To me, the journey of life is meant to be towards liberation. The only meaningful liberation is the mind being free of its illusions. At that point, all structure is taken on by choice, and your life is self-created.

Life is formless, and we need structure to select our focus and thus our experience. The problem is. we grow attached to the structures that give us identity and meaning. Leaving these behind when life wants to lead us into more brings up resistance, hence suffering. In astrology, this structure-builder in us is referred to as Saturn, who can quickly become what other systems refer to as Satan, still others, Ego. Each implies something within working to keep us from expanding into our wholeness. Ego, our current idea of ourself, needs to maintain the status quo, & uses fear to do so.

I have found we can work out our rites of passage in the arena of self-expression and inward journeying, instead of only in relationship and outer encounter. This is done using a process I will call Archetypal Journeying. Over a period, I will say more, especially as I get questions. Meantime, I'll frame it this way:

The journey (as dramatized in my play, SWEET REMEMBRANCE) is from head to gut to heart. The head is a nice office, but is no place to live. Yet we have been programmed to live in the left-brain rational mind while ignoring the lie lurking beneath. I call it putting Descartes before the horse. Descartes said, centuries ago, "I think, therefore I am," and the scientific-industrial world has made that its mantra. Yet the truth is, "I AM, therefore I think, therefore I feel, therefore I imagine, therefore I co-create." Until we embody this reversal of that false identification with head, no amount of social and political activism can heal the imbalances of the world, because the imbalance is first within. To re-balance, we must first pass through the shadow-realm of the gut, to befriend what is there.

Shadow cleared, we move into the heart by finding the joy of our own Beingness. Something within is waiting to assist. That something can be called on through artistic expression that reports on one's own deepening, and often dream-like, inner experiences, instead of on what appears to be out there. I call this the Rainbow Climb.