The Warrior & The Artist

The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek. 

Joesph Campbell

The Warrior by Photo by Xuan Nguyen on Unsplash

Prologue

The trail leading to my cave – the cave I feel inexplicably drawn to but have never entered – is worn smooth by my boots.  Rocks large and small, twisted tree roots, dried-up creek beds and bushes of fragrant sage line this path I have frequented.  I greet the familiar faces I see in the boulders scattered over the mountainside.  These faces have been engraved by water and wind and time.  They have names, these faces, that I have given them, and they know me too.

The cave is near the top of the mountain, to the east.  I don’t know what it is that brings me here repeatedly.  All I know is that there is a hollow feeling deep in my belly, that compels me.  Sometimes, I am halfway up this mountain before I realize I have my hiking boots on.  Sometimes, I talk myself out of getting out of bed.

I smell the cave before I see it.  Dank must, not like a grave that holds something dead, but rather a prison, holding something barely alive.

As I approach the cave entrance, my steps are short and tentative.  My head juts forward awkwardly as I peer from the bright light out here into the darkness in there.  

“I can’t go in there.  It’s too big, too dark, too much.  I don’t know the way.”  These thoughts flow through my mind, as did my body up the mountain trail.

But today is different.  Today, I hear a distant but strong, insistent voice from somewhere deep within the cave.  The voice is high, haunting and lonesome.  It is heat I feel this time, prickling my skin from the inside out.  Courage is rising.   

I look up into that lofty sky and my eye follows the path of an eagle, black soaring on the blueness.  I look down at the ground and by my feet there is an electric indigo dragonfly, preening.  Somehow, I feel reassured.

I square my shoulders and shake back my hair.  Whatever this looks like, whatever dragon I will encounter in there, it matters not.  I cannot unhear this call any longer.  In me, there is an artist.  In me, there is a warrior.

And the three of us enter the cave together.

What’s In Your Cave?

Abraham Maslow listed self-actualization at the top of his hierarchy of needs.  He posited that once physiological, safety, love and esteem needs were satisfactorily met, humans would naturally gravitate to seek self-actualization: the pursuit of being the very best one can be in the fulfilment of one’s purpose.  Joseph Campbell introduced us to ‘The Hero’s Journey’ or the ‘monomyth’, which he had determined through extensive study of the world’s myths, was the one true human story, across cultures. Laid together, these two theories support each other:  self-actualization is a fundamental need of every human, and the Hero’s Journey is the archetype for the process of fulfilling that need.  Understanding the process will provide us with a mythical template upon which we can better interpret our reality, the opportunities presented to us, and the conscious decisions we make.  As an archetype, the monomyth exists in the collective unconscious, a model inherited from our ancestors and told as truth, as a means of understanding our world and our place in it.  The anxieties of life obscure the model.  Let us be reminded here, of the simplicity of the process in the hope that our way will be lighted once again and we can see the signposts for what they are. Better decision-making and thought construction on the conscious level will lead to healthy changes at the subconscious level.  This is the progress of awareness and personal growth.

The Call

Every human has their own Moby Dick, the behemoth in the deeps that beckons to be chased (unless it was murdered by their psychopathy or someone else's).  At some point, our hero is presented with a most important choice: to pursue the behemoth with energy or to let it swim away.  This is the moment that Robert Frost describes as where "two roads diverged in a yellow wood."  There are thousands of reasons why our hero should not heed the call and only one reason why she should:  choosing yes is the one true expression of free will.  What other choice is so self-determined, so individual, and so lonely as the one to fulfil that inexplicable desire that arises from deep in our hearts?  What else could create such vulnerability as the pursuit of mastery of something, when people around us, even people who love us, may not understand or appreciate it?  What could be more painful than to dedicate time and attention to the thing that forces us to meet ourselves and our cruel self-judgement day after day and yet continue to come back to it because there is something in it that is so satisfying, so delicious and so life-affirming that to turn away is a little death?  Every human being carries deep within, the knowing of what life’s labour is to be and through all the evolutions and deconstructions to remain earnest upon this work.  This takes courage.  It means eliminating the need to be liked and quietening the drive to diminish yourself to prioritize others. It takes courage to commit to something bigger than yourself and chase it relentlessly.  This work will be painful.  You may not like getting up earlier, going to bed later, or the monotony of attending to the minutiae required to master a craft, but the alternative is dire.  Examples of those who have said ‘no’ are abundant.  You will find them numbing themselves in some way:  drugs, alcohol, sex, food, social media, constant entertainment and distraction.  You will find them, as Montaigne describes, uttering abuses against the unruliness of their minds.  

The Refusal of the Call

It is counter-intuitive that the first response of our hero is always to refuse the call, but if the task is not monumental enough to make your stomach flip over in terror, it’s not the right one.   You must feel this in your guts, and not just hear it in your head.  Use that sensation as your compass.  Your brain will regurgitate years of conditioning by society dictating what you should and shouldn’t do instead of what you deeply desire.  We might think of Frodo’s lament: “I’m not made for perilous quests!” and “Why was I chosen?” and find that these protestations resonate.  His fear of the danger ahead and the weight of the responsibility given to him was too much.  Our conscious intelligence, call it Ego, wants us to play it safe, right where we are, because when we face our dragons and enter the cave, Ego begins to feel its demise. When Ego starts to feel threatened, it will put up a serious fight.  How strong is your Ego?  You had better get your Warrior prepared, because she is going into battle – a battle to a death.  Either the real essence of you, call it Sage, is going to be victorious, or Ego is.      What will you be afraid of?  It will be a collection of things:  fear of failure and the unknown, fear of comparison, the pain of transformation, and likely the biggest one of all – the fear of success.

The fear of failure seems obvious.  If you push all your chips into the middle of the table and you draw the wrong card, well, that’s a tough day.  There will be many tough days.  You will need to pick them all back up again and go at it again the next day.  Your version of success is not what is at stake here.  The important bit is that you do the thing you need to do - write, paint, sculpt, play, perform - feel the damn fear and do it anyway.  The fear of success is more nuanced and more deadly.  This is the fear that we do possess the talent that our still, small voice tells us we have.  We fear embracing our ideals because then we must prove worthy of them.  Our psyches were wired 6 million years ago for belonging and inclusion because the banished died. We know deep down that if we dare to move into our true selves, we become estranged from everyone and everything we know, not belonging, letting go of who we were, and outgrowing some important relationships.  Carl Jung said “I am not what happened to me.  I am what I choose to become.”  This defines our real work in this and every lifetime.

The Road of Trials

With the decision being made and the backpack filled with necessities and niceties, we head out on the road.  If we are going to call ourselves artists, writers, entrepreneurs, athletes or whatever it is, we must show up every day to do the work.  Otherwise, we are lying to ourselves, which is the greatest of all sins.  There will be days when the work is harder than on other days.  You may very well move backwards.  But each day, get up and go at it again, and again; pick it up where you left off and move it forward.  When you find those bits of bliss along the way, pick them up and put them in your pocket, because they hold the magic you will need to overcome the resistance, the Ego’s voice the voice of self-sabotage that screams at you from the inside, telling you all the reasons why today isn’t a good day to do the work, that we aren’t good enough, that the challenge is too big, too overwhelming, that it is more comfortable by the warm fire.  This is the battle that requires the sharp blade, the heart of the warrior and the willingness to let go of who you have always thought you were and grow into your true Self.  Scores of the greatest writers have discussed this same war and the importance of work.  John Steinbeck: “In writing, habit seems to be a much stronger force than either willpower or inspiration.” Goethe: "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has genius, magic and power in it.  Begin it now.” Margaret Atwood: “Determination – not inspiration – is the chauffeur of creativity.”  Steven Pressfield: “In the end, the question [are you a writer?], can only be answered by action.”  It’s what you do every day that makes you who you are, not what you say you want to do.

The Return

In myth and stories across time, there is the story of death and rebirth: the resurrection of Christ, the Phoenix rising from its ashes, and the Ouroboros eating its tail.  Joseph Campbell describes the return of our hero bearing the holy grail, the ultimate gift that has been won for herself, but given to others.  The hero’s return – whether it is metaphorical or physical  - is a new perspective on things she’s already seen.

We shall not cease from exploration

And at the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot

What must you let go of (what must die) and what must rise within you (rebirth) to complete your journey and to return to where you started and see the place for the first time? 

Then, the journey begins afresh, for there is always a new place to go.

An Imploration

Do you know what your calling is?  When you were a child, what were you naturally good at, or gave you the most pleasure?  What is the memory that sits like a faded photograph in the old trunk in the basement?  This is a good place to start to find this purpose if you think you have lost it. 

While the hero's journey will try your every skill and nerve, it is a path that must be taken, for your own sake.  “The snake that cannot shed its skin must perish,” wrote Nietzsche.  If there is an instinct rising in you that implores you to create, it is that essential part of you, the Sage, that is seeking self-actualization, the elevation of your consciousness.  Don’t be tempted to remain comfortable by your fire, to cling to the safety of the gate.  Find a way to do the thing, commit with your whole heart and give the world the power and the energy of your creation.  Said Joseph Campbell:  We’re not on a journey to save the world, but to save ourselves.  But in doing that you save the world.  The influence of a vital person vitalizes.” 

The work you do, even if no one else ever sees it, changes the world.

Epilogue

I turn to the left at the cave entrance where a little of the day's light outside seeps in.  As I make that next step, which will take me into complete darkness, I lift my eyes and notice a speck of golden light from far up ahead, as small and as grand as a star.  It is high up, this light, and the darkness between me and it long and cold.  Resisting the temptation to look back, I take that first step and then another.  On the third, I stumble on something blocking the path. Cussing, I fumble in my pocket for a match.  Finding it and striking it alive, the soft glow illuminates the obstacle.   

In my path lies a crude bundle wrapped in rough canvas.  In the bundle: a torch, a quiver, and a quill.