“I certainly think Star Trek is an example of a science-fiction franchise that at its heart really possesses a sense of optimism and faith in humanity and I think those are things that are never more relevant than they are today.” –Zachary Quinto
Here we are in the final stages of the heroic journey and the problem is that we have passed the new incarnation of James Kirk. No doubt there will be more stories in this new series, but for now I will have to get creative when it comes to providing you with examples. Luckily, there are many other stories about Kirk to draw from. I’m going to use the movie Star Trek Generations to help me. Being circa 1994, it may seem outdated and those of you who have seen it will have to dig deep into your memory banks, but it has the pieces I need. I’ll be as clear as possible. These are the trickiest steps, yet. Make sure you haven’t missed Part One and Part Two of this series.
Return – 1. Refusal of the Return
Once the heroic quest has been accomplished, what remains is for the hero to return to the real world with his prize. Whether he has attained enlightenment, or has rescued the princess, or found the Holy Grail, it is then up to him to bring his trophy back and share it with the world. As in the beginning, when the hero didn’t want to leave his childhood sphere of relationships and connections, he doesn’t always want to leave the bliss found in the presence of grace. It’s a nice place and it is difficult to leave by choice.
Example: In Star Trek Generations, Kirk finds himself in a place called The Nexus. Guinan describes the Nexus to Picard as:
“Like being inside joy, as if joy was something tangible and you could wrap yourself up in it like a blanket. And never in my entire life have I ever been as content… None of us wanted to go. And I would have done anything, anything, to get back there… If you go, you’re not going to care about anything, not this ship, not Soren, not me, nothing. All you’ll want is to stay in the Nexus; you’re not going to want to come back.”
It is a place where the mind has the power to grant any desire and command time. It is the bliss place and while Kirk is there, he does not want to leave. He sees the chance to live his life over again and do everything differently. When Captain Picard seeks out his help, Kirk refuses to return to the real world with him.
Return – 2. The Magic Flight
If the hero does decide to return to the world, there are two ways it can go. One, he has the blessing of the gods. They have specifically commissioned him to take their grace back to the world and share it with humanity. In that case, his return is supported by all the supernatural forces and goes swimmingly. Or, if the hero has stolen his prize or tricked it from the grasp of the gods, then the return can look like a great chase scene. The hero tosses obstacles behind him to delay his pursuers. His allies attempt to block the path and give him a greater lead. We’ve all seen this play out. But the truth of the monomyth is this: to fulfill its promise, not human failure or superhuman success but human success is what we have to be shown.
Example: Let’s go back to the new film for a moment and consider the red matter as the divine grace our hero steals. Kirk teams up with Spock to steal the ship with the red matter and destroy the Nerada’s drill that threatens Earth. Then Spock flies off, leading the enemy ship to the Enterprise, while Kirk is rescuing Captain Pike—they all beam to safety. The Enterprise destroys the missiles aimed at Spock, he crashes the ship into the Nerada and thus a black hole is created which destroys the “supernatural” enemy. A very magic flight.
Spock In Magical Flight
Return – 3. Rescue from Without
But what happens if the hero maintains the refusal of stage one? Someone has to go get him. The journey is not complete until the hero re-enters, with his boon, “the long-forgotten atmosphere where men who are fractions imagine themselves to be complete.” He has to confront society with his elixir of enlightenment; he has to take the blow of people’s questions and resentment and inability to understand. If he refuses to do so, then the supernatural forces that have been helping him all along, will come to rescue him and set him back on his path.
Example: We’re going back to the Kirk in The Nexus (I apologize for the back and forth—I trust you can keep up). Kirk is enjoying the power of fulfilling all his desires, fixing his mistakes, healing his regrets. He doesn’t want to go back to the world where his life is coming to an end, where his glory days are past. But Picard needs his help. Picard persuades him to come back and make a difference in the world again. He persuades him to put himself at risk again to make the world a better place and save millions of lives, 230 million lives.
Kirk and Picard in The Nexus
Return – 4. The Crossing of the Return Threshold
Ah, another one of those thresholds! I’ll let Joseph explain this one:
“The two worlds, the divine and the human, can be pictured only as distinct from each other—different as life and death, as day and night. Nevertheless—and here is a great key to the understanding of myth and symbol—the two kingdoms are actually one. The realm of the gods is a forgotten dimension of the world we know. And the exploration of that dimension, either willingly or unwillingly, is the whole sense of the deed of the hero. There must always remain, however, from the standpoint of normal waking consciousness, a certain baffling inconsistency between the wisdom brought forth from the deep, and the prudence usually found to be effective in the light world. The boon brought from the transcendent deep becomes quickly rationalized into nonentity, and the need becomes great for another hero to refresh the word. How teach again, however, what has been taught correctly and incorrectly learned a thousand thousand times, throughout the millenniums of mankind’s prudent folly? That is the hero’s ultimate difficult task. The first problem of the returning hero is to accept as real, after an experience of the soul-satisfying vision of fulfillment, the passing joys and sorrows, banalities and noisy obscenities of life. The returning hero, to complete his adventure, must survive the impact of the world.”
I think the last few lines are the most important to understand. There have been heroes making this journey throughout time. We know of some and not of others. But they come back and try to tell us what is true about ourselves. They try to tell us that we are all capable of this journey, that we all have this potential within ourselves—and we close our ears and ignore them. Most of us cannot accept that as possible. We call it myth. We put it on a big screen and call it a movie. We put it in a book and call it fiction. And then we ignore it as irrelevant to our own lives. That is our mistake.
Example: In the film, there is an energy ribbon that travels through the universe that acts as a doorway to the Nexus. This is the threshold Picard and Kirk must cross to return to the world. The Nexus also allows them to choose which moment to return to, so they are both masters of crossing space and time.
Threshold
Return – 5. Master of the Two Worlds
The hero has been blessed with a new perspective. He has seen beyond the scope of normal human destiny and been granted an awareness of the essential nature of the cosmos. His personal fate is now only part of the fate of mankind, the fate of life, the solar system, the atom. All of this knowledge has opened to him. He transcends personal ambition and stops resisting whatever may come to pass. He accepts the truth that there is nothing to gain or fear because all things are one. If that’s hard to grasp, consider this metaphor: just as an actor is always a man, whether he puts on the costume of his role or lays it aside, so is the perfect knower of the Imperishable always the Imperishable, and nothing else. That is the hero, whether in the state of perfect enlightenment or not, he remains at one with the imperishable force. The truth is that we are all at one with that force, we just don’t know it.
Example: After successfully returning from the Nexus and saving part of the galaxy, Picard ruminates on time with his first officer.
Captain Picard: Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives, but I rather believe that time is a companion that goes with us on the journey, reminds us to cherish every moment, because they’ll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we’ve lived. After all, Number One, we’re only mortal.
Commander Riker: Speak for yourself, sir. I plan to live forever.
Return – 6. Freedom to Live
The goal of the myth is to reconcile the individual consciousness with the universal will (The Force). Once the hero has completed his journey, he is able to recognize his own relationship with the passing phenomena of time and the imperishable life that is within everything. As Joseph says:
“The Self cannot be cut nor burnt nor wetted nor withered. Eternal, all-pervading, unchanging, immovable, the Self is the same for ever. The hero is the champion of things becoming, not of things become, because he is.”
It is tricky to explain these last pieces. They are deeply spiritual states of being that I certainly have not achieved myself. I have not passed beyond my own attachments to this world of duality where life and death are different things. I perceive change everyday. But the hero is beyond thoughts of permanence or attachment. He does not fear change or loss. He knows that nothing retains its form forever. Nature, the great renewer, is always making up forms from forms. Nothing perishes, it simply varies and renews its form. That is the lesson.
In the broad sense, what does it mean that we have “rebooted” the series? Our vision of time and events is altered because the mythology continues to grow and change. What came before is intact for all who experienced it and it is there for anyone who wishes to experience it in the future. But the great thing about mythological heroes is that they vary and renew their forms to teach us yet again what has been taught a thousand times. We see Kirk die to this world twice in Generations. But he lives again! The lessons transcend time and space. The stories are meant to grow and change as we do. Long live Star Trek!
Our Hero
Promethean Fields 