the heroine's journey
reporting live from the belly of the beast
it takes guts to become who you aspire to be. aspiration is one thing, reality another, and commitment its own universe. i genuinely believe god would like to see everyone develop into their most actualized self, but sometimes it’s not a question of god but our willingness to endure, and survive, the heroine’s journey.
coming from the field of folklore and mythology, the heroine’s journey is the female version of the hero’s journey. it’s formulaic in that it always begins with a call to adventure and the storybook always ends with the heroine returning back to the world, transformed from having slayed the monster and saved the day. in film, we call her the final girl.
the heroine’s journey:
call to adventure → supernatural aid → cross the threshold into the unknown → mentors / helpers → trials → revelation → transformation → atonement → return from the unknown → return to a normal life
the final girl is the woman left to tell the story. often, she’s the only one who actually survived the ordeal. the ordeal doesn’t have to be anything particularly disastrous, just a situation that was unwelcomed. after all, who enjoys suffering for suffering’s sake? ask me, our suffering should mean something. it should be a means, never an end. a requirement only if the goal is fitting (e.g., doing the grunt work necessary to achieve our dreams).
graphically, the heroine’s journey is represented as a circle. the symbolism here brings to mind my favorite motif and the official one of diary of a diouana woman: the ouroboros. originating from the ancient greek word that translates to “eating,” the ouroboros depicts a serpent eating its own tail. mythically, this symbol has come to represent the alchemy of renewal: death and rebirth.
when the imagery of the ouroboros is used as an overlay to the circle of the heroine’s journey, it becomes clear the importance of not getting stuck in the belly of the beast. this is because revelation comes after the trials, never before. and transformation always follows revelation, never the trials. this means we must transcend our present circumstances by committing to the universe of consistency; and it’s only in retrospectively understanding what we’ve accomplished, that we’ll find ourselves having become a brand woman. with this, the next phase of the heroine’s journey begins.
this cannot happen if we allow ourselves to remain in the belly of the beast for no good reason. historically, i have found myself trapped in never-ending-loops of my own making. my heart breaking each time my boulder rolled back down the hill, usually propelled by the winds of self sabotage. however, just like sisyphus, i gathered my dreams, desires, and desperations into that familiar boulder and went right back up the hill. why? because it’s never about how you start, but how you finish.
in deciding to devour my fears, to eat the serpent’s tail as oppose to choked by it, i was able to put a stop to those never-ending-loops. the only evidence of their existence remain the lessons learned. and my, what fine lessons they are.
the principle of these lessons is that hunger is a virtue for women. so, go on, devour your fears.
sweet dreams,
a diouana woman