The Lizard in the Fire Chapter 06 The wildman version The descent of the Heroic journey

Chapter 6 Death and the descent of the heroic journey.

This is perhaps the most enigmatic part of the story and is seemingly inconsequential. The boy has died, and the Wildman carries us via the Great Mother to the village fire. That’s it? The child, us, has died and the Wildman rescues us. In the narrative, this whole time and process of being dead are skipped, as though the death and dieing cycle doesn’t happen. From other stories we know, it’s very important and definitely happens. Also, the dilemma question makes sense in the light of the night-sea journey. Now comes the test in the narrative. This time of death and its meaning and what happens through this process is not discussed by the narrative. It falls to storytellers to unpack that for our time and place. (that’s me)

The child in us has died in order for the emerging adult to shine. 

 

This type and timing of death are most important if we are to understand Initiation and the rest of the story. This time of death refers to the descent in the Heroic cycle. In two of the initiatory practices, I am familiar with the first thing that happens as the sun sets is a descent process where the candidate is relieved of all his stuff, given a number and a tracksuit to wear for the rest of the process. This a symbolic death to name, family, technology, food, and clothing. 

The Story and the father says we will die when we run with the Wildman. The Wildman agrees with our father but also implies it might not be a bad thing. For tomorrow to be truly born we all have to die to yesterday.

Our Soul has a vested interest in this particular process. Soul is always creating crisis to break open the hard shell of our Ego to expand Ego’s consciousness and awareness of the world around it. Initiation can either be a conscious process as set out above or an unconscious process. Like a car accident, divorce, war, or ill health, all different sorts of crises.

Remembering how the story got us here: Read the whole narrative here in Chapter 02.

When the father found out (about his son’s death) he wept and the boy’s mother also. The Wildman did no crying, instead, he went to the old woman’s forest and brought her to the village along with a Lizard.  There the old woman lights a huge fire and the villagers all gathered around including the mother and the father carrying their dead son.

Then the Crone took the lizard and threw it into the fire and spoke. “If someone brave enough to retrieve the lizard the boy will come back to life.

The father stepped forward and tried to enter the flames to retrieve the Lizard, but the heat was too much, and he was pushed back. The mother did the same. No one else in the village tried.

Then the Wildman stepped up saying. “This is the fire I am made of—this fire is in me”. The Wildman leapt into the fire grabbed the Lizard and leapt out again.

The Lizard was still intact, the boy came back to life and stood beside the fire in front of the Crone.

The Crone then says to the boy (us)  “You have a choice to make, if you cast the Lizard into the fire and leave it to burn, the Wildman will live, but you will have to leave this village and never see your father and mother again.

or take this Lizard and carry it with you for the rest of your life as the Wildman but the one who saved you will die.

The Crone gives the Lizard to the boy. “It’s time to decide”.

 

 

 

In Alchemy the old idea was the transformation of base material (us) required a particular fire and a vessel (The vessel of Elders and community) strong enough to contain the process. If the fire was not hot enough or the vessel exploded the whole process had to begin again. In our culture, we have many failed initiations but very few wise elders to supervise the process. And my community seems to have lost the understanding to make it happen.  Timing is key here. If you bake a  cake (us) and take it out of the fire too soon it’s uncooked and inedible, too late, and it’s burnt and inedible. It takes skill when to know when the time is just right to take the cake out of the oven. How much pain or challenge is required for the transformation to take place (heat) and at what point does it turn to abuse. There are lots of imitations initiations, driver’s license, Ph.D.  LLB. MD. All of these mimic the initiation process except for one thing. They all take power in the name of the institution they belong to. In authentic initiation, the initiators take power in the name of the soul of the initiate. This creates a very different process and outcome.

To understand this Death we can use the heroic journey for both men and women below. Where are we on the Hero’s journey? we are at sunset in the west about to begin the descent. Labeled here as crossing the threshold going anti-clockwise around the chart in the same direction the sun travels. The sun is reborn in the east as a new day.

 

The Hero’s cycle for men and women.

• In the ordinary world, some crisis is before us. We have choices to make that will define the next stage of our journey. Perhaps we become dissatisfied with the apparent emptiness of the promises of the status quo when we get there. As soon as dissatisfaction occurs and we begin to look around for some alternative, that is the “Call to adventure”
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• The call to adventure. The crisis continues, we search around for help to fix the crisis, something is wrong and it needs to be fixed, to get back to step one–The ordinary life. (if there is such a thing) This is the Refusal of the call. 
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• Refusal of the call. We can loop around in life at this point until the crisis becomes unbearable. The alliance between Ego and the status quo can override Soul’s repeated crisis until we lose the incarnation, or we have the Damascus road experience.  The Damascus Road experiences are those in which a person has a sudden insight that radically changes their beliefs. Whilst originally used in a spiritual context, the phrase also refers to other types of sudden conversion.
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• Meeting the mentor. This takes place before or at the beginning of the descent. “A time of instruction” our father takes us to the forest to live for a while. Father invites us into the Masculine world outside of time and so this applies to women as well. We die to who we were before and learn the way of the forest and how to live there. As the sun sets in the west we talk about the dying light and so Our night-sea journey begins.
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• Test allies and enemies. Our father leaves us with a warning about the Wildman and Death. and advise.“don’t run with him or you will die.” Life is full of choices constantly, in fact, the choice is all we have. Our life is the result of the choices we make from moment to moment. It’s now 6 pm we spot the Wildman’s track and begin to follow them.
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• The approach.  We see the tracks of the wild man and follow them to a waterhole. We approach the Wildman and he invites us to ren with him and we decline repeating our father’s warning. The Wildman acknowledges the truth of the warning and makes the offer again leaving the choice once again to us.
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• The ordeal, death, and rebirth. It’s now 12 o’clock midnight the depth of our descent. We chose to run with the wildman and after a day we die. Our parents discover us and weep and wail over our death.
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• Reward, the seizing of the sword or the transformation from child to a full adult, and the acceptance of the responsibility of our choices. The Wildman, the King of the forest goes to his consort The Great Mother, the Mother of the Feminine principle beyond the physical mother. The Wildman knows his time as King is possibly at an end and there will be a new Wildman depending on how we chose at the fire.
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• The Road Back. It now just before dawn, the false dawn has broken. Our parents carry us to the fire of transformation the Great mother has prepared. Takes the Lizard carried by the old king, the old Wildman, and throws it in the fire. Asking the question. “Who is brave enough to rescue the Lizard from this fire so the Child can come back to life?”  The sun is rising in the east, a new day is being borne, shadows are receding. The parents try to brave the fire but it’s not their fire and they are beaten back their child is gone forever.
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• The resurrection. The old King, the old Wildman jumps into the fire, throws out the Lizard, and Jumps out himself. The transformed child comes back to life as a young adult. Now comes the next test, the next choice. 
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•  Return with the Elixer. Death and renewal. When the land is broken by egotism a hero must go on this journey to find the elixir of healing. This elixir can take many forms but requires of us a set of decisions that will bring the elixir back into this world. Each of our journeys is towards Kingship its not about plumbing it’s about a state of being for our Ego. For men and women. If we can make the good choice making life sacred the cycle of life and creation its-self continues. The other choice is for the Ego of the status quo, the wasteland, and not to bring back the elixir to heal the broken land.

  Back to the narrative: Then the Wildman stepped up saying. “This is the fire I am made of—this fire is in me”. The Wildman leapt into the fire grabbed the Lizard and leapt out again.
  The Lizard was still intact, the boy came back to life and stood beside the fire in front of the Crone.
  The Crone then says to the boy (us)  “You have a choice to make, if you cast the Lizard into the fire and leave it to burn, the Wildman will live, but you will have to leave this village and never see your father and mother again.
  or take this Lizard and carry it with you for the rest of your life as the Wildman but the one who saved you will die. If you drop the Lizard you will die.
  The Crone gives the Lizard to us. “It’s time to decide”.
  What would you do?

That brings us to the end of this story and the beginning of ours.

Remember in the Heros journey we could be at all parts of the cycle at any given time about different challenges of life and crises we are facing. This journey is not a linear progression, you don’t get a certificate at the end just an anxiety-free life to appreciate the endless beauty of creation.

Samuel Sleeman 1/6/21 I will some add stuff about the night-sea journey, the relationship of the wildman to the Crone, the Lizard, and the fire, as the story works through me. Thanks, Frank for this enigmatic story it worked me really hard.

Previous chapter 05  Running with the wildman.