"Hero Quest" Box (1) -- 2005
Mythologist Joseph Campbell coined
the term "hero quest" back in the 1940's, to describe
the path followed by all the great heroes -- both ancient and
modern. (Yes, that's the same Joseph Campbell that Bill Moyers
interviewed extensively on the 1989 PBS special, "The Power
of Myth.")
Here's how Campbell diagrams the hero quest:
Campbell sees this cycle in tales like that of Jason and the Golden Fleece, and in Parsifal's search for the Holy Grail. Talking with Bill Moyers, he uses Luke Skywalker's "Star Wars" adventure as a good example of the hero quest cycle -- pointing to how Luke gets the "call" from Obiwan and Princess Leah, gathers up Chewbaca and Hans Solo, meets all those strange beings at the bar/threshold to space, battles Storm Troopers and other enemies in preparation for the big show down with Darth Vadar (his father), and finally returns to the world with the "boon of success" in that triumphant final celebration scene.
Campbell also sees the hero cycle in the details of Christ's death and resurrection. For Campbell, all great heroic action, regardless of the culture, can be described in terms of this cycle.
What about women?
Various women writers have modified
Campbell's essentially male hero quest cycle to describe the
more internal quest that women/heroines undergo.
Here's how that looks (with the heroine's cycle in italics):
Maureen Murdock describes this heroine quest cycle through the
UnderWorld descent and resurrection stories of the Greek goddess
Persephone and the Sumerian goddess Inanna.
As you can see from the diagram, the heroine's quest is more internally complex than the hero's quest. For Murdock, this feminine descent into the UnderWorld is a metaphor for the deep diving that women must do to come into their own as individuals. In that sense, the heroine's quest is perhaps even more difficult than the hero's quest, which "only" involves battling real-world demons.
Your quest cycle
Because "heroine" is
the diminutive form of "hero," I prefer to use the
term "hero quest" rather than "heroine quest"
to describe what I've been through with breast cancer. Call your
own quest what you wish -- we're still on the same journey.
The quest cycle is a natural cycle that occurs with any kind
of crisis: you might have already encountered it through divorce,
an accident, the death of a loved one, the loss of a job. Anytime
you find yourself in a place where nothing is the way it used
to be, where you have to do some deep diving to adapt, you are
in a hero quest cycle.
"Hero Quest" Box (3) -- 2005
The hero cycle is about transformation. It's a death and rebirth cycle -- the death of an old you and the rebirth of a new you. There can't be a rebirth without a death. And that can be painful.
Think about your adolescence: now there's one lo-o-o-o-o-ng hero cycle, searching for a new "adult" self.
And you know how painful your current quest cycle -- the one that started with your breast cancer diagnosis -- can be. The hero quest you're on now is more challenging, more dangerous, and ultimately more rewarding than anything you've ever been through before
.
"Hero Quest" Box (4) -- 2005
Having passed my 10th anniversary as a breast cancer survivor in 2003, I can tell you -- without reservation -- that I would never go back to what/who I was before my diagnosis. And I would never wish that anything I've been through -- even the "bad" parts -- had never happened.
In becoming aware of the ups and downs inherent in the quest
cycle, I've learned how to use that cycle; I've learned
that you must hit rock bottom before you can rise again
with new strength and understanding.
"Hero Quest Cross" -- 2008
My book, Scenes from a Hero Quest, chronicles the amazing series of "resurrections" I've felt during first five years of my breast cancer hero quest.
To schedule a talk on the Hero Quest Cycle for your group, please email me at BCQuestCycles@aol.com.