Heroes and Mystics 2024

The theme of Emerging Adulthood is something that I have learned a lot about while at CNU. In my first semester, my honors seminar was titled “Emerging Adulthood” and was taught by Dr Michaela Meyer and it was awesome. In that class, as well as a couple of my current social work and psychology classes we read and talked about Jeffery Arnett’s work “Emerging Adulthood”. He was the first person to coin the term for this age group between adulthood and adolescence and I think that it was really important that he did. Certainly for me, this time in between adolescence and adulthood has been a uniquely great part of my interior journey. Having learned a lot about this age group and how it is its own specific time within our life journey and now having learned more about our interior life journeys has been really fascinating. 

It was really lovely to talk about the Iliad again after having read it in highschool. I think that through this class i was able to look at the story through a new lens. Most of the classics in my opinion, like the Iliad and the Odyssey, are the epitome of the hero’s journey but I have learned so much more about what these journeys mean through this class. For example, when Achilles journeys to the underworld we can view this as part of his self discovery journey. When he is able to see that he will die, it helps him to better understand himself and his fleeting journey. I think that this is so applicable to our lives too; it's things like funerals or unexpected deaths that help us to understand our own journey by revealing that it is shorter than we think. 

In Somewhere I have never Traveled, there was so much valuable information only within the first page. It explains that we can't just be whoever we want to be because the perception of ourselves from the people around us helps to make us who we are. It also touches on our inner darkness that makes up who we are inside. It is certainly interesting to think about how we have this inner person inside us, that we partially control/shape and partially don't, but this cannot change the way that people outside perceive us. They are going to create a version of ourselves in their own head that we can only influence to a certain degree. 

I n the movie, Cold Fever , it was a really interesting depiction of the hero's journey because it showed the protagonist being reluctant to the journey. I think we more often than not see a hero who is motivated and willing to go on their journey, however we see the contrary in this movie. It is also notable that the viewer saw the icelandic wilderness. This emphasizes the idea that there was no feeling of human presence and that he was on this journey alone, bringing light on the fact that it was an interior journey more than anything.

In Star Trek, we were able to see the importance of communication. It was fascinating to see how a language barrier can be so detrimental to the success of civilizations. Seeing the way that the two leaders were unable to understand each other felt symbolic of how there is so often a language barrier for people who do not speak English in the United states. I have seen this in my own volunteering community, where some friends of mine work with immigrants, and it makes it very difficult to fill out the paperwork when there is no one who speaks the same language as the clients. 

  In The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell, on page 3 he says “Myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation” (Page 3). This quote caused me to ponder about, as we discussed in class, what he means by the ‘cosmos’ and how ‘myth’ relates to it. If myth and imagination are how the human intellect attempts to grasp at the unreal, then it makes sense that this would be the manner in which the cosmos are able to ‘pour’ into our reality. This would make sense because the word cosmos, from my understanding, refers to what we cannot grasp or understand because it is outside of our reality. 

 1. Appreciate the journey of your life. Even the times that seems transitional are so important. It is important to live in the moment instead of constantly looking forward to the next goal or phase in your life. 2. Myths and story telling allow us to recognize the order in the universe. Myth carry with them cultural identities that demonstrate the uniqueness of each culture. Yet, they also indicate a human desire to capture our existence in stories.  3. Truth. Truth is merely a mirror that reflects reality. It is not reality itself. The closer we get the truth, the more difficult it becomes to explain which is why we often refy on myths or story telling. 4. Liminal spaces allow us to explore who we are but they also allow others to influence how we see ourselves.  5. Nature is often a considered a place. However, nature is all around us. Nature is an idea, a product of culture.  6. Journeying away from home shows you where home is.  7. Journeying is beautiful ...