MY STORY
I remember standing in my kitchen on that warm June afternoon.... 
I had just finished putting away groceries. I stopped at the dining room table and picked up my phone; not because anyone had called or messaged, but out of habit.  Mindlessly scrolling through various apps on my phone had become a tactic of distraction from the ever-present yet vague sense of dissatisfaction growing within me.

​Disinterestedly, I skimmed over an online article....
She was never CRAZY,
she just didn't let her heart settle in a cage.  She was born WILD, and sometimes we need people like her.  For it's the HORRORS in her HEART which cause the FLAMES in ours.  And she was always willing to BURN for everything she has ever LOVED.
​~R. M. Drake
In my attempt to escape the monotony of the mundane, my eyes read while my mind fled. Yet somehow, magic found me. I only remember that article, that day, that moment, because what awaited me within the words I skimmed over that day was nothing short of life-changing. Within the article was a story about two lovers.  Specifically, what has remained etched into my memory was the response of the older woman to her younger lover who, when overcome with remorse, confessed her betrayal.  The response of the betrayed lover was not at all what I expected, and as I read it, something shifted - something really big.  Suddenly I found myself speaking aloud to an empty house:
"I want to be like that."
Looking back, it was THAT moment, THAT statement, THAT decision, which really set into motion what was to follow in my life.  More importantly, what is now clear is the truth of that statement I spoke aloud to an empty house on that June afternoon.  With that statement I had made a decision, and that decision was the catalyst of what was to become an arduous and epic personal journey....

There was a great distance between the person I was and the person I would have to become in order to "be like that."

My dissatisfaction with life had been growing.  A deeper, more authentic version of myself was breaking the surface, fighting for air after being held down for too long.  I was in the midst of an awakening. 

​The longer I tried to remain in my comfort zone, burying my head in the sand, the greater my discomfort with being in the world became.   As more time went by, what I never questioned to be a life filled with infinite support for me to grow and transform proved itself more and more to be suffocating.  What I counted on to be there suddenly wasn't. 

In actuality, I was being stripped of anything that was not in alignment with my most authentic self.

The spark that ignited within me when I read the story of the lovers that day was my "call to adventure." 
​It was an invitation to begin the journey of a lifetime, the "Hero's Journey."
I have discovered that this call is less of an invitation and more of a directive from the Universe.  It is a summons to follow that spark of inspiration above all else, even if - especially if - it means leaving behind everything you know and hold to be safe and true.  To refuse the call is to sit in false security, complacent as your soul slowly suffocates.  To accept is to allow yourself to be tempted further and further into the unknown, as you chase that spark, until you suddenly realize you have passed the point of no return.  You are too far separated from the life you knew to go back to it.  It is only then that you understand there is only moving forward into the unknown - there is no going back.  Only in hindsight will you see this as the beginning of your descent into an abyss of unknown to face the most difficult challenges of your life. 

In The Hero with A Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell describes this "call to adventure" to be the first step a "hero" takes on Campbell's famous outline of the mythological "Hero's Journey."  "This first step...signifies that destiny has summoned the hero and transferred his spiritual center of gravity from within the pale of his society to a zone unknown".
What was to follow...
Attached to my (false) sense of security derived from my day to day life, I resisted wholeheartedly heeding the call.  What I experienced was the kind of magic that pumped pure oxygen to that first spark of inspiration.  It awakened me to new possibilities that fed my soul and in the process increased my discomfort with my life as it was, slowly pulling me away and separating me from it.

After awakening must come "the descent" - we cannot go backward in consciousness and "un-know" what we have come to know, so then the only way out becomes through.  We must step forward and journey into the unknown, like all the great heroes and heroins, gods and goddesses, of the myths that have come before.
And there was a great distance between the person I was and the person I would have to become in order to "be like that."
I didn't really know what I wanted or what brought me joy.​
​
The reality was that I didn't even truly know who I was. 

​I had no self-esteem.

I was living in a fog of denial, and had been almost all of my life.
What became alarmingly apparent before even those points were crystallized was that I had been tempted further and further away from the life I knew, and had not been aware that I had slipped past the point of no return.  

There was no turning back.  My only option was to go forward and face the unknown.  The only way out would be through.  

Like Campbell's "hero", and the gods and goddesses of myth, I stepped forth into the unknown, on that infamous "journey to the east", from which no man (or woman) ever returns.
​

And so my Great Descent began....
More to come....