INTO THE MYTHIC – day one to Paris
My mythic journey begins at the dentist office. Throbbing gum pain awakens me at 3:00 AM. I wonder if the implant is rotting my bones and why now. I see Kevin Shearer at 10 AM – he’s not sure what is going on, takes an x-Ray and it looks like the screw of the implant is floating in empty space. He sends me to Dr. Peterson who did the implant in Redding as I am driving through on my way to SF. He has no clue – gives me a prescription for antibiotics and I make an appointment to have my gums cut open on August 2nd after my return. I look up psychological meanings for teeth issues wondering if the Internet can tell me why I always seem to have teeth issues and particularly now before this trip. Of course none of the Internet musings are remotely close suggesting that an inability to make a decision or inability to make up one’s mind are the mind/body connection. Neither of those or any of the other musings are even close. Maybe it was simply a botched implant.
On the eve of this journey however terrorists decide to blow up the Istanbul airport killing about 41 people, injuring hundreds and sending more shock waves around the world. It’s a negative butterfly affect that has put major city airports around the world on high alert. I was texted an alert to get to SFO an hour earlier than the usual 2 hours as security would be particularly heightened to Heathrow and DeGualle. It all makes me wonder if traveling these days is worth it. Mind over matter and teeth!
I awake at the el Rancho in Millbrae to a swollen cheek – I will not let teeth interrupt my “into the mythic” journey. Joseph Campbell called obstacles and challenges the guardians at the gate that kept one from the journey. I didn’t know a year ago when I booked the flights and found the AirBNB that it would a mythic kind of journey. I knew I needed to be outside myself in a place of beauty. I wanted to see how my 68 year old self would react to unknowingness and what better way to do that than in a foreign country where I knew no one, where I would be alone and where I didn’t speak the language well. I needed a city. I needed a city of consummate beauty, a place centuries old where civilizations converged through art and architecture, sculpture and gardens. I needed to be in Paris.
Over the past year, the invisible energies of the trip created other dynamic forces that would poke holes in my cynicism and remind me of a Native American saying – that as you take one step toward God, God takes ten steps toward you. My God is not the biblical definition however. My god on this trip is the expansion of my consciousness and following what Campbell said about the heroic journey – that once you answer the call, there is no turning back. Of course, that journey began in earnest in Los Angeles 30 years ago when the Owl came calling and she still calls. This god whispers that there will be no accidents, this one whispers that we have lost the mythic meaning of life and that I should find mine to share!