Seven Years in the Wilderness
[I’ve
taken the last six months away from the blog to write a play. This essay
contains the basic theme of the upcoming play, currently called ON CALYPSO’S
ISLAND.]
The
Batman went underground. He shuttered himself off from the world. To defeat the
Joker, he had become like him. He took the blame for Harvey Dent’s death rather
than expose the white knight’s two-faced insanity. He had allowed the woman he
loved to die. In shame, he went underground. The third film in Christopher
Nolan’s Batman trilogy, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, begins with Bruce Wayne locked
in his castle. He has closed himself off from the world for seven years. Only a
new threat to the survival of Gotham will rouse him to pick up the Cape and
return to the world.
Our
Hero was doing just fine. Then, he wasn’t. He wasn’t sure what was wrong. He
had had successes and some failures like most guys. While his big dreams
remained beyond his reach, he reveled in the small dreams he had attained: his
relationship with his beautiful wife, his family, a dog and he had a good,
responsible job, necessary if not glamorous. And yet, he felt lost,
overwhelmed, no longer capable of keeping up. He thought this might be some
mid-life thing, but he wasn’t the type of man to solve it with a young mistress
or a sports car. He wasn’t going to be a cliché. He felt lost. He was walking
around in his life, though he was no longer there.
The
thought seemed silly at first: was he like Bruce Wayne, like the Batman? There
was something common in their experience. Seven years is not random. It is
symbolizes the time it takes to complete a creative act. Is that what he was
doing? Do other men and mythic superheroes go underground for seven years?
About midway
through a life or a quest, the hero goes underground; takes a time out;
descends into the wilderness. Myths, movies and stories are full of examples of
heroes going into the wilderness. Even Ron Burgundy in THE ANCHORMAN suffers a
loss of his career, his dog, his colleagues and himself before reemerging as a
hero. Stories that continue through the end of the journey (after they’ve told
you that they lived happily ever after) include a time when the male goes
underground. [i]
In
one version of the myth, Sir Lancelot flees into the forest after his love for
Guinevere is discovered. Having defiled the rules of chivalry and betrayed King
Arthur, he becomes a recluse, a hermit. He stops being who he is, the greatest
knight of his generation. Seven years later, Mordred’s attack on Arthur calls
him back into action. [ii]
Going
into the wilderness is not only common in myth, it also happens to most men in
their life’s journey.[iii] Since
going underground is by nature a removal from view, this stage is the least
discussed and examined in the man/hero’s journey. It is also the least
understood and explained. Most men go through this phase alone. They think they
are the only person going through it.
Midway
through life, the hero/man must pause. Going into the wilderness is sometimes a
literal journey, most often it is psychological. This time mirrors and is as
traumatic as his transformation from boy to man. While some actually drop out
of society, most just drop out emotionally and energetically. This usually
happens in the forties, though it can range from the late thirties into the
fifties. It usually lasts seven years or a complete cycle. Some men never leave
this phase, they just disappear.
In
his twenties and thirties, a man pursues career and relationship. He seeks a
partner and to reproduce. He makes himself into who he is and gains fame and
notice for the individual he becomes. He climbs the proverbial ladder to
success. Most men, who have left the initiation phases of adolescence and
college, find some level of success and make a life for themselves.
Parsifal
stumbled into the Grail Castle as a young man, but failed to ask the question
and claim the Holy Grail. The next morning he awoke in the forest. He realized
he had lost the Grail. He then drops into a deep depression. He continues to do
his work, wanders the countryside rescuing virgins and slaying evil knights,
though it is said that he is doing it without joy. He does this for about seven
years. After fully confronting his failure, the Grail Castle reappears. He asks
the important question of the Grail King, (“what’s the matter?”) and he is
entrusted with Holy Grail.[iv]
A
traumatic incident often begins this phase. Fighting the dragon, our hero is
wounded and must retreat. The failure that precipitates the drop goes to the
foundation of the hero. The flaw that causes his downfall was there from the
beginning. Up to this point he had been either unable to see it or unable to
change it. Something needs to fundamentally shift before he challenges the
dragon again.
At
some moment, a man hits a wall. He bumps into a ceiling in his rise for power
or is slowed: he might lose a job or have to change careers; a marriage might
fail; or it could be an injury or illness that reminds him he is no longer a young
man. Or, like the proverbial frog in the pot of water who doesn’t know to jump
out as water goes from cool to boiling, the passion of daily life succumbs to
the challenges of raising children, caring for aging parents or just meeting
basic daily needs. He is expected to do more, know more and achieve more. He
starts to realize he can’t be everything to everyone. He can no longer be who
he thinks he is. He is not as good, smart, capable or brilliant as he thought.
The demands are just too many. Whether it is a dramatic incident or a slow
creep, the fire of life is diminished.
Overwhelmed,
our hero goes underground. Going in to the wilderness is a very difficult phase
for a man. It is disorienting, depressing, and feels as if he has come to the
end of his life. All in all, it really sucks. However, if the man is patient he
can grow and learn what he needs to know to get back into the fight and become
whole. He can reorient his way of being in a way that makes him stronger and
more capable than he was in prior to going underground. As painful as it might
seem, this step is vital to the journey.
After
orchestrating the Fall of Troy, Odysseus is driven from one calamity to
another. He is kept from returning home. What most people remember of his
Odyssey (if anything) is him fighting the Cyclops, going to Hades, or having
his men turned into swine by the witch, Circe. However, the bulk of the ten
years between fall of Troy and his return home to Ithaca is spent on the island
of the goddess, Calypso. She “holds” him there. The book describes his time on
the island as seven years of sitting on the beach weeping. During this time, he
faces his part in the war and in his travels. He needs this time nurtured by
the goddess to remake and prepare himself for his return home.
While
the experience in the wilderness feels different to everyman, there are some recognizable
experiences that all men have:
·
Loss
of Company – The hero loses his fellows and companionship with other men. In the
myth, all of his partners and fellows are killed in the last assault; or his
friends abandon him due the disgrace of the loss. Whichever way it occurs, he
feels as if he is alone. A man seems to no longer have the close friends,
mates, buddies or pals of college days or young adulthood. He might still have
a few guy friends, though he probably rarely sees them and not in a situation
where they can connect. At work, his colleagues are co-workers and not friends.
As he climbs the ladder, his responsibility separates him from others. His
relationship with his parents, especially his father changes as his father is
going through his own steps leading to retirement and old age. Even at home,
there is a growing isolation. His children are shifting consciousness from
being dependent children to independent adolescents. Coming to the end of
childbirth and early child raising, his wife is confronting a new phase in her
own journey. Their relationship shifts. In the midst of a crowded house and
robust work place, he feels alone.
·
Abjuring
Society – The hero goes into isolation. In some cases, the man actually
abdicates his life and escapes. He leaves the city and goes into the
wilderness. In some cases, he loses the ability to speak or hear, or might even
pretend to be dumb. In extreme cases, he becomes a hermit. The isolation might
come from being shipwrecked or imprisoned. Whether by choice or circumstance, a
man becomes isolated. Mostly, the transition is internal. The man is still
present in his life, but he is not there. Feeling alone and overwhelmed, he
disconnects from the world around him. The man finds himself in the wilderness
before he knows what is happening. He is surprised by emotions of fear and
despair. Like waking to find oneself in a hole, he neither knows how he got
there or how to get out.
·
Rise
of Emotions – Emotions that heretofore have been kept at bay rush in and
overwhelm the hero. He feels rage, despair and grief. He must weep. Extremes of
emotion are uncharacteristic for our hero who has been known for his stamina,
resolve and steadfastness. They are surprising and embarrassing which amplifies
the impact of the emotion. In extreme cases, our Hero is initially so
overwhelmed by these strong emotions that he becomes catatonic. Much energy in
Western masculinity is spent controlling and containing emotions. A badge of
manliness is in remaining even keeled in the face of strife. Boys are taught
not to cry and young men must learn to master their anger and fear. By the time
men reach their thirties they have become expert at bridling and conducting
their emotions. The challenge with controlling the “negative” emotions of fear,
sadness and anger is that it also diminishes the “positive” emotions of joy,
desire and love. By their forties, many men have made themselves numb. Going
underground, the man is often overwhelmed by emotions. The intensity stuns the
man. He must develop a new working relationship with his own emotions. For many
men, this is the biggest challenge. It makes him feel weak and unmanly. If a
man can come into relationship with his emotions, this phase will be easier to
pass through, still painful, but easier.
·
Practical
work – Once the hero can get up off the ground, he often returns to work,
though the work is usually not what he is called to do. During this internal
phase, the passion and fire for his work has diminished. He might continue to
be successful and highly productive, though his work lacks joy. If he does
continue in his work of saving damsels in distress and combating the evil
knights, he does so without joy. It becomes just a job. He might turn to practical
work, such as manual labor, something with his hands like carpentry or farming.
Or, he might shift to being in service of others, a caretaker’s role often
thought to be reserved for women. During this time, the man might take up a
hobby, something with his hands. He commits to the physical chores of improving
his home. Special projects take on a greater significance during this period.
It becomes the one thing that he can do right, where the rest is impossible.
·
Owning
the Shadow – In the previous phases, our Hero fought the shadow, the dragon or
the enemy. In this phase, our Hero realizes he contains the shadow or is also
the shadow. The shadow is his innate evil and shortcomings. Mythically, this might
occur through recognizing a relationship with his evil twin brother or he might
learn he carries the poison from a wound received fighting the dragon. The
acknowledgement that he is the shadow brings a feeling of complete and abject
failure. He knows that he is fully capable of doing wrong, not keeping his word
and hurting those around him. The man knows, he’s the asshole. He is capable of
complete failure. This phase is deeper than the earlier phase when he came to
terms with his own potential to harm. In that phase, he had to recognize that
there were times when he had choices to make that hurt others and himself to
achieve his goals. The ends sometimes justified the means. This phase is
different. He comes to realize that no matter how hard he works or how much he
tries, he will still do harm. He is incapable of doing right all of the time.
Even a man, who has embraced his “dark side” and own situational ethics, will
find that the rules he has made for himself must be broken. The man knows
himself to be a failure. Even men that externally appear successful must
confront the experience of being a failure. For the demands placed upon him at
this time are insurmountable. No one could be successful at the tasks placed
before him. The bar is set too high. The overwhelming feeling of being a
failure is a difficult passage to navigate.
·
Nurturing
Goddess – The goddess or a woman other than his wife or lover nurses him back
to health. This feminine influence is essential and helps him to reconnect with
his feminine side (his anima in Jung
speak). Through most of his life, the man has often found his bond with his
feminine through his relationships with the women in his life, his mother, his
girlfriends and his wife. He projected his anima
on them, worshipped them while not seeing them clearly. At this phase, it is
time to stop projecting and build the relationship directly with his own
feminine. Balance between his masculine and feminine is essential. In the
myths, there is often a goddess or kindly woman who comforts him during his
time in the wilderness. This is a feminine influence. It can rarely be his wife
for that relationship is too entwined. And, it usually can’t be a twenty year
old mistress because then he is just continuing to project his immature anima on an immature woman. There are
many stories where the daughter helps to redeem the father. She reminds him who
he was, who he is. He needs to come into balance with his own feminine.
Our
culture does not prepare men to go through this phase. Most men go through it
poorly and some get stuck in the wilderness never to return. There is a real
need for patience all around. The man has to accept that this is where he is
for a period of time. The best he can do is keep doing his work, maintaining
his family and seek to grow into this new way of being.
There
is a recognized scenario of a man going through this period poorly. It has
become known as the mid-life crisis. The man dumps his wife of years and finds
a young trophy wife. He buys a new sports car or speed boat, something that
makes him feel youthful and reckless. He tries to return to the man he was in
his twenties or thirties. He takes unnecessary risks. All of these choices are
intended to ward off the phase and pretend it is not happening. Another way is
to numb his way through the experience with drink or drugs. The opposite tack is
for the man to embrace the change fully, dumping his old persona and finding
new ways of being. He dives in head long into new religions. This is often
portrayed as the businessman who loses the coat and ties for tie die and
headbands; loses the corporate job for life on a commune following a spiritual
guru. While this can work, this swings the pendulum so far that is it hard to find
the needed balance.
Once
a man has gone into this phase, the next question is how to get out of it. In the
myths, a god or goddess prompts the Hero to get back on the path. This
symbolizes a higher part of the man’s self. It is a renewed call to action. The
problem or challenge that consumed his life and which he failed to resolve
rises like the dragon to be confronted again. Some way the man has to get up
off his butt and get back into the game.
Taking
all he learned in the wilderness, the man can confront the challenges and
passions of his life. There is a different approach to the quest than there was
before. He understands that he can’t solve the problem with only masculine
muscle, but also with feminine compassion and wisdom. By going underground, the
man can achieve his goals and his complete his personal journey. What he gained
during this mid-life passage is essential to his success.
Parsifal
gets the Grail. Odysseus returns home. Batman saves Gotham again and can
finally hang up his cape. And, our Hero finds a new joy and passion for his
life.
[i] The hero’s journey is representative of a man’s
journey through life. Using symbolic language and told by the means of mythic
stories and characters, the hero’s journey mirrors the challenges and phases
encountered by every man in his transition through life. This is why the myths
exist and are so instructive. (It is also why science fiction, superhero
stories and action adventure movies are so popular. They have incorporated the
mythic journey into a popular art form.)
[ii] In
another version, Lancelot disappears into a hermitage and becomes a priest. He
remains there through his death, including presiding at the burial of
Guinevere. This is an example of the hero never returning from his passage
underground.
[iii] A
man’s journey lives in the juxtaposition between the literal and the mythic.
While we might most easily witness our concrete and mundane lives, we
simultaneously exist on a mythic-symbolic level. This experience is often hard
to see as we get up every day to go to our jobs and take care of our homes,
though the peak moments of our lives are played out in mythic proportions and
high stakes. Part of our challenge in this new era is to be able to consciously
live in our literal and mythic world concurrently.
[iv] During
this period, Parsifal gains such renown for his actions that word gets back to
King Arthur, who sends out four knights in the four directions to bring him to
Camelot, to the Round Table. Once they find him he is brought back for a feast
to celebrate his good deeds. In the middle of the feasting, an old woman
interrupts the joyous occasion. She recounts all of Parsifal’s failings and
inadequacies culminating in his failure at the Grail Castle. Parsifal leaves at
once, renews his efforts and once again finds the Grail Castle.
[v] This
essay is about the Hero’s journey and a man’s time underground. A woman’s
journey as expressed in the heroines journey has some characteristics to the
hero’s journey, though is entirely different. This is why men and women who are
partners are often in conflict during this phase. They each have their own path
that is at odds with the other. Our living longer forces us to confront this
time and the time after more fully. It is also why we are living longer: to
give us collectively the time to get to the other side of the journey.