“It is within everybody to recognize values in his life that are not confined to maintenance of the body and economic concerns of the day…”  “Myths inspire the realization of the possibility of your perfection, the fullness of your strength, and the bringing of solar light into the world.  Slaying monsters is slaying the dark things.  Myths grab you somewhere down inside….Myths are infinite in their revelation.”     –  Joseph Campbell in The Power of Myth

I don’t know about you, but when I went through my own personal apocalypse there didn’t seem to be any God, or universal being around to help me. I was by myself.

I felt like a stumbling zombie whose existence was being trapped in some unfamiliar maze where nobody was in charge.  I lacked all resources to find my way out.  If you’re a fan of the AMC TV series, The Walking Dead, and you watched Season 4, then you will remember the Governor (David Morrissey) stumbling mindlessly along the highway as he helplessly ignored all threats of flesh eating rotters.  I don’t know what you’ve been through, or where you are now, but this is how my life was going in 2009.

On a more positive note, imagine a vast flat plain before you.  You can see all the way to the horizon where the sun is setting on your life.  Your forward thinking vision can see your future accomplishments on pedestals between you and the horizon.  Some are low, some are high.  They are all spread out, but you notice a very complicated system of pathways that connect the different pedestals, and when you look down you can see the pathway beneath your feet.  You can look a little ahead and see all of the different forks and curves, highways and goat paths.  You ponder the infinitesimal decisions you have before you.  If you look closer to one of those pedestals containing an accomplishment, you will notice that there are numerous pathways to it.  But, there is no ONE WAY.

Some of those paths are easier to transverse than others, some more direct, some more scenic, and some that are all uphill.  The point is that no matter what you your goals are in life, there is no ONE WAY to get there.  You can choose how you arrive!  You can do it through reading books, attending seminars, belonging to a particular religious practice, or spiritual practice, and by just plain hard work.  You can seek guides to help you get there quicker and easier, or you can hike it alone.

I am sharing my experience about how I got through my apocalypse, but you may have a different way you approached yours.  Both ways are valid.  There is no ONE WAY. When you are facing challenges in your life, it may take more than one approach to solve it.  It is like medication- taking two different pills may not work on their own individually, but when it is combined with another one, the combination can work fantastically. Also, one approach does not work for everyone. You can find strength, healing, and even a mentor in many different places- a church, an ashram, a meditation group, or even a yoga class.  Like medications, one pill does not work with everyone, because we are all different.  Our DNA is different, our individual needs are different, and therefore the treatment can be different for different people.

Through my trials and subsequent struggles to rise above survival, I became aware of a philosophy that helped me understand where I was in this mess.   I came to see life as one where we are all humans born into a weird 3D rat maze out of no choice of our own.  At times, we may find ourselves in the midst of life seeing ourselves trapped in the rotten flesh of a bumbling zombie, only capable of lumbering forward to a piece of meat.

I believe we are put into life’s maze with different attributes, elements, characteristics, personalities, and abilities to survive.  We are born into different locations, with different histories and influences.  We all make unique choices as we navigate the maze, and we all end up in circumstances that we’re not always comfortable with.  We are given no specific instructions other than our own instincts, but must learn how to find some elusive cheese.

When I was growing up this elusive cheese was referred to as the American Dream.  Wikipedia describes it as, “….a national ethos of the United States, a set of ideals in which freedom includes the opportunity for prosperity and success, and an upward social mobility for the family and children, achieved through hard work in a society with few barriers.  Author James Truslow Adams in 1931 wrote, “life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement regardless of social class or circumstances of birth.”

Campbell says, “Psychologically, the dragon is one’s own binding of oneself to one’s ego.  We’re captured in our own dragon cage.  The problem of the psychiatrist is to disintegrate that dragon, break him up, so that you may expand to a larger field of relationships.  The ultimate dragon is within you, it is your ego clamping you down”.

My perspective is that the Maze is an archetype in itself, and that it engulfs every human on earth.  According to one definition from Wikipedia, “an archetype is a collectively-inherited unconscious idea, pattern of thought, image, etc., that is universally present in individual psyches, as in Jungian psychology.”  In my perception, our lives play out within a complex maze.  Life, hits us in the face everyday, whether we like it or not.  The oncoming obstacles within the maze can present a puzzling dilemma of great uncertainty for you.  At times it feels like you’re searching for a dangerous monster, or on a hopeless journey into the heart of darkness.  The type of maze I wish for you is not such a dark place; it is a maze in which we are searching for the sweetest cheese we have ever tasted.  It can be a quest of gargantuan proportions.  It can be a triumphant march to heroism!