A Phoenix's Tale: Or, How To Become The Mythological Creature You Were Meant to Be

       Joseph Campbell Was Right

        Because my life exploded last year, I was able to save a man's life, last night.

        Because I went through the worst illness I have ever had, I have not been sick a day since. Nor will I be.  (God willin' and the creek don't rise, that is.)

        Because my mother and I butted heads all during my adolescence and beyond, we now have a loving, enormously healing friendship. I know it's healing because she's healthy (after double pneumonia) and making plans excitedly for the future. (Her doctor confirmed, with surprised pleasure, that she had healed "miraculously" fast.) .  -I"ll KNOW we have healed completely when we can go clothes shopping together. The only thing she DOESN'T understand is my rather unexpected new passion for...golf. Yes. Golf.

          "Tale of the Phoenix" is about how to USE the worst to GET TO the best. 

           "Tale of the Phoenix" is about learning to trust yourself again. Except this time? Better.

             *****************************

   "Wait," I can hear you asking. (And what a lovely voice you have!) " "Phoenix? As in, "Arizona"?"

    Nope. "Phoenix" as in "a mythological birdie."

              The myth of the Phoenix is ancient for a reason. Like most myths it is The Human People's way of transmitting very helpful information to future generations, in the form of an eternal truth... hidden in a story. Human People have an amazing way of finding out The Truth. But since we're all separate individuals, and we're all always being distracted by the movies playing in our heads, it's hard for, say, Jake to tell, say, Ashley, that he has found an Eternal Truth,. Because if he isn't really, really careful about how he says it? Ashley will have him committed. So he can hint at the truth in a story. In fact, obviously the story tellers of our times who have been able to do that--wrap Eternal Truth up in protective layers, and present it to Non Eternal Human Bodies in a form that they will find delicious---have become greatly rewarded in their lifetimes and have become, when they Left their Human People shells [um, "died"] immortal. Myths do this: at the chewy caramel center of every ancient myth, under the attractive story, there's a truth so large it has been recognized over and over again subconsciously by each generation. Truth lasts. 

             Of course, truth told too confrontationally, or without allowance for the different "modality" of the listener, usually gets the messenger killed. Because of the differing structure of each Human Person's modality (there are 12 modalities- more on this later.) Truth wrapped in something the culture you're living in is going through AT THIS MOMENT, is easier to swallow. And once swallowed, to digest. And once digested, it becomes a part of your being. [Let's skip the next step for the time being.]  And once the Truth is a part of your being, your spiritual gravitational mass becomes bigger. And--like the famous heavy object suspended in the rubber sheet--your life circumstances start rolling TOWARDS the bigger gravitational mass. This is a known and recognized phenomenon, expressed by different wise spirits in different ways: one of the best known (and best expressed!) - is my Goethe who says: "Whatever you can do, or think you can do, begin it: boldness has genius and beauty and power within it." He was onto something.

                   However, there's a LOT more to it than that.