The Hero’s Silent Tale

Here at MFL we’re into the height of holiday revelry, and assuming most of you are, too. This isn’t a good time for long-winded treatises (unless you need help getting to sleep — if that’s so, visit the article page at Metaphors For Life to print out some draughtier reading material). It is, however, a pretty good time to share some more about life, this time in holiday metaphor.

I took some time the other night to contemplate the huge dying evergreen in our living room, ornamented and bedecked with golden garlands, tiny lights twinkling against the dying of the greater light just outside my front door. There is a respectable pile of wrapped gifts beneath it, which is something of a novelty for us — time have been hard enough the past three years that gifts under the tree were a seldom thing. There’s a new star atop it this year, golden mesh and light, a necessary change from the plastic lighted angel-doll that my sons were so fond of as they grew. It’s missing the ornaments that belong to my elder son, who has a home of his own now, but it’s still very much an expression of our family and its evolving values.

The more I stared at it, the more it became overlaid with a majesty I hadn’t anticipated. It shoulders the weight of all that gilt and
tinsel with dignity, and holds up that beacon of hope and light at the top as if it were indeed the last glimmer of light in the encroaching darkness. Even though it’s dying, it still stands in my home as a representation of the light that eternally returns, giving the last of its essence to share that with us and the world.

We need the light so badly. We always do. Our tree this year, for me, is a living reminder of the Hero archetype, of sacrifice, and how necessary it is to give of myself for some greater purpose. How, in fact, to give and give and give even when I think there’s nothing left of me, until I reach down into the deeper place and find something of myself I never knew was there — something that will outlast me. Something that will endure.

One layer of meaning for “eternal life,” there. May each and every one of you find the deeper meanings and make them part of your
enduring spirit.

Quote of the Day:…the myth of eternal return states that a life which disappears once and for all, which does not return, is like a shadow, without weight, dead in advance, and whether it was horrible, beautiful, or sublime, its horror, sublimity, and beauty mean nothing.
— Milan Kundera
Metaphors For Life’s website