About two years ago I realized I was losing my enthusiasm for ritual. I’ve been a ritualist for 25 years – I told myself it was probably burnout, both with my work and with struggles within my communities. But what I began noticing was that the Reclaiming rituals I attended felt disconnected from the work the communities were doing, and from the reality of the world around me. In songs that celebrated us and empowered us, and in the energy raising, in particular, I began to feel the rituals were working against the community’s focus on offsetting oppressive structures.
A few weeks ago, I was working with Juniper Lauren and Sayre to brainstorm an offering on ritual arc, and I had a dream in which I kept hearing the words: “Joseph Campbell was wrong.” In the dream, I understood that statement was in reference to the Path of the Hero (POTH), and I was intrigued (very), but it was 1:00 in the morning. I went back to sleep, and the seeds of that statement kept unfolding as I slept, and I kept waking up with more and more of the meaning and the pattern until I finally just got up and started writing it down.
An Overview
Let me say at this point – the Hero’s Journey can take many forms, and I don’t believe the traditional Path of the Hero is always necessarily the wrong pattern for ritual. But for rituals working with dismantling oppressive structures versus those rituals that focus on personal growth, I think the traditional Path of the Hero – which, in my experience, is generally the path Reclaiming rituals have followed – works against the intent to “heal the wounds of the earth and her peoples,” as the Reclaiming Principles of Unity (POU) puts it.
When, in ritual, we descend to meet the monster, the POTH challenge is to believe in our power, our strength; while with the work dismantling oppressive structures, our challenge is to be willing to face our own shortcomings and be accountable for them.
I think the dissonance I’ve been experiencing is because the POTH ritual pattern affirms the very structures we’re seeking to dismantle. What we’re putting at the center of the ritual – generally ourselves – doesn’t reflect our values.
If you’re still reading, here’s a breakdown.
The Path of the Hero
The Path of the Hero, or Hero’s Journey, is one of departure, fulfillment and return, according to Campbell. Here’s how Campbell describes it, in his interviews with Bill Moyer:
“The first stage in the hero adventure, when he starts off on adventure, is leaving the realm of light, which he controls and knows about. and moving toward the threshold. And it’s at the threshold that the monster of the abyss comes to meet him. And then there are two or three results: one, the hero is cut to pieces and descends into the abyss in fragments, to be resurrected; or he may kill the dragon power, as Siegfried does when he kills the dragon. But then he tastes the dragon blood, that is to say, he has to assimilate that power. And when Siegfried has killed the dragon and tasted the blood, he hears the song of nature; he has transcended his humanity, you know, and reassociated himself with the powers of nature, which are the powers of our life, from which our mind removes us.”
In the pattern, the Hero usually has to overcome the fear that his best will not be enough – the challenge is self-doubt. Once he has faced his fears and defeated the monster, he has “transcended his humanity” and returns to the tribe with the gifts he’s earned. In many myths and stories, he’s celebrated, given the woman of his choice, and becomes King.
Ritual with the Intent to Heal the Wounds of the Earth and her Peoples
In work that, as the POU puts it, intends to work to “heal the wounds of the earth and her peoples” – and that acknowledges our own responsibility for those wounds – I’ve found this ritual pattern sets up a dissonance. For me, there are two places where the traditional Path of the Hero needs to be re-visioned to support work around dismantling patriarchy, white supremacy, harm done to the earth, and other structures of oppression, when there is acknowledgement that those attending the ritual bear some responsibility for that harm.
Once the Hero (and I’m deliberately choosing to use “Hero” rather than “Heroine” here) answers the call to adventure and leaves the known world, he reaches the edge of the abyss – the unknown – and is filled with fear of what lies beneath. In almost every story, if the hero faces the fear and descends, he will conquer the monster; the real fear is generally fear of failure, fear he won’t be enough and will fail; or fear of fear itself.
In the work the communities I’m in are doing to dismantle oppression, that fear is not something to be overcome; it’s useful. It’s often the whole fucking point. The common belief systems we’ve gotten from the overculture have led us to continue to wound the earth and her peoples. In rituals around dismantling oppression, we don’t need confidence in our ability to overcome; we need willingness to face where we have fallen and are falling short, both as individuals and as members of our families, our communities, and our countries.
The second major disconnect occurs for me when the hero returns to his community. In the POTH approach, the hero has now – as Campbell put it – “transcended his humanity”. He has risen above the common human and is now “more than” – a superior being, generally above criticism.
In the work I’m doing with Reclaiming and other communities, the work to dismantle oppression starts with me. It starts with an acknowledgement that I am human. And with that acknowledgement comes the willingness to say – I’ve made mistakes, I’m conditioned by structures of power that mean I continue and will continue to harm the earth and its peoples, and I can’t even see it. It is more appropriate, in this work, for me to return to community, not bringing the gifts of my journey and as one greater than those in the community – but because I need community to do my own work around dismantling oppressive structures of power. Community holds me accountable for my impact. And community lets me know that I’ve erred, I’ll continue to err, and yet I still belong.
In this approach, we become more human – not less. Instead of returning to become a King held above the commoners, I’ve returned less empowered than when I set out on this journey – because the whole purpose of the journey has been to show me that, consciously or unconsciously, I’ve misused power.
The Implications for Ritual
How might our rituals change, with this approach?
1. There will be a greater emphasis on community, as a source of accountability, and to reflect back to us what we can’t see. The journey we each take is individual, yes; but it begins and ends in community. (In appreciation for conversations around this that I’ve had with Sayre, that community might be other humans, or might be the eco-system, nature, ancestors, non-human beings such as spirits, or other communities of choice.)
2. The descent does not end with empowerment and ecstatic energy raising. It ends with accountability. That’s a lot heavier, and it doesn’t seem to me an ecstatic energy raising fits the pattern.
3. This is value-centered ritual. This was an approach I first experienced as a member of the Tejas Hecate Camp teaching team in 2017. A question to keep asking is: what have we put at the center – of our lives, our communities, and our rituals? What SHOULD we be putting at the center? Most likely, what we have been putting at the center of our rituals is ourselves. What we should be putting at the center of our rituals should instead reflect – in every way – our values. For example: We might put the earth spirits at the center – while humans are less centered. We might put accountability for the choices of our ancestors and our own choices at the center – while the living humans in the ritual are less centered.
4. In Reclaiming, our rituals call the elements, the guides, the spirits. We welcome them. Then we generally go on about our ritual business – it feels to me like we invite them, often, to witness what we do. What would change if we invited them and, as part of that invitation, said: “We hold ourselves accountable to you, for what we have done and what we will do”?
5. The myths and stories we tell are usually reflective of oppressive structures as well, and they generally feature a hero. A better pattern might be: rather than tell stories of ourselves as superhuman, shut up. Listen. How did Demeter’s choices impact the earth spirits? What do our ancestors tell us about the choices they felt they had to make? What happens when we un-center ourselves as living humans and heroes from myths and stories – and look at the story from another point of view?
6. The final endpiece of the ritual will not be an energy raising to empower our magic. It will be stepping back out into the world to do our work. Reclaiming rituals I’ve attended or facilitated always said taking the work out into the world was important, but I felt, and often heard it said, that it was hard when our rituals felt so removed from the world. For myself – when the point of the ritual is my own values and my accountability, it’s a given that the final work is to step back out into the mundane world with that as my work. Work that begins, not with a magical spell, but with me.
My sense is that this approach – working with the ways the traditional path of the Hero supports what I don’t value, and shifting that pattern to reflect what I do value – is useful, but what it means, how it manifests, and how it should shift is still unfolding for me. I’d welcome the comments and observations of others.
I’d also acknowledge the passage in the quote from Campbell that notes the hero “hears the song of nature; he has transcended his humanity, you know, and reassociated himself with the powers of nature, which are the powers of our life, from which our mind removes us.” I think that observation and other nuances of the Path of the Hero – particularly sacrifice – deserve consideration in how they do, indeed, support rituals and story that are value-centered. My main intent, in writing this blog post, was to say: I can’t attend another camp in which Path works with social justice work and dismantling oppression, and the night’s ritual focuses on empowering the human, gathers us at the center and celebrates us. For that kind of work, another approach to ritual seems essential.
Many thanks to Suzanne McAnna and Irisanya Moon for sharing their time and their insight with me on earlier drafts of this blog post.
