searching for transcendence

My Epic Adventure

May 3, 2020 — Pat Bertram

I’ve often been seduced by the hero’s journey, an archetypal storyline where a reluctant hero is called to an epic adventure. This quest is at heart a transcendental and transformative journey, where an ordinary person from the ordinary world goes through a series of test, ordeals, encounters, and finally returns to the ordinary world, no longer an ordinary person but extraordinary — a hero — who has the ability to transform the world into something extraordinary, too. You know this story — you’ve heard it, seen it, read it hundreds of times in the guise of tales such as The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings.

I used this same story for my novel Daughter Am I, my contemporary novel of a young woman — Mary Stuart — who goes on a dangerous journey to learn about her recently murdered grandparents. Her mentors and allies on her quest are six old rogues — gangsters and con men in their eighties — and one used-to-be nightclub dancer. By journey’s end, all their lives have been transformed.

I always wanted a taste of an epic adventure of my own, something that would change me — and perhaps my world — into something extraordinary. In a way, grief was such a journey. Grief is not so much a series of stages, at least not the ones we are familiar with. Instead, there are The Mythic Stages of Grief, a process of transformation, taking us from our ordinary shared life into a new life, one we couldn’t even imagine before that tragic “call.”

I thought my cross-country trip would be such a transformative adventure, and as wonderful as it was, I returned after five months and 12,500 miles, essentially the same as when I left.

For many years, I dreamed of an epic hike along the Pacific Crest Trail, thinking that such a journey — a real journey, not just a journey of the spirit — would be the quest I craved. It didn’t work out, and the death of that dream still haunts me.

Well, now here I am involved in a real-life epic adventure — a world-wide ordeal that is calling all of us to be heroic — and what is my duty? What is my quest? To stay home. That’s it. Stay home. Isolate myself. Where are the mentors and allies to help me along the way? Where are the great tests of courage? Without these essential elements of the story, it seems such a tepid — and sad — adventure, though there are enemies galore, whether it is The Bob itself, the conflicting tales we are being told, the fears that are beckoning us.

In the end, though, facing these enemies is no extraordinary challenge. Just ordinary life — or as ordinary as we can make it in our extraordinary isolation.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Posted in culture, life. Tags: archetypal storyline, call to adventure, Daughter Am I, mythic journey, reluctant hero, searching for transcendence, the hero's journey, transcendental journey. 3 Comments »

Greedy For Life

July 31, 2013 — Pat Bertram

If the universe is full of infinite possibilities, does that mean we are infinitely possible too? I’d like to think so, but it doesn’t seem feasible. We seem to be bounded by our genetics, the way our brains are wired, our very thoughts. Can we go beyond such constraints to something else?

Working within natural laws, we can change ourselves to a certain extent. We can get a new job. We can move to a different location. We can divorce or remarry. We can become thinner, fitter, stronger, more serene. We can even look and feel younger, but we cannot actually be younger. Nor can we be anything but what we are — whatever that is. I suppose it’s a good thing our basic nature doesn’t change. It would make life intolerable if every morning when we woke up we discovered we were something different — a butterfly or a dragon, a flower or a star.

Still, in a universe full of possibilities, there has to be more possibilities than we see or even fathom. But how does one find (or create) these possibilities? I realize that wanting to be something other than ourselves is wasting who we are, but still, there has to be a way of becoming more of what we are, of reaching a greater potential.

I have such a desire to be “other,” though I don’t have any clear concept of what that means. Wiser, of course, and more in tune with the universe. Transcendent, maybe. Able to sense that which I cannot now see.

At the very least, I’d like to be able to just go along for the ride, see where life takes me without worry or fear. But even such a small transcendence seems improbable — I’m a worrier (thinker!) by nature and genetics, and fear is not just a mental state but physical reaction, a body response to danger, and we are such physical creatures. And anyway, aren’t worry and fear part of the experience of life, just as grief is?

Maybe there is more life on the horizon for me than I can now see, and all this cogitation is but a way of occupying myself until that life arrives. Or maybe the cogitation will help get me there by opening up my mind and soul to more, like a flower opening to the sun.

I’ve never been a greedy person — never really wanted much, especially not things — but now I see there is growing.

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Follow Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.