Yesterday I read the Center for Action and Contemplation's daily meditation about the myth of the hero as a means of understanding the path of transformation. And I thought perhaps this was a good opportunity to reflect a bit about the journey I undertook last summer using Richard Rohr's threefold hero's journey template: leaving, encounters, and the return.
Through a working group on Maya-Mennonite Relations, I went to Campeche as a guest of a Maya collective of farmers and as a Low German interpreter for two other delegates among the Mennonite colonists. I had been in the area twice in 2009 as a researcher getting stories on the history of the Mennonites in that area. This time, I would meet those I could not and learn the stories I was unable to obtain at that time due to language barriers (I don't speak Spanish), that is, the Maya's own story of their lives and how the Mennonite's intersect with theirs.
The heroic myth first involves a leave taking from home, often unwillingly. Richard Rohr reflects on the myth of Odysseus, but I connect more with the stories of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. The Hobbits leave the safety, comfort, and familiarity of the Shire to step out of their front door not knowing where the road will take them.
The "leave taking" is the first necessary step to growth. I am naturally an adventurous and determined person which helps to be able to leave, even at a moment's notice. From the time that I met one of the persons in the working group, to the time I left was only about a month. I had just come out of some difficult experiences; my self confidence and feelings of self worth were pretty low at the time. I am old enough to know that I wouldn't leave my problems behind, but I was feeling stuck. Leaving for a time to provide others with connections I had made years ago, the prospect of seeing those I had met years ago who continued to live in my heart and mind, and to use the skills and knowledge I had to further restoration of relationships, were the things I needed to get "unstuck."
The next stage of the hero's journey are the experiences or encounters one makes along the way. The Hobbits made many friends of persons they would never otherwise have met had they not had the courage to leave. My first encounter was with one of the two members of the delegation. While I'd only met her once, it was easy to connect on shared ideas of caring for the environment and reconciliation between Indigenous People's and Mennonite neighbours. The other delegate member shared these same desires and was also someone like myself, interested in all manner of obscure areas of inquiry. They challenged my understandings. Through becoming friends with Maya Indigenous farmers, I learned that their way of being in harmony with nature arises out of their understanding that instead of being separate from the natural world, they are Maya's relatives. Seeing the colony Mennonites through the other two delegate's experiences, also clarified for me the Mennonite's lack of real choices in what and how they farm, the colonialist mindset that views persons as masters over nature, as seeds and land and water as commodities - things - to be used to gain wealth to continue to reproduce their way of life.
The final stage of the journey is the return. How do I take what I've learned on the way and integrate it into my former life. Richard Rohr just puts it so well, I'll just quote him:
Surprisingly, the third stage of the hero’s journey is the return. The hero’s journey is not to just keep going to new places, making the trip a vacation or travelogue. We have to return to where we started and know it in a new way and do life in a new way. We are not somehow “beyond” the order and disorder of our lives; we’ve learned how to integrate both of them. This stage of return is so rarely taught. What is good about the order, what is good about the disorder, and how do we put them together? That is the “reorder” or the return.
This is where the other Hobbit friends, Sam, Pippin, and Merry shine. When they come back home, they save their community from enemies that have infiltrated in their absence. They use what they've gained to make their community better. When I came back home it was not possible to be the same person I was before I left. I had to reorder myself to integrate what I had learned and experienced. Some of my self assurance had returned; I felt more myself than I had in a long time. I was also convicted to refuse to be overwhelmed by the degradation of the earth, by the injustices committed upon Indigenous People throughout the world, and to do my small part with great love. So I permanently joined the working group which is part of the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery
I'm hosting a Seed Exchange Party on March 19 at Covenant Mennonite Church, Winkler, MB at 7:30 pm to raise funds for a larger delegation to attend our Maya partner's Seed Festival to which we have been invited.
I'm also doing some writing for Die Mennonitische Post on topics related to Indigenous and Mennonite Relations as part of the working group.
And I also had a fire lit inside to start a podcast in Low German with two colleagues of mine from Ontario who also have backgrounds in Mexico. We had been talking about it for over a year. We want to maintain and improve our Low German while sharing stories and ideas and our life experiences as members on the outside of the community with one foot in. We're hoping it will reach an audience that typically doesn't have access to informed, intelligent and reflective content by women in their own language.
The way forward upon return is to live into the integration.
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