the wheel

(Do you see the wheel in the above image? The cycle turns upon it.)

One of the things I've been musing on now for some time is the idea of The Hero's Journey. (Most think that this is the title of the book by Joseph Campbell where he pioneered these ideas. No. It's title is The Hero with a Thousand Faces.) I just checked out a book from the library that ties that idea in with The Tarot. It is called Tarot and the Journey of the Hero, by Hajo Banzhaf.

My intention with this post is to show you our one cycle, "The Hero's Journey". I'm going to do this with "one million" photos. Good luck. (I'm planning on writing more about chakra number four, Anāhata soon. There is a little 8 sided hatch right before the heart chakra that tickles me, and I need to look into to it--just like John Locke did! I'm still working on my ideology/capitalism/operating system post entitled L[os]t. I don't know when that will be done. . .)

"The Hero's Journey" is . . .

the cycle of the sun.

Which is . . .

the cycle of the day, and

the cycle of the the year (season).

the cycle of plants/harvest.

"The Hero's Journey" is also . . .

the cycle of the moon.

the cycle of the human.

the cycle of the cosmos.

the cycle of gestation.

Here is an image of our cycle tying together all the disparate elements:

Here in an interesting image of daily body energy/processes:

(click it to see it better.)

Mediaeval planting guide:

Chinese interpretation:

This image is interesting as it ties together the lunar cycle with the menstrual cycle (menses = month/moon) with the gestational cycle of life.

 

And this is what Joseph Campbell discovered in his comparing mythologies and religions, our one story:  (Don't know it?  Watch Rambo's First Blood).

Here is our hero!

This is a fascinating telling of "The Hero's Journey" in the Major Arcana of The Tarot.

-It was hard to scan, it is an odd-sized image.  Get the book!

In this image, one notices the opening of the "maternal cave".  This then indicates that the wheel = the cave = the womb = the galactic center = the unconscious = the OM!

This, according to Banzhaf, is the goal of the journey:

"rebith--redemtption--wholeness--the consciousness of the unity of all things (67)."

  

If the heavenly parents [The Magician (I), The High Priestess (II)] show the archetypal masculine and the archetypal feminine in the world of ideas, the earthly parents embody these archetypal principles on the concrete level: as Mother Nature (The Empress) and the force of culture and civilization (The Emperor). If both forces are in harmony with each other, the human being lives in a protected, secure, and positive environment (41).

As Mother Nature, The Empress embodies everything natural; on the other hand, the Emperor represents everything created by human hands. She stands for what is round, since a straight line is the exception in her world. He represents everything straight, since he prefers to produce smooth and square things with his hands or his machines. Even her experience of time is round and cyclic, without a beginning and end, and without any actual innovations. It is the course of the year, the eternal return of what has already been here. By way of contrast, his time is linear. Within it, everything has a being and an end—and he gives the name of progress to the development in between. This is why it is common knowledge in her world that everything that passes also arises again, accompanied by the belief in the eternal wheel of rebirths. On the other hand, it is known with the same certainty in his linear world that everything has a beginning and an end, therefore concluding that we also only live once (41-42).

-from Tarot and the Journey of the Hero by Hajo Banzhaf. Samuel Weiser, Inc. York Beach, ME. 2000.