The Hero's Journey: A resource for educators, teachers, and students

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Thought of the Week Archives
May 1998

May 4

The hero's journey is a pattern of completely-lived experience. It is a map that offers orientation in times of change. During crises

or illness, this map can prepare us for the necessary descent into an inner world. It can help to recognize one's own call, but also to understand that denial is an important part of the journey. With the help of this map, we can understand and accept our conflicts as a creative and meaningful process. On this Journey, a person is not a victim burdened with neuroses, illnesses and impossible trouble, but a hero in search of his own destiny.
~ Friedemann Wieland ~
The Journey of the Hero (page 22)
Prism Press, Dorset, England

May 11

Most of us hate to admit that we conform to the dictates of groupthink. But clearly the need for social approval is as fundamental to the human animal as the need for food. Community is not a luxury for human beings. The self is created by its multiple presentations; without an audience there's no individual. So long as we do not identify totally with any single role -- doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief, healer -- we remain free to explore the many possiblities of the private self as well as of the public self.

~ Sam Keen and Anne Valley-Fox ~
Your Mythic Journey
Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc. (1973)

May 18

The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery. ~ Mark Van Doren ~

May 25

In the education of children there is nothing like alluring the interest and affection; otherwise you only make so many asses laden with books. ~ Michel de Montaigne ~