*The trials of Odysseus can be read not merely as mythic adventures, but as symbolic representations of the psychic and moral ordeals faced by those returning from war. Read this way, The Odyssey becomes neither entertainment nor religious doctrine, but a map of reintegration: a language through which the veteran may recognize dissociation, guilt, rage, temptation, alienation, and the difficulty of returning home as human again. *Homecoming is not a sentimental restoration. It is often a confrontation with the fact that both the veteran and the home have changed *The trials do not merely represent “symptoms.” They represent stages of distortion in the human person after prolonged exposure to death, fear, power, and loss. *The clinical frame is necessary, but incomplete. It can name the disorder; it cannot by itself restore narrative dignity. Myth does not replace treatment, but it can restore significance to suffering that bureaucracy can only classify. *For some veterans, inherited religious language no longer mediates their experience. It may feel sentimental, moralizing, abstract, or incapable of containing the reality of war. In such cases, older heroic and tragic patterns may provide a more immediate symbolic grammar for what the soul has endured. *The veteran does not need to be told merely that he is sick, nor merely that he should believe harder, nor merely that he qualifies under the proper administrative code. He needs a pattern vast enough to contain terror, guilt, estrangement, endurance, temptation, and return. The Odyssey offers such a pattern. Its trials name, in symbolic form, what modern language often flattens: that coming home from war is not a logistical event, but a spiritual, moral, psychological, and relational ordeal. *To return from war is not merely to survive it. It is to pass through a long disordered interval in which the self may become estranged from home, from others, and from its own former image. In Odysseus, the ancient world preserved a pattern for this ordeal: the lure of forgetting, the temptation of brutality, the humiliation of degradation, the torment of the dead, the pull of self-destruction, the burden of impossible choices, and the final, fragile labor of re-entry. Such a pattern does not replace medicine, faith, or institutional support. But where these fail to fully speak, myth may still speak truly. It may tell the returning warrior that he is not only damaged, and not only lost, but engaged in the oldest of human struggles: to come home alive, and then to become human again.

The divine solar and all of it’s variants have provided purpose, guidance, and direction for so long on this world we take it for granted. My Grandfather once told me that if there was anything that powered what was going on in this world of ours it would be the sun. From Apollo steering chariot of the Sun across the heavens, Helios also, as well as Sunna doing the same in the North, to the Buddha being “The Light of Asia”, The Divine aspect of the Sun cannot be celebrated enough. Ameratsu, Surya, Huitzilopochtli, Dazbog all spent their days illuminating the lives of man. Such a grand idea we can hardly encompass the whole of it. Yet my favorite memories bring a taste of such a grand idea. I remember how the sunlight would filter thru the canopy of magnificent pecan trees in the afternoon. The memory of the sunlight manifestings as rays because of the dust in thr air are almost magical to me. I spent more than a little while on several occasions just admiring the beauty of the golden glow. And when we made it back to the house, a piece of that fire was inside. A warm fire or a fragrant candle delighted the senses. Not to mention the fires of the cookstove that made young bellies rumble. Jesus took all of those concepts and pronounced that he was the light of the world. What ever the case may be it seems that the fairest gift to man was to share the light of life. Even after death there are torches. Such as the one of Hecate who lights the way thru dark places. And our ancestors whose cumulative light the Norse know as the rune Kenaz. Yes, there is always a light. That glimmer of hope in dark times, that shimmer of life that bathes everything in its realm with a gift. It is said that the love of the divine is no more selective that the light of the sun. At some, perhaps primal level, we know this. It is why we carried the seed of the wildfire and all of it’s destruction into our homes to help us along. To cook, to see, and to remember in the cold winter what the summer feels like.

Most people have something they hold on too that they feel offers them an identity of sorts. Something they have been thru that they feel makes them who they are. All the things that have happened to us. The bad have a tendency to out weigh the good for some reason. Simply put it usually runs along these lines “I have lost something, some part of myself, been hurt, and that shapes me as a person”. We will develop “coping mechanisms” for when it happens again. A typical response to pain. ie.That’s burns because it is hot so I wont touch it. Now this is a good an natural response for our existence in the world. And yet I know that there are some on us who have relished the idea of being punched in the face. I being tied up in a knot. Or pushing ourselves in some kind of trining until we puke. We absolutely know that if we are sparring we will get popped in the mouth. We like it so much we PAY for the opportunity to get better at it. Why don’t we do that with affairs of the heart? It is true that right up there with a toothache is the pain of broken heart. Both are as terrifying as the remedy. Sitting in a dentists chair getting root canal or getting pulled and it aint never numb enough. It seems when we lose someone we can’t numb that pain either. They may have passed on or they may have found someone new. And we are left, sitting there, alone. Everyone now knows that we were not good enough for whatever reason. Ask someone who has been divorced for 10 or 20 years and you will see how long we carry such nonsense around. Well, it is no wonder we protect ourselves. These kinds of things are ridiculously painful. And yet the best part of life cannot be examined from inside the cell of our wall. Everyone “knows” this but their best efforts are stymied by the remembrance of the bad times. What do I become if I let go of this thing that has become a part of the definition of “me”. It is something you can’t even imagine. I would submit to you that the best part of life is on the other side of that obstacle.

Our history books are filled with one type of man. Those who educated themselves to such an extent they made a difference in the annals of history. There are thousands of mummies in Egypt of average people. Very few know their names. Yet we all know the names of the warriors and scholars that redrew the lines of the maps of the world in which they lived. They had made themselves worthy of such considerations because they could read. The built their minds and bodies as gifts to the gods from which tye believed life originated. There is a reason the church performed all of it’s rituals in Latin. The average man or woman could not read Latin. They had no idea if what the priest was telling them was true or not. History books are filled with the corruption of such powerful men. Legend has it that it was the Egyptian god Thoth who created writing or, as the Egyptians called it, medu netjer “the words of the gods” (this is what we refer to as hieroglyphics, after the Greek ἱερός “holy” and γλύφω “to carve”). The wealthiest people today are all avid readers. They say that one good idea is worth a million dollars. Apparently so. But we should understand the context of such a powerful tool. When Thoth created writing and offered as a gift the response was not positive. For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will, therefore, seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with since they are not wise, but only appear wise. There is a reason that the Masonic Blue Lodge still transfers it’s knowledge from mentor ot pupil via memorization.

Life is a great school of living experience for a spiritual being existing as a mortal instrument. We have every day the opportunity to scale the tree of the universe or to dig around in the roots. Both have advantages and disadvantages. One must consider that neither one can exist without the other. Direct opposites of efficiency. Of efficient consumption and the generation of waste. Life abounds at each end of the spectrum of the activities of life. All are very much reliant upon each other to do so. And yet we would ingnore the exploration of such things. Look at what time and history have shown us. That great men and women have always gathered together to discuss our part in the known and unknown aspects of the universe. Of our interaction with the adjacent realms of reality. Of our ability to build nations, empires, and relationships. One could probably very safely assume that every TV News anchor considers themselves a modern day spokesperson for the leader of the ancient discussions Riding on the shoulders of men achieving true advancements in society while never truly producing anything other than perfect teeth and righteous indignation And the masses buy it. By and large, they consume this product believing it to be on par with the groups of men and women who spoke of ancient gods, high ideas of liberty, and the workings of the universe. It would be a shame indeed were we to loose these discussions of high intellect and moral courage. The return to tribes and the rebuilding of families is a natural expression of this innate and very positive force for life. The nuclear family (grow up, go to college, get a job, get out of the house), the war on poverty, the war on drugs, the social revolution of the late 60’s has left us alone, dependent on others who do not have our best interest at heart and yearning for connection. Wait a minute! Hold the phones! Let’s build an internet. The same way the Dawes Commission kept the tribal members that finished the Trail of Tears from regathering, the same thing is happening to us.