the hero's journey

Shifting into a new house is quite a journey. Especially when it’s your first home that you have made all by yourself. A very interesting thing happened. Jispa for the first time was to sleep all by herself in a separate room. I thought it’s a big thing for her since she’s only around four and a half. She seemed quite enthused. I gave a long set of instructions, where is the bathroom, where we kept her water, where to find us (one room away!), which light will remain on, and all. I think it was a small step in her hero’s journey. She also had her very own terracotta army (see picture of her ten Ganesha’s) to help her along the journey. But I realized something very important. The step was as much her step on her journey as it was mine on my journey. It was a step towards me letting her on her own. A cutting of a symbolic fraternal umbilical cord of sorts. And the cord was mine to let go, not hers! I slept bad, constantly thinking about how she would cope. I checked a few times if she was likely to fall off. I think she too was a bit taken in by her first brush. She woke me thrice – one for water getting over, one for getting hungry (luckily there was an apple) and once for mosquito biting. She normally does not wake up like this. At night (or early morning, I don’t know) while I was feeding her the apple she told me that she went to pee by herself as well and the subtle idea being that she did not wake me up for that. Hmmmmm, as Joseph Campbell said you have to lose your one state (die) and resurrect into another to complete one leg of the hero’s journey. Today, I think she died an infant and has been resurrected a child. I died one stage of fatherhood and have been resurrected another. The journey continues…