The Solitude of the Hero’s Journey

In the end, we find ourselves alone. For the journey we take, though many share in it with us, we take it alone, for each of us must blaze his own trail and follow his own path. But as we mature into our place in the annals of heroism, we realize that though we were alone, we were on the same voyage as everyone else. And though the scenery changed and the challenges differed, the journey was the same. For the hero who has died to himself and been resurrected as the selfless being of service realizes that, though our stories are told in different languages throughout different cultures, though they are echoed throughout different generations by way of different mediums, because the essence of our valor is one of Spirit, we are all One.

Make sure to follow the Hero’s Journey through The McAllister Code.

Return with the Elixir of the Hero’s Journey

The reward that we bring with us is the elixir of heroism, which we drink now in sips or gulps, however called for. For each task we partake of, we commit ourselves to it, answering each call with not only the hope of finishing it adequately, but in doing it better than ever before because our ambition has taught us that the joy is in doing, and doing well. We relish each task as we appreciate the tools to complete it and the company we keep in the process, understanding the value in all things and practicing resourcefulness as religion. We dedicate ourselves to further service for we realize that the journey of the hero never ends. It has its highs and lows, trials and rests, climaxes and valleys. But it never ends.

It is with this knowledge that we serve as mentors for others on their journeys. As each of us rises to the level of hero, the collective of humanity rises with us. It is up to each of us to encourage our brothers and sisters in the knowledge we have gained and the experiences we have surmounted. It is up to us to help each other realize the hero in us all.

Make sure to follow the Hero’s Journey through The McAllister Code.

The Journey Home from the Hero’s Journey

When we are called to return home, to go back to the life we lived before our adventure, we are often reluctant. As we have dedicated ourselves to heroism, we can surely rationalize how the doldrums of our old lives would do nothing to contribute to our new way of thinking and new mode of living. However, with a deep breath of contemplation, we realize that the journey of the hero is not in our outside endeavors, but in our hearts where our valor and the convictions of our conscience create the characters we truly are.

So we return to the life we once knew, but we don’t return to the same type of living. There is a simultaneous spring in our step and purpose in our gait. There is a newfound interest in everything that we have seen before, as if we are seeing it for the first time. And indeed, we are seeing the place again for the first time. Because we are new creatures, wiser, stronger, and more able than ever before.

There is the temptation to forget this and to truly return to life as it was before our victory. There is the temptation to look at the outward world, to see that nothing has changed in it, and to forget about the change that has occurred within us. We must remember that who we are lies within and emanates from there. As we return to the world we once knew, let us bring the change they are longing for.

Make sure to follow the Hero’s Journey through The McAllister Code.

The Dedication of the Hero’s Journey

Throughout our journey, we have developed an addiction to our own heroism. It’s not a bad thing. But as when we faced our demons and came out of our cave on the other side, we were reborn into a new creature, and the life that emanated from us in that moment brings with it an irresistible drive to continue on with it through the succession of minutes that will comprise the rest of our lives. In order to accomplish this task of living in a continued state of heroism, we must dedicate ourselves to it.

Though we have completed our initial course, we will be eternally ready to stand as the heroes that we have become. We hold victory in our hearts and will accept nothing less in any venture that comes our way. We dedicate ourselves to heroism. We dedicate ourselves to valor. We dedicate ourselves to excellence.

Make sure to follow the Hero’s Journey through The McAllister Code.

Resurrection of the Hero’s Journey

After we seize the sword on our Hero’s Journey and find ourselves as the heroes we knew we were capable of becoming, we are reborn as new creatures, ones that we had one day only imagined. Having died to the selves that came before, we understand even the power that Christ showed us, as we are resurrected from our deaths and brought to a New Life.

Emerging from the cave with our sword in hand, we now wear the epaulets of the hero, and we are no longer the creatures we were when we went into the cave. We have killed ourselves. We have been born again. We realize that holding to the past and the demons therein that clamored for us to remain with them was death for us. By killing that part of ourselves, letting go of the old, we have allowed for the opportunity to embrace life, and made room for the new.

In our new role, we stand ready to face all of life’s challenges. Though we have finished one journey, we must embark on yet another, and another after that, each time vanquishing the inner demons and outer challenges that face us, forever realizing that we are more than conquerors. In each task we accomplish, we are born anew, with new knowledge, new skills, and new abilities to better achieve the next goal.

Make sure to follow the Hero’s Journey through The McAllister Code.

Seizing the Sword of the Hero’s Journey

After we have accepted the Call of the Hero’s Journey and stepped out in faith, realizing the resources at our disposal and the Truth at the center of our Being, we stand boldly in the knowledge that we have overcome our greatest odds. As the Buddha states, “It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.”

This is when we seize our sword. This is when we truly realize ourselves as the hero. When we can, in the face our own psyches, not allow our pasts, our fears, our neuroses, or our supposed mental disorders to assault us anymore. We hold our sword aloft with great fervor and a new understanding and control over who we really are. We sever our attachments to the past. We swing through our fears, dissipating them into the nothing they really are. We parry and thrust through neuroses and disorders, conquering all of our demons with one fell swoop, standing for a single instant as the master of our destinies, and swearing to carry that moment for the rest of our lives.

As we swing, as we attack, and as we fight, we realize that we are fighting ourselves. All of the fears and neuroses and each moment of our past that has developed into a current problem are part of who we are, or at least who we’ve come to accept as who we are. But by plunging the sword through our own hearts and killing the person that we were, we defeat all that stands against us. We die to ourselves. We let go. We wait for the second coming.

Make sure to follow the Hero’s Journey through The McAllister Code.

Portrait of the Artist Approaching Middle Age

As much as I might try to gloss it over with a pleasant smile and nice platitudes, life has been frustrating. In the ten years since I was first diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder, it seems that I have made very little progress in dealing with my standard operating procedure. Though I’m still intent on culling out the life of an artist, I still juggle how I should approach it. I like to tout myself as a Renaissance man, saying that I am multi-skilled, but truth be told, I think the “jack of all trades – master of nothing” might be a better definition.

Since being diagnosed, I have produced a documentary on Attention Deficit Disorder, hitchhiked across the country and written a book about it, formed, disintegrated, and reformed a video production company, written a few screenplays, produced a few more short films, written a fictional/motivational hybrid book at the suggestion of a mysterious email, started several blogs that I’ve maintained with varying degrees of success, and I’m currently trying to find which avenue of artistic expression works best for me. Although it might appear in print that I’ve accomplished a lot, none of my endeavors have seen the success that I would have hoped, and as I closely approach the age of 40, I have to wonder if I will ever find the focus that I am striving for.

At the beginning of this year, I set out to develop a blog about the various philosophical, cultural, and religious paradigms that I used to write my last book The McAllister Code. However, a few months in, I began to lose steam as well as interest. It seemed that a large part of my frustration was found in the fact that most of my endeavors somehow automatically morphed into huge, ginormous visions that required far more dedication than I seemed capable of. For this particular endeavor, the second iteration of The McAllister Code, I had already written about The 7 Habits of Successful People, the Four Elements and how they related to the Four Suits of Tarot and playing cards, and I was almost through the Hero’s Journey as defined by Joseph Campbell. While I was writing about the Inner Cave of the Hero’s Journey, it dawned on me that although I was writing about these things, I had stopped living them.

I have long been a proponent on spirituality and conscious living. The wisdom of living life from that parameter seems like a no brainer. A great deal of my travels and writing The Rucksack Letters was geared toward approaching that lifestyle. I visited several intentional communities to discover the ideas of intentional living, however, the end of my journey found me in Los Angeles, where I seemed to completely lose focus of what I was striving for in the first place. The trip back proved disastrous, and it seems that I have been licking my wounds ever since. Though I have toyed with the ideas of meditation, yoga, prayer, and healthy eating, I have not developed any consistent practices which may have something to do with why I have been unable to find a suitable avenue for creative expression. Perhaps there’s been nothing viable to express.

Now it may very well be that I am just being too hard on myself. Nevertheless, I can’t help but feel that there is something missing in my life due to my rampant desire to not fully live the life that I know I am capable of. Perhaps it is the desire for the life that I don’t have which is causing me such frustration. Maybe the Buddha was right when he said that life is suffering brought on by desire.

I’ve recently finished the book In Search of Simplicity by John Haines. While I am going to be writing a suitable review of it for Modern Hippie Mag, on a personal note, the book really did strike many chords with me. The book is John’s personal journal of a five years trek through a number of countries such as Papua New Guinea, Thailand, India, Africa, and more, as he searches for simplicity, as the title suggests. As John studies with yogis and teachers, meets an assortment of fellow travelers, and lets go to material attachments, he notices an abundant series of coincidences, or synchronicity, that guide him along his journey. Reading it, I was reminded so much of how I felt when I set off to travel myself and the coincidences that met me along the way. Even since then, when I have taken the time and initiative to quiet my mind and focus on the Source of being, I have noticed the same thing.

All of this brings me to the realization that in my search for creating a life for myself, I have lost sight of living. One of the greatest accomplishments that I think I have done recently is consistently writing “Your Daily Groove” over at Modern Hippie Mag. And while I still occasionally write other articles and reviews over there, it is the daily meditation on pearls of wisdom that has truly brought me joy because they not only bring encouragement to others, they also bring up things that I need to focus on as well. As I have been averaging 50 hours a week working at the psychiatric hospital that employs me and trying to finish screenplays, books, and an assortment of other endeavors, I have become quite a bit imbalanced in trying to flesh out an actual life for myself. So, it is my intention to simplify and just work on being happy instead of trying to be so “productive.”

That is not to say that I will never finish the novel I’ve started to outline, never write another screenplay or book, or never make another film. I love doing all of those things and will still do them as time allows. But I need to focus on living for awhile and assure that I am meeting my mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual needs before filling up my schedule with too much stuff.

Several years ago, when I first started to entertain the idea of becoming a writer, I came up with the concept of “Write the World.” I’ve written about what I think this means a few times before, but in all of my glory-filled exegeses, I have tended to lose sight of the simplicity behind it. I set up this blog a while ago and have posted a number of things that I wrote in the past. However, I feel that though it is the most important thing I can do right now, I have not been giving it adequate attention.

This may turn out to be a mish mash. Most professional bloggers will tell you to carve out a niche. At this point though, I’m just trying to find my way so what you get is what you get. I hope that I’m not too self aggrandizing and that I can be entertaining as well as thought provoking. The best I can do is to be honest as I write the world. This is where my inkensoul bleeds.

Who Defines the American Dream?

Along any given highway or by-way, a bevy of societal wants, needs, and dreams are exposed to passing eyes, and I’m ashamed at how often I don’t notice it. From manors of brick to houses with vinyl siding to doublewides on open lots, the route to happiness is bordered by lovely and livable, elegant and convenient, material and natural – the spectrum of lifestyles concluding that happiness is truly graded on the curve.
I’m always amazed at the difference in dreams in a melting pot of hope and despair. Some find happiness in the house and some find joy in the home. Some find peace on a patio over a 15 by 12 patch of Chem-Lawn special, and some find it when there is no grass in sight. Some chase balls over fields of green in electric cars and day-glo pants. Some chase ducks through fields of grass with automatic weapons and day-glo vests. And some just drive by and try to make sense of it all.

This is an excerpt of The Rucksack Letters by Steve McAllister. Buy your copy of the eBook now.

The Fool's Journey

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The Major Arcana of the Tarot, what is often known as the Fool’s Journey.

Fool
Magician
High Priestess
Empress
Emperor
Hierophant
Lovers
Chariot
Hermit
Wheel of Fortune
Justice
Hanged Man
Death
Temperance
Devil
Tower
Star
Moon
Sun
Judgment
World

The Fool is the first card in the Major Arcana of the Tarot. It is given the number Zero because it represents the nothingness from which we all come and the field of infinite possibilities. The character portrayed on the card is rather androgynous and is meant to portray all of us – each of us is the Fool, for we are all on this journey of life in search of our own experience.

The card depicts the sun rising behind the Fool as if it is a new day and we are at the beginning. The Fool steps toward the edge of a precipice, eyes toward the sky, unaware and unnassuming of what the next step will bring, just as we all are at the beginning of our endeavors. The Fool carries all that is needed for the journey in a bindle and has a flower in hand in appreciation of beauty. At the Fool’s heel yaps a dog, perhaps warning of the impending danger, perhaps saying goodbye. In the distance is a range of mountains symbolizing the ups and downs of the adventure in store.

As each of us steps off on our own Fool’s journey, we must move forward with a leap of faith, unsure of what lies ahead, but with the full knowledge that there is no challenge that we cannot handle.