Blog Post 2

The Hero’s Journey into the Bone Forest - Psycho - Spiritual Transformation of the Hero

Crazy Rhythm

After I completed the drawing, “ Crazy Rhythm” I was excited by the prospect of creating a new jungle image in colour based on the drawing. My first intricate “jungle” was born on canvas in the oil painting, “Hero’s Journey I” (1990). In a drumming circle I learned Shamanic “Journeying”, (dreaming in a deep, meditative state, induced by a monotonous drum beat), and received visions in which I was able to interact,(as in lucid dreaming), with spirits.

From the book, “Man and his Symbols”, I learned about Jungian archetypes. I found out that these are “primordial images” within our unconscious. Through instinct they manifest.. “in fantasies, often revealing themselves in symbolic images [which] can vary a great deal in detail without losing their basic pattern”. Man and His symbols

"The archetype concept - Jung writes - derives from the often repeated observation that myths and universal literature stories contain well defined themes which appear every time and everywhere.”
https://www.cajung.net/archetypes.html


Through the observation of ancient animistic myths and rituals in Mexico, South America and Southeast Asia, I had begun to notice a strong connection between these primordial, mythological characters and Jungian archetypes. In 1986 in Indonesia I witnessed shadow puppet plays in which battles between good and evil were played out by archetypal prince, princess, witch and wizard puppets; in Bali I attended performances of archaic spiritual theatre and dance. These plays and dances with moral endings reminded me of my childhood fairy-tales.

In my Shamanic “journey” Hero arrived to the edge of the forest in a boat, guided by a giant raven and a giant moth. I decided to set the archetypal hero into my jungle setting, in the oil painting, ”Hero’s Journey I”,(1990), leaving out the boat with the spirit animals. In the painting, just as in my “journey”, we find Hero at the edge of the forest, symbol of his fear of the unknown, about to enter and embark on an adventure. I reworked the story a number of times - whenever I felt inspired.

Hero’s Journey I

Hero’s Journey into the Bone Forest

During the same year, in a large pencil drawing, titled “Hero’s Journey into the Bone Forest”,  I added from my Lower World Journey the boat with its spiritual passengers, the raven, a messenger of the gods, a daimon, and the moth, a night creature.
Consequently, when I saw, as if projected on a screen, shadowy skeletal hands drifting through the forest, I named the forest ,“Bone Forest”. At the time I didn’t know what these shadows represented; they just gave me a sense of foreboding.

In both the painting and in the drawing I created the drama with Hero and two other archetypal characters, Death and Trickster. My inspirations for “Death” were Ingmar Bergman’s existential film, “The Seventh Seal”, a story of a medieval knight who tries to trick Death through a game of chess into extending his life, and the Death card in the Tarot, a card of transformation. In my drama the roles are reversed; it is Death who is trying to trick my protagonist, the innocent Hero. He is trying to deceive him by letting him believe that the beautiful jungle he sees in front of him is the same all the way through. Hero wants to believe him, but something inside him is sending a signal of warning. He tries to ignore that little voice, chalking it up to fear. He tries to squelch it by telling himself that he’s not afraid, but it keeps nagging him. So he hesitates.

Death appears in front of him and tries to seduce him into entering the forest. Hero is curious to find out, but doesn’t trust that Death is telling him the truth. All the while Trickster or Jester, who is known for revealing what we try to hide, repress, is mocking Hero from the tree, calling him a coward like a school yard bully. The last thing he wants is to be seen as a coward. From the interaction of these three characters I created the myth of the “Hero’s Journey”.

Hero, who is covered with “symbolic war paint” to give him courage, stands at the edge of the jungle, vacillating. The questions we, as the viewers are left with are , “Will hero be taken in by Death and by Trickster’s goading?” ; “What is the forest really like?”; “Is Death trying to hide something from Hero?” and “ What awaits him if he gathers up his courage and enters the forest?” Trickster or Jester who finds human behaviour often funny is amused by Hero’s inner struggle.

Detail: Trickster in the oil painting, “Hero’s Journey I”

Detail: Trickster in pencil drawing, “Hero’s Journey into the Bone Forest”

And finally, who is the fourth character sitting under the tree? I saw him as Hero’s possible future self. He is a kind of super hero archetype with a sad clown face, an armoured and invincible Pierrot. If Hero faced his shadows, dealt with his fear, and his shame intensified by Trickster’s mocking, and entered the forest he would go through a transformation. He would become his own person; others’ opinion of him would no longer hurt him. He would, in a sense become invincible. But having gone through this experience in which he met Death whom he felt he couldn’t trust and Trickster who hurt his feelings, he would no longer be able to see the world through “rose-coloured” glasses. His innocence would be gone. This is a Universal, archaic phenomenon. In 1990 I left the hero’s journey pondering this paradox.