by Richard Stromer, Ph.D.
Introducing Faith in the Journey
Welcome to Faith in the Journey, a website on the mythic perspective, archetypal consciousness, and the search for wisdom. The writings offered on this website reflect on a deep and abiding appreciation for what Joseph Campbell so rightly called “the power of myth.” My encounters with Campbell, C. G. Jung, and a host of other teachers of myth and archetype have given me a perspective that feels as contemporary as it is timeless, as ever-changing as it is perennial, and as personal as it is universal. Engaging the myths of many times and places has deepened and refined my understanding of the mythic nature of our own stories in ways that are both profound and life-altering. In my own case, the lure of myth was so powerful that it led me to doctoral studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute, the home of the Joseph Campbell Library and Archives, and to my current work in the field of personal mythology.
On this website, I will be offering observations and reflections on a wide range of mythic, archetypal, and symbolic themes. As readers of this website will soon discover, these three—myth, archetype, and symbol—are interwoven in ways both obvious and mysterious. At their core, myths are stories that are both archetypal and symbolic. An understanding of archetype helps us to appreciate the underlying patterns and energies of mythic characters and themes, while symbolic consciousness provides us with potent images and metaphors that reveal and illuminate the presence of archetypal material.
The basic concerns of the human condition—such as growing up and making our way in the world, finding love, exercising power, growing old, and facing the mystery of death—are the same as those faced by our ancestors. As a result, sometimes I’ll reflect on great myths of the past, while at other times I’ll consider the mythic nature of what’s happening today. It’s actually hard to do one without the other in any case, as both reflect the same archetypal reality. After all, as a host of great thinkers and writers have reminded us, “Myths are about things that never were, yet always are.”
Among the mythic and archetypal themes most central to my life and my work are the perennial and primordial metaphors of the Journey. For countless generations, storytellers have described life as a symbolic Journey, beginning with the mystery of our birth and ending with the mystery of our death. In between these two great mysteries, we encounter all manner of experience that we weave into an ever-unfolding narrative, adding new chapters to what always remains an imperfect and unfinished account of our travels.
One reason the image of the Journey is so time-honored and universal in its appeal is its ability to evoke in us a sense of the never-ending process by which we humans evolve over the course of a lifetime. Another reason for the popularity of the Journey as a metaphor for life is that there are so many varieties that one can tell stories about, from vision quests out into the wilderness to pilgrimages undertaken to far-away holy places, and from voyages of discovery to the edge of the unknown to flights of imagination into realms we can only dream of.
Of all the versions of the Journey we can encounter in stories, however, I think the most powerful, most evocative one is that of the Quest. The Quest is a special kind of Journey in search of something uniquely powerful, magical, mysterious, difficult, and often dangerous to seek, and, above all, profoundly precious. Perhaps this is why the metaphor of the Quest is uniquely suited to symbolize the human search for that which is greater, higher, and deeper than our everyday consciousness. The treasure we seek to find on our Quest can take many forms and be called by many names: wisdom, enlightenment, spirit, essence, harmony, unconditional love, and God, to name but a few.
So, once again, welcome to Faith in the Journey. Whether a Quest in search of a grail of wisdom and renewed life, an initiation from one stage of life to another, or a pilgrimage to whatever is most holy for us, the Journey is why we are here. I hope you will find our travels together through the realm of myth and archetype both enlightening and enjoyable!