Steven Pressfield's Blog, page 14

After the Wilderness

Our passage through the Wilderness may involve action worthy of the next John Wick movie. We may survive IEDs in Afghanistan, divorces in Reno, stretches in Joliet or in a cubicle at Facebook. We may find ourselves brawling in bars in Ibiza, pursuing lovers across the Pampas in Argentina. We may wake up with strange tattoos, or beside even stranger bed-mates. Entire decades can go missing during our Wilderness Passage.

Keanu Reeves in “John Wick 4”

But when we finally turn the corner—when we reach our All Is Lost Moment, followed by our Epiphanal Moment—all that adventure shifts.

It goes inside.

Our life becomes, now, about the work—the work we’ve been running away from all that time in the wilderness.

Dalton Trumbo wrote his best stuff in the bathtub. Churchill the same. Marcel Proust barely got out of bed. Even Hunter Thompson, mythology aside, took his orange juice straight when he settled down at the keyboard.

Me? The odometer on my ’65 Chevy van ticked over the six-digit mark so many times I can’t remember them all. That was during my hero’s journey. 

Now on my Artist’s Journey I barely drive to the grocery store. 

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The All Is Lost Moment in Nonfiction

Can there be an All Is Lost Moment in nonfiction?

Here’s an example from The War of Art, which is definitely not fiction.

The hero of The War of Art is the reader. I’m imagining this individual—male or female—to be an aspiring writer/artist/entrepreneur/human being.

The All Is Lost Moment happened before the reader/hero picked up the book. That moment (perhaps many, many moments) was constituted of the realization by the hero/reader that he or she possessed (perhaps in secret) a dream of creative fulfillment or self-realization that he/she had never fully committed to … and that his/her life had been disfigured emotionally and psychologically by this failure to take action in pursuit of that dream.

That’s the All Is Lost Moment.

What’s the Epiphanal Moment? Hopefully it occurs during the reading of The War of Art (or at some point thereafter), when the reader says to him or herself, “I’ve had enough! I can’t go on like this! One way or another, from this moment forward, I’m going to pursue my dream and my calling!!”

Elizabeth Gilbert from her TED talk, “Your Elusive Creative Genius”

Here’s a second example. This one comes from Elizabeth Gilbert’s 21-million-view TED talk, ‘Your Elusive Creative Genius.” In the talk, Ms. Gilbert tells her own story of a moment of personal crisis (in other words, nonfiction) that she experienced after the runaway success of Eat Pray Love.

The All Is Lost Moment was the coming together of her fears (reinforced by the concerns of others) that she could never top that hit, that she would spend the rest of her life banging out books and other creative projects and never, never produce one that rose to the artistic/commercial level of Eat Pray Love.

That’s the All Is Lost Moment.

What’s the Epiphanal Moment (again, in real life, in nonfiction)?

“And what I have to keep telling myself when I get really psyched out about that is don’t be afraid. Don’t be daunted. Just do your job. Continue to show up for your piece of it, whatever that might be. If your job is to dance, do your dance. If the divine, cockeyed genius assigned to your case decides to let some sort of wonderment be glimpsed through your efforts, then ‘Olé!’ And if not, do your dance anyhow. And ‘Olé!’ to you, nonetheless… for having the sheer human love and stubbornness to keep showing up. “

Ms. Gilbert’s epiphany was not some stroke of brilliance that guaranteed that she would top Eat Pray Love. Quite the opposite. Ms. Gilbert accepted that likely reality. But she added, “I don’t care.”

I’m a writer, Ms. Gilbert said to herself, and I’m going to keep doing my best at that craft and that calling. Come what may, I can do no more. And that, brothers and sisters, is enough.

So indeed, there can be (and, in my opinion, should be) an All Is Lost Moment and an Epiphanal Moment in our self-help book, our Substack post, our biography of our sainted aunt Hilda, and, yes, in our TED talk.

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My All is Lost Moment

The year was 1980. I was living in New York and driving a taxicab. The short version is I finished Novel #3 and couldn’t sell it (much like Novels #1 and #2.)

I was thirty-seven years old. My entire life, from twenty-four on, had been devoted either to writing fiction, working so I could afford to write fiction, or running away from writing fiction. I thought now, “There’s no way I can put in another five years, saving money and then writing, to try to do Novel #4. I just don’t have it in me.”

My All Is Lost Moment was kinda like this guy’s.

That was not my only All Is Lost Moment up to that point, but it certainly was the biggest and the scariest. From GOVT CHEESE: A Memoir:

            For four days I’m seriously teetering. My cat has stopped going outside. He’s looking at me funny. Clearly he’s thinking, “How am I gonna clean up the mess after Steve blows his brains out? Or get him down from the hook when he hangs himself ?”

That’s the All Is Lost Moment. Here’s the Epiphanal Moment:

            Then at the fifth midnight I have a flash.
            Why don’t I try writing screenplays?
            I’ll move to LA. Why not? I’ve failed as a novelist. Why not go out there and fail as a screenwriter?
            My friend Jennifer has worked as an assistant to a Hollywood agent. I phone her at one in the morning.
            “You have to write a sample,” she says. “A screenplay on spec. No agent’s gonna take you on without something they can show around.”
            Next morning I’m standing in the dark outside Barnes & Noble waiting for the doors to open.
            I buy a $3.95 paperback, “How to Write a Screenplay.” 

All Is Lost Moments happen in real life, and they follow the same principles as All Is Lost Moments in books and movies.

Sometimes the answer to an All Is Lost Moment is to give up a dream that can never come true, at least not for the present moment. Sometimes the answer is to embrace reality, even if—especially if—that reality breaks your heart.

It was no small thing for me to give up on the dream of writing a novel. That was my whole fantasy identity. And I certainly had no illusions that I was going to set the town on fire in Tinseltown. But to drop back to an aspiration that was (slightly) more realistic at least gave me hope. I got me down from that hook on the ceiling.

My epiphany was like Rocky’s, “If I can only go the distance … “

Rocky’s breakthrough self-assessment was, “I might not be able to fight or box or compete on the championship level. But goddamit, I can take punishment. That, I can control. All I have to do is keep getting to my feet when they ring the bell for the next round.”

In my case, as it turned out (not without irony), my moving to Hollywood proved to be the step—fifteen years later–that finally helped me get a novel published.

That was my All Is Lost Moment. And my epiphany.

P.S. Signed hardcovers of “GOVT CHEESE: A Memoir” are still available here.

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Ego and Self in the All is Lost Moment

Why do we (so often) need an All Is Lost Moment in our own lives to break through to another level? Can’t we just do it at a happy time? Do we have to push ourselves to the absolute abyss in order for real change to sink in?

I hate to say it, but that seems to be true. Certainly it has been in my own life. And for sure it’s true in fiction.

In fact, we might define “wisdom” as the ability to transform oneself to a higher level WITHOUT going through an All Is Lost moment. Have you done this? Neither have I.

I think the reason is that in an Epiphanal Moment, the epicenter of our psyche shifts from the ego to the Self. That’s the definition of an Epiphanal Moment. And the nature of the ego is to hang onto the steering wheel with everything it’s got. You and I (or Life itself) have to pulverize that SOB before it’ll let go.

Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub (with Marc Anthony) in “Big Night”

Here’s another All Is Lost/Ephiphanal Moment—this one from the movie Big Night (1996). Have you seen it? It’s a great one. Starring Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub, with Minnie Driver, Isabella Rossellini, Campbell Scott, Ian Holm, Marc Anthony, and Allison Janney.

Big Night is about two brothers recently emigrated from Italy—Primo (Tony Shalhoub) and Secondo (Stanley Tucci)—whose restaurant in 1950s America is struggling desperately to survive. The problem is that Primo, a genius chef, refuses to compromise his integrity by dumbing down his cuisine … and the mac-and-cheese US palate isn’t ready yet to embrace his lofty standards. The crisis comes on one “big night” when the brothers prepare an all-out feast anticipating the visit of famous bandleader Louis Prima—and Prima fails to show.  The whole idea, it turns out, was a ruse by a rival restaurateur to drive Primo and Secondo out of business. 

The All Is Lost Moment comes at the end of this desperate night—in a slap-happy brawl on the beach between the two brothers.

PRIMO

(in Italian with subtitles)

I have tried to teach you, Secondo … but you’ve learned nothing! Why do you want to stay here? This place is eating us alive! If I give up my art, it dies. Better I should die.

Primo staggers off with his new girlfriend Allison Janney. The brothers part. They’re broke. They’re too proud to work for anyone else. And any new restaurant they might open is sure to fail as their current one has. The situation is definitely All Is Lost.

Now comes the Epiphanal Moment. 

The morning after. Restaurant kitchen. Secondo enters. The mood is bleak. Marc Anthony, the busboy, is asleep on the butcher block table. Secondo gets down a skillet from an overhead rack. Marc Anthony rises, steps to the side. Without a word Secondo prepares an omelet for himself and Marc Anthony. Secondo sits at the butcher block and begins to eat.

The Epiphanal Scene in “Big Night”

Now: Primo enters. Still in his chef’s white jacket from the night before. Primo says nothing, simply stands there. Secondo glances uneasily to his brother. Then he rises, gets a plate down from the shelf, spoons a portion of omelet onto it for his brother and sets the plate down beside his own. He adds a baguette and sits back down. A few more anxious beats pass. Will Primo resume the clash from last night? Has the brawl itself—and the angry words spoken—shattered the bond between them forever?

Primo grabs a chair and carries it over to the butcher block. He sits beside his brother. Primo takes a first bite of the omelet. Secondo takes a bite of his own.

Tentatively, Secondo puts an arm around his brother’s shoulder. He pats Primo’s back. Another bite from Primo. Primo puts his arm around Secondo. No word has been spoken. The brothers continue eating their omelets, side by side.

Sometimes an Epiphanal Moment simply acknowledges What Is Really Important. This acknowledgment doesn’t solve anything in the material world. For Primo and Secondo, their business prospects continue to be beyond bleak. Neither one has any idea how to go forward professionally. But they have both recognized What Really Counts.  

They have moved from the ego to the Self.

Here’s the scene on YouTube.

And the fight on the beach.

Big Night was directed by Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott from a script by Tucci and Joseph Tropiano. It’s a good one!

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Einstein and the Epiphanal Moment

Albert Einstein famously said, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” 

Now I can’t claim to ken the mind of Einstein (as my eight-grade Earth Science teacher, Mrs. Wright, used to tell me, “You ain’t no Einstein!”), but I think Mr. E. has hit on the exact formula for the Epiphanal Moment.

In the All Is Lost Moment, the mind must upshift. It must ascend from a lower dimension to a higher. That’s the only way it can “solve” the All Is Lost Moment.

Viggo Mortensen as Frank T. Hopkins in “Hidalgo”

This can mean (sometimes) simple acceptance. Isn’t that, in the end, what Elisabeth Kubler-Ross described as the final (and most highly-evolved) stage of grief? In other words, the last beat of wisdom before dying?

But back to Einstein. 

Let’s consider the 2004 movie Hidalgo. Have you seen it? It stars Viggo Mortensen, Omar Sharif, and several American Paint horses as the real-life mustang, Hidalgo. The film (screenplay by John Fusco) is the more-or-less true story of Frank Hopkins, the famous long-distance endurance racer, and his participation in the 3000-mile “Ocean of Fire” race across the Najd desert in 1891 against purebred Arabian and other beyond-price equine champions. 

Bear with me as I go into this. It takes a few paragraphs to tell the story.

Frank is half-white, half-Native American. When we first meet him, he’s drinking heavily; we see he’s troubled. In an early flashback, we learn that Frank, as a horseback courier for the US Army, was the one who delivered the orders to the Seventh Cavalry, authorizing the massacre of Lakota Sioux at Wounded Knee. Frank didn’t know what was in the pouch, he was just delivering the orders. But the catastrophe (his mother, we learn later, was Lakota Sioux) has haunted him ever since.

In another early scene, Frank’s friend and mentor, Chief Eagle Horn (Floyd Red Crow Westerman), addresses him by the name “Far Rider.” But he, Eagle Horn, immediately qualifies this.

EAGLE HORN

I call you Far Rider, not for your long-distance racing, but because you ride ‘far from yourself.’

Frank signs up for the race across Arabia. His horse, as I said, is the unbeaten mustang Hidalgo, whom Frank loves more than life itself. The All is Lost Moment comes after three  thousand miles and untold hazards and horrors across the Iraq and Arabian deserts. Hidalgo, exhausted from wounds and dehydration, collapses on the sand. He can’t go any farther. Frank Hopkins is near the end himself. With obvious agony, Frank unholsters his six-shooter, cocks it, and aims it point-blank at Hidalgo’s head, ready to put the suffering beast out of its misery.

This is the All Is Lost Moment.

Viggo Mortensen wound up buying one of the American Paint horses who played his pony “Hidalgo.” The film’s writer, John Fusco, bought another.

Now comes the Epiphanal Moment.

Frank, apparently hallucinating from the heat and the ordeal of the race, hears an eerie sound—like the ceremonial beating of drums. He hears voices. Are they singing? Frank peers out into the desert mirage, seeking the source of this mysterious phenomenon. There, shimmering above the sand about fifty feet away, stand three figures. The figures are clearly Native American. They say nothing to Frank. They come no closer. Are they Ancestors? Spirit guides?

We see from Frank’s expression that he interprets their appearance at this moment as a blessing. The figures have come from who-knows-where to tell him by their presence that he is not alone, that other Forces are witnessing his ordeal and are supporting him. They seem to tell him that his essence is Native American. This is his tribe. He is one of them. He is theirs and they are his.

The figures fade into the shimmering mirage. Frank still holds his cocked .45. But suddenly Hidalgo stirs. The great mustang gets to his feet. He’s alive! He can still race! Frank mounts Hidalgo and they gallop off, chasing their rivals toward the finish line.

My interpretation of this Epiphanal Moment is that, following Einstein’s idea above, the problem (Hidalgo’s near-death, Frank’s deep estrangement from himself) cannot be solved by any action or concept on the material plane. The answer must come from someplace higher—the plane of the spirit. 

Did Frank hallucinate the three figures? Maybe. Probably. But they arose, nonetheless, from the core of his being, from his spirit or soul. They forgave him for his unwitting role in the massacre at Wounded Knee and they set him blameless for his drinking. They re-unite—or unite for the first time—Frank’s lost self and his true place of belonging.

I won’t spoil the movie for you by revealing the ultimate ending. Suffice it to say it is in perfect alignment with Frank’s new-found sense of himself.

The Epiphanal Moment has solved the All Is Lost Moment by addressing it from a higher plane of consciousness.

More examples (and a deeper examination of this) in the coming weeks. 

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The Epiphanal Moment

We started to talk last week about the All is Lost Moment, both in stories and our real lives. (I’m going to spend the next few weeks examining this, particularly as it relates to our own Wildernesss Passages).

The Epiphanal Moment in “Thelma and Louise.”

The All is Lost Moment always comes with a matching bookend—the Epiphanal Moment. If the All is Lost Moment is the ultimate dead end for our story’s hero (or for us ourselves in our real lives), the Epiphanal Moment is our hero’s (and our own) response to this dilemma. 

It may be a breakthrough that saves the day (Huckleberry Finn, Top Gun: Maverick.)

It may be a wrong move (Chinatown) that leads to even deeper catastrophe.

It may be a spiritual realization that succeeds on the level of the soul (Hidalgo.)

Or a simple but profound acceptance of a hard reality (Big Night, Far from Heaven.)

What is an Epiphanal Moment?

Consider Thelma and Louise (Oscar-winning screenplay by Callie Khouri). The All is Lost Moment comes seconds before the film’s climax. Thelma and Louise, fleeing the law in their ’66 Thunderbird convertible, have at last been cornered at the rim of the Grand Canyon. Cops and state troopers have the ladies zeroed-in in their gunsights. There’s even a police helicopter hovering to trap them further. 

Thelma and Louise (Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon) face a fatal choice. Try to flee and they’ll be shredded in a hail of gunfire. Or surrender, in which case they’ll no doubt be railroaded on a charge of murder through some kind of male-dominated kangaroo court. Or, even if they miraculously beat the rap, they’ll wind up returning to some form of misogynistic, toxic-masculinity hell in which they continue under the thumb of the patriarchy.

That’s the All is Lost Moment. What’s the epiphany?

The T-bird with Louise at the wheel and Thelma in the passenger seat is pointed at the precipice of a 500-foot cliff. The brink is just a short burst away. Behind the women squats a phalanx of law enforcement vehicles. Cowboy-hatted sheriffs and Highway Patrol officers sight their rifles on Thelma and Louise. The chief officer, through a bullhorn, demands that the women surrender or he’ll order his men to open fire.

INT.  CAR – DAY

THELMA

Now what?

LOUISE

We’re not giving up, Thelma. 

THELMA

Then let’s not get caught.

LOUISE

What are you talkin’ about?

THELMA

Go.

                                     (indicating the Grand Canyon)

LOUISE                                                

             Go?

Thelma is smiling at her.

THELMA

            Go. 

They look at each other, look back at the wall of police cars, and then look back at each other. They smile. 

Louise floors it. The T-bird accelerates straight at the canyon brink …

That’s the Epiphanal Moment. See how it’s an answer to the All is Lost Moment? Thelma and Louise make the fatal decision—as friends, as a twosome—that it’s better to go out in a blaze of independent glory than to let the System devour them one piece at a time.

Click here for the film version of this scene from YouTube.

For you and me, it can be an illuminating exercise to re-watch or re-read some of our favorite movies or books, looking for the All is Lost Moment and the Epiphanal Moment.

More on this subject in the weeks to come.

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The All is Lost Moment

Almost every Wilderness Passage reaches its crisis in what screenwriters call an “All Is Lost Moment.”

This is true in movies and it’s true in real life.

What is an All Is Lost Moment? It’s when the hero, i.e. you and me lost in the Wilderness, hits the wall. We reach a dead end in which all our efforts to resolve our personal crisis come to naught. In the All Is Lost Moment, we see no way forward and no way back. We are lost, in the darkest, most fatal sense.

Tom Cruise in “Top Gun: Maverick”

Paradoxically, our All Is Lost Moment is pregnant with hope. If we can find our way over/under/through whatever it is that is blocking us, we can achieve a breakthrough that will save us … or at least propel us, still breathing, into the next phase of our journey.

Here’s a movie example of an All Is Lost Moment. In Top Gun: Maverick, Tom Cruise as reckless-but-unbeatable fighter pilot Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell has been assigned to train a dozen crack naval aviators to fly a desperate mission. Maverick has embraced the challenge and, over weeks of training, has become emotionally attached both to the fliers and the mission. Suddenly his guardian commander, Admiral Tom “Iceman” Kazansky (Val Kilmer) dies. At once, Maverick finds himself at the mercy of his arch-enemy, by-the-book Vice Admiral Beau “Cyclone” Simpson (Jon Hamm).

Cyclone promptly fires Maverick, informing him he will never fly for the Navy again—“permanently.” For Maverick, this is a fate worse than death.  

The All Is Lost moment is ubiquitous in books, movies, legends, myths, sagas, and epics, not to mention TED talks.

Huck Finn hits an All Is Lost moment when he must write a letter turning in his great friend, the runaway slave, Jim.

Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) hits one in Casablanca when he must give up the love of his life, Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman).

You and I hit ours, in real life, when we, as Peter Finch said in the movie Network, “run out of bullshit.”

Suddenly we find outselves face-to-face with the issue we have run from or evaded or been in denial of for our whole life and we have no clue how to combat or overcome it.

I’m going to go into excruciating detail on this subject in the coming weeks, both as it applies to fiction and to our real lives.

It’s all under the heading of our Passage through the Wilderness.

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Is Life itself a Wilderness Passage?

We’ve talked in these posts about various intervals or periods of our lives being Wilderness Passages. Can it be that life itself, start to finish, is a Wilderness Passage?

I’m curious to hear what our very thoughtful and intelligent readers think about this. Please don’t be shy about dropping a Comment or responding to others who have commented.

Marcus Aurelius, 121 CE-180 CE

As to my own thinking, I’ve certainly thought of life as a school, in the sense that we are “sent here” as souls to LEARN something.

And I’ve definitely entertained the notion of life as a purgatorial passage, i.e. a prison we’ve been packed off to to serve time for crimes committed in previous lifetimes.

I’ve even believed in positive interpretations, i.e. life is an experience of beauty and love that we will miss desperately when we pass on to whatever comes next, if anything at all comes next.

But Life as a Wilderness Passage works too.

Marcus Aurelius said

Life is warfare and a journey far from home.

Surely he wasn’t speaking only literally.

Could it be that our souls, prior to birth, in whatever medium they might exist and however they might achieve this … make a decision or feel compelled—just as you and I might in real life—to “cross a threshold” and launch themselves into an “Extraordinary World,” i.e. material existence.

This enterprise becomes the soul’s Wilderness Passage—a hero’s journey, where all prior bearings no longer apply, where the soul encounters allies and enemies, undergoes ordeals, and does all the things that the “hero,” male or female, does in books and movies, myths and legends, and of course Real Life.

And in the end, could this soul “return home,” like Odysseus—home meaning death in the most positive sense … a completion, a return to a state of cosmic belonging and restoration, perhaps in preparation for another life?

I’ve always felt that when Marcus Aurelius said “a journey far from home,” the home he meant was among the stars.

Could there be something to this? What do you guys think?

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Creating our own Wilderness

My friend Charlie is training now for sea-kayaking solo around Ireland. The passage will take weeks. Charlie will paddle 10-15 hours a day, camp ashore each night, then set off again the next morning. This will be no modest or risk-free enterprise. Seas, even in summer, can be monstrous off the rugged Irish coast. As Charlie himself admits, you have to be a little nuts to conceive of, and then live out, this kind of wild-and-woolly adventure. 

It’s a Wilderness Passage.

Charlie Daly in his Wilderness, Bantry Bay, Ireland

A deliberate Wilderness Passage, with the aim—as in an involuntary passage—of attaining a deeper sense of who one is and of what is important to him. 

I salute Charlie. I think it’s great that he’s doing this. 

A case could be made that attempting to qualify for the Navy SEALs (or adopting an infant or auditioning to play Lady Macbeth in your community theater) is an eyes-wide-open form of entering upon a wilderness passage. 

Each is a hero’s journey, but embarked upon intentionally. 

We deliberately eject ourselves from the Ordinary World. Like Dorothy or Alice, we enter an Inverted Universe where everything is new and nothing we thought we knew can help us or aid us in finding or keeping our bearings. Our aim, like Charlie’s, is to return home a different person—battered a bit, and chastened perhaps, but wiser, and with a deeper understanding of ourselves and of life.

Sunrise at Lonehort Harbor. Bere Island

Charlie’s passage is a metaphor as well. Does even he know what for?  (I have my own theory, but I’ll keep my mouth shut.)

A few years ago, I ran the L.A. Marathon. Orthopaedic Hospital downtown organized a nine-month training program. We novice runners would meet every Sunday morning, about 150 in all. One Sunday there’d be a class about hydration. Another would be hosted by an expert on running shoes or the best way to set up a training schedule. It was fun. You got to meet a bunch of interesting people.

What struck me, however, was how many in the group were going through divorces or had experienced a recent tragedy of some kind. These weren’t trained or practiced runners. They had picked the marathon (and I include myself in this category) as a Wilderness Ordeal, whether they knew it or not or could articulate it or not.

And it worked, just like Charlie’s solo circumnavigation of Ireland will work.

A Wilderness Passage is baked into our DNA. No law says we can’t pick our own. 

[To follow Charlie’s adventure, click here.]

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Wilderness = Metaphor

The psychic geography of a wilderness passage goes something like this:

Our dream/calling/true self is percolating inside us. We sense this on some unconscious level and it scares the crap out of us. We don’t want to face it. So we deny it, suppress it, push it deeper into the shadows.

But our dream/calling/true self will not be dismissed so easily. It finds a path to daylight, perhaps in the form of “acting out” in the psychiatric sense, i.e. bursting forth as a negative—an addiction, a breakup, a wild-and-crazy stunt that gets us ejected from our Ordinary World.

The Carina Nebula, from the James Webb space telescope

Here’s where the metaphor comes in.

The wilderness passage that we find ourselves on—for me it was blue-collar jobs in far-flung corners of the country—is a metaphor for our dream/calling/true self. It is that Self manifesting as a crypto- or shadow version of itself.

The drama-queen life we find ourselves living is a sublimated form of the drama we’d like to produce in the theater or dance or literature.

The addiction that consumes us is a shadow version of the passion we really should be putting into a new startup or a non-profit philanthropic venture or simply the love that we fear to expose to others or to accept from them.

Pick your affliction–sex, food, booze, drugs, abuse of self or others, depression, alienation, political extremism, physical or emotional violence. (Granted, such conditions can be truly clinical … I don’t mean to play psychiatrist here). But, to repeat, pick your Wilderness. If we examine it as a metaphor, we will find, hiding in plain sight, the authentic dream/calling/self that we have been so terrified to bring forth into material being.

A Wilderness Passage reaches its climax and culmination, as Odysseus’s did, with a “return home”—meaning a moment, brought about by our own exhaustion with our ordeal, when we can no longer remain in denial of the True Self that has been trying so hard to be born from the wreckage of our flight from it.

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