Please forgive me if there are any errors. MY daughter is up early because she is teething and having a rough time. As the title of this section implies, the hero at some point must reconcile himself with his opposite. IF you are having trouble following the reading be sure to return to the Monomyth website to brush up on each stage. In meeting with the goddess the hero encounters the feminine aspect of himself. The nature of her appearance and her stature are scaled to the difficulty of the hero deed. In folk tales the goddess is represented by the sleeping princess who must be awakened to love. Usually such a tale ends in marriage showing us that the meeting with the goddess can be an awakening to love. She can also take a terrifying and powerful form such as Kali who represents the totality of life in time. Such a meeting would likely be the end for any hero who was not prepared to face such a power. While all heroes return from their journeys with some gift, the highest kind of heroes will return with a spiritual message. If a hero is not prepared for such a meeting with the goddess it is likely he will misinterpret his encounter. Such errors occur and, in my opinion, exist in Christianity with Mary Magdalene’s classification as a whore. In such traditions all the things which are associated with the feminine also become profane. As you may remember, the goddess has a great many associations including: the physical world, fertility, sex, birth, death. As you may know all these things were or are considered profane in Christianity. This is from an excessive patriarchy and too much obedience to the masculine principle of divinity.
We find very few traditions along the line of Christianity which emphasize the corruptness of the physical world and denial of its joys and divinity. Sex is dirty, birth is dirty, and death also must be scrubbed clean by prayer.
From the weekends reading we see that a new world opens for the hero when he discovers the divinity in the feminine principle which is in reality the other half of his divided self. Love is perhaps the greatest joy one can find in this world and its ability to overwhelm all other worldly obligations proves its status as sacred. Suddenly people don't care what their parents (society) think and dismiss social obligation. This is one of the barriers that faced the Buddha who also had to face lust and greed which are perversions of love. This is a huge problem today.
Ultimately the woman can represent a temptation to the hero, in the form of worldly pleasures, which may cause him to forsake his spiritual adventure for physical comfort.
To spend a minute with the slaying of Fafnir I'd like to point out two important things about that story: 1. the dragon is a symbol of avarice in the west. He accumulates great wealth and spends none of it. This is why it is a typical trial for a hero to face. Do you take the money to give up your quest? 2. Sigurd performs excellently well in this story as he gives the treasure away. Had he stayed and kept the wealth he would have supplanted the dragon and ceased to be a heroic figure.
For tomorrow please look at the following reading: Owain and the Lady of the Fountain
This reading very clearly identifies the different parts of the hero cycle and is a great example of the monomyth. Finish for Wed. if you need to.
For Friday please read: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight we will discuss a bit every day until Friday. You should be able to get through about 10 pages a night.
