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    When I first saw the definition of the rescue from without as “saved from as state of helplessness or bliss” I thought of that of a drug addict. I could not relate to this, having not ever been addicted to drugs myself, but I kind of understood because I have had friends that have been addicted to drugs.

Then I looked at this in the context of the hero’s journey since a drug addict it rarely seen as a hero. The only example from our readings that really stood out to me was Siddhartha. Like the life of the Buddah, Siddhartha spent his journey trying to achieve nirvana. Once his journey was over and he achieved nirvana, he did not return home. He stayed at the river in a state of bliss after achieving nirvana.

    On the third stage of the heroes journey that we are now learning, the first phase is the refusal of the return. This occurs when the hero completes his quest, but does not want to return home. Instead he/she wants to stay in the new world that is a result of his/her journey. Another case may be that the hero will not think back on the journey and understand what he/she has learned.

An example of the refusal of the return from our reading that our group thoroughly discussed was Siddhartha. Siddhartha’s journey was similar to the Buddhas, in that they were both trying to achieve nirvana. Once nirvana is attained the heroes refuse to return to an un-enlightened state of being. They also refuse to go back and teach others their path that they took to enlightenment.

In my life I have also experienced the ‘refusal of the return’ many times. The last time I experienced it was on winter break when I went on a cruise with my family. The cruise went all over the Carribeans/Mexico and was very fun and relaxing. I ‘refused to return’ in that I did not want the vacation to end and have to go home.

    I think it is very important to share knowledge. The knowledge that I have that I could share with the world is eighteen years of experience in this world. I contain knowledge about living in the suburbs growing up just outside of Pittsburgh. I have 12 years of elementary, middle, and high school knowledge. In addition, I have one and a half semesters of knowledge of studying at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

I do both share and do not share my knowledge. I do not share my knowledge when someone does not want to hear it. I also do not share my knowledge if I think it will not help the particular person who may be requesting knowledge.

I do share my knowledge when someone requests it or I think it will benefit someone. Knowledge is something that I think should always be shared these cases. For example, look at the internet. The internet was founded on knowledge and allows us to spread knowledge instantly all across the world. Without the internet we would in no way be as advanced as we are today, especially in technology.

In my life I have experienced many apotheoses. One achieves an apotheosis when they experience a realization about purpose of live and self. This, in effect, expands the hero’s consciousness. After this achievement, the hero views the world as a completely different place.

The one major recent apotheosis I had was becoming an adult. For four years I went to high school at Upper St. Clair High School in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. For those four years I was supposed to feel older being in high school, but didn’t. I was not able to drive until my junior year, and did not have a car until my senior year. Even if I did have a car, there was not a lot to do in the suburbs and I still felt like a kid living with his parents.

The worst was at school though, we had the same things we had in middle school. ‘Home room’ to check-in in the morning, which was ten minutes of wasted time. I also had mandatory classes with harsh penalties if you skipped, and other simple responsibilities that were never given to the students that were supposed to be the oldest students in the school district.

This all changed though when I came to IUP. I am now an adult living and working on my own how I had wanted it. In this world I go to my classes, eat, and handle all of my responsibilities on my own. Here there is no ‘detention’ or punishment outside of the law. Here I am my own person and have all of the responsibilities I wanted when I was in high school back home.

    Samsara to me is the path we follow to complete our journey. During our journey we create identities and learn from each of them. A samsara is each new identity or world one enters on his/her journey. On this journey one must go through several samsaras creating, destroying, then creating again another samsara. This pattern continues until the hero reaches his/her goal and no more samsaras are necessary.

Siddhartha is a perfect example of a samsara-er. In his journey he is constantly creating and destroying his different identities/worlds. At first he is a Brahman, rich, nobel, and very respected. He then left this life for that of a Shaman, people that own no material possessions and often fast for weeks on end since they have no food. He observed the world as it was, miserable full of greedy evil people. After talking with the Buddah he saw the world as full of life and joy. He then later experienced a world of love with Kamahla as well as becoming a man of property with Kamaswami. After he realized he was becoming an evil greedy merchant he escaped this life and joined the ferryman ferrying people across the river.

In my life I have also experienced many samsaras. The example Marlen allowed me to realize in class was perfect. I went to elemetary school at Baker Elementary. I went to middle school at Ft. Couch. Then I went to high school at Upper St. Clair. Lastly I enrolled to college at Indiana University. Each one of these experiences were different samsaras that I had to surpass by ending one world/level of education then moving on to the next. Like Siddhartha’s samsaras mine will also end when I have reached the level of education necessary to start a new journey of working for a living.

    Limen is, as defined by Merriam Webster, ” The threshold of a physiological or psychological response.” A limen means to me, by this definition, the moment someone makes a key decision through a physical or mental act. This term is very significant to this English 121 course. Since we are focusing on the hero and his/her journey this term could be used to describe any major decision on a hero’s path.

The heroes we have been reading about semester long have all had several limens. In the beginning of the hero’s journey there limens are such that they decide whether to answer the call or not. The hero must also cross the first threshold to leave home and begin his/her journey. The next phase of the hero’s path is initiation. Here the hero faces the road of trials and is faced with several different limens that will all effect the path of his/her journey.

One good example of a limen is the movie the Butterfly Effect. In this movie a young kid experiences blackouts during key points in his life or limens. During his childhood he also wrote in his journal everyday about what happened in his life. Later in his life he finds out that if he reads his old journals he can go back to those limens where he blacked out and alter the events that happened. He does this to try and make things better, but after altering the past too much things just keep getting worse and worse.

    On the first day in this class we watched youtube videos that were posted on the syllabus. The first one was clips of spiderman to a nickelback song. I thought marlen was now a big spiderman fan or something. It was the first day and we didnt have our blogs so I thought we  were just watching something to entertain us until we started blogging. Then I saw that the next clips were of people like MLK and others. All of them had the hero theme to them. So when I thought of a hero I thought of someone like spiderman saving a girl in distress, but there was a lot more to it than that.

After studying what a hero is with marlen I now have a more specific definition of what a hero is. We learned that all heroes have a journey that they receive a call for. Some hesitate after receiving this call, only to accept it later after “encouragement”. The hero then crosses the first threshold separating him from his home to begin his journey.

Along the journey the hero may experience a road block or certain difficulties that are too big to solve themselves. They are then helped by supernatural aid that can come in many forms. This aid allows them to continue their journey, passing over great obstacles. This is only the beginning of the hero’s journey though. I still have a lot more to learn about the middle and end of the hero’s journey as well as experience the middle and end of mine.

Missing the lecture for this assignment due to Marlen’s illness was bad. I read on his syllabus all about supernatural aid and watched the videos on youtube. From the reading I thought mostly of Star Wars where supernatural aid is used a lot. After watching all three videos I saw a few great examples about supernatural aid, but I thought the first one about Cinderella was the best example.

In the clip Cinderella was faced with a problem that she needed to go to the ball, but she was just a servant that had no transportation or attire. She received supernatural aid from her fairy godmother to get her ready for the ball. The fairy godmother turned a pumpkin into a carriage, rats into horses, a horse into a coachman, and a dog into the footman. In addition, for a grand finale, she turned Cinderella’s rags into a gorgeous dress. The lesson was simple: Without the help of her fairy godmother she could not complete her journey.

As for supernatural aid I’ve experienced, I was not able to think of very many. The only thing I could think of was instead of a fairy godmother helping me through a journey I have my regular mother to help me through most of my journeys. The aid that my mother gives me sometimes must be supernatural, because it is like she is sent from god. I could not imagine having a better person to have when stuck in several journeys and needed aid.

Like the time when I was in high school and was deciding on which college to go to. She helping me apply to all of the colleges I wanted and helped me decide which one would be best. I got into IUP as well as others and she helped me decide that IUP was the best choice for me. So far, I have been loving it and would not have changed my decision for the world. But her aid does not stop there, I talk to her often and just last week I told her I was getting sic, very sick, and it wasn’t going away. She told me to go to Pechan (or whatever the health building is) and everything I should take as well as send me some medicine in case I did not get any. After a couple days I recovered and am good as new to complete my journey all thanks to my supernatural aid.

    In the hero’s journey, after he receives a call, he may initially refuse the call. This includes hesitating to answer the call, seriously considering his options, or just plain cold feet. Eventually the hero answers the call after initially refusing it.

At first when I was thinking of what to write about for this homework assignment I could only think of times I refused calls, but then did not answer them later. One example was joining a fraternity. When I first came to IUP fraternities seemed very appealing to me. When it came time to join one, not a lot of my friends were doing it and I decided not to join or at least wait a semester and think about it. It is possible that I may answer this call later, but as of now I have refused it for good.

So I began thinking more about a call that I refuse, but later accepted. Then it hit me. This assignment. We did not have class on Wednesday due to Marlen’s sickness. So I put this assignment off til later. Refusing the call to do it, and later accepting the call by completing the assignment.