Egypt or Paris, they try to look like they’re picking up the pyramids or the Eiffel tower. When they go to Meso-America, they pretend to be Mayan priests, demanding blood sacrifice.
How about this one?
Also the leaning tower of Pisa. They try to look like they’re holding it up. I hate that.
What do you see in this picture.
I’m guessing his palms were sweaty.
What?
That’s why he let go. He didn’t want to, but his palms were sweaty.
This is someone reaching out for help. And there is someone there who is trying to help.
That’s your interpretation. My interpretation is that the person reached out for help, got it, and but then the helper–who knows? Maybe he bit off more than he could chew, thought he could be of more help than he could?–lost his grip. Notice there’s no blaming statement in there. That’s progress, right?
Have you been working on your hero narrative like we talked about?
Yep.
Would you like to share it with me?
Okay. My call to adventure, that part was when I stepped on a piece of rusty angle iron when I was nine.
That doesn’t sound much like a call to adventure.
It’s the thing that defines the hero, right?
No. The divine aid defines the hero.
Okay. My divine aid was stepping on a piece of rusty angle iron when I was nine.
How is that divine aid?
That was when I knew the game was rigged. That everything I did would come to naught.
That’s not very spiritually buoying. Haven’t we been talking about filling your spiritual sails with the breath of life, so that we can traverse the ocean of destiny?
I guess so.
You guess so?
Are there more pictures for me to look at?
No. There aren’t any more pictures. Let’s keep going with the hero narrative. What was your call to adventure?
My cat got hit by a car when I was twelve.
And how did that shape your quest?
I buried my cat in the back yard.
How does that…
I had to go and ask the neighbors for a shovel.
Okay, yes. The older sage counsel, the boon companions.
My parents didn’t have a shovel.
And then?
Then what?
How did that shape your journey?
What journey?
Your hero journey.
I took the shovel back to my neighbors.
I don’t think you’re maybe getting this.
But the shovel was dirty. From digging in the dirt with it. And the guy part of the couple, he started yelling at me for returning his shovel with dirt all over it.
Okay, so the older sage counsel, the boon companion, turned into the ogre, the dragon?
And he made me clean his shovel with the garden hose in his back yard.
The heroic task. Okay.
But first I had to take off all my clothes. He said I wouldn’t want to get my clothes all muddy from the shovel I was cleaning.
Oh.
I feel really tired. Are we done for today?
Absolutely.
