Actual pictures of me often differ from what I look like in my mind’s eye where I am younger, thinner, and have an actual waist. Maybe that’s why I was drawn to William Davis’s Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health on the bottom of the shelf at Target yesterday. Frankly, I’m surprised I could see it over my belly:-)
Blurred selfie. ©D.L. Ewbank
The Writer’s Journey: Mythic structure for storytellers & screenwriters
George Lucas, creator of Star Wars, says he was influenced by myth expert Joseph Campbell, author of The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Other screenwriters and filmmakers followed suit.
The help Lucas found through Campbell came to mind as I struggled with how to tell one of my personal stories. I turned to Campbell through Christopher Vogler’s Writer’s Journey which draws heavily on Campbell’s work. In the hero’s journey one can expect, at the least, a call to adventure, trials, a supreme ordeal, and a return.
Myth and the hero’s journey aren’t the only forms a story can take. And not everyone appreciates Campbell’s thought. But when your story fits the hero’s journey, Campbell’s thought is an extremely useful tool.
Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be.
Gentian (gentiana clusii) growing in the Austrian Alps. ©iStockphoto/Pferd
The flowers I planted wouldn’t bloom before we left Vogelweh, Germany, to return to the United States. Two brothers that were my playmates feared I would be disappointed. They bought flowers, stuck them in the ground, then came to get me so I could pick them. Then they handed me a small package. Inside was a beautiful purple gentian (gentian clusii) pin to help me “remember the flowers of Germany.”
I never saw these military family boys again. The pin broke, then was stolen. But memory of hearts so kind they would plant flowers to avoid disappointment for a six-year-old girl hasn’t faded.
