Following is a short description of the stages of the Pain Artists Journey. There may be several classes for each stage.
Ordinary World
The person's ordinary life has a routine and a rhythm. The person's life has focus.
The Call to Evolve
The call to evolve is the point in a person's life when they are first given notice that everything is going to change, whether they know it or not. This could be the result of an accident or illness.
Refusal of the Call
Often when the call is given, the future hero refuses to heed it. The sufferer usually starts making the rounds of doctors and healers trying everything to escape the pain.
Spiritual Aid
Once you have committed to the quest, consciously or unconsciously, your spiritual guide and magical helper appears, or becomes known. The Pain Artists group could be the helper.
Crossing of the First Threshold
This is the point where you actually cross into the field of adventure, leaving the known limits of your world and venturing into an unknown and dangerous realm where the rules and limits are not known.
The Abyss
The abyss represents the final separation from your known world and self. It is sometimes described as the person's lowest point - this is the point when you accept that your pain will not allow your life to go ahead as it normally has. This is actually the point when the person is between or transitioning between worlds and selves. The separation has been made, or is being made, or being fully recognized between the old world and old self and the potential for a new world/self. The experiences that will shape the new world and self will begin shortly, or may be beginning with this experience which is often symbolized by something dark, unknown and frightening. By entering this stage, the person shows their willingness to undergo a metamorphosis, to die to his or her old life.
The Road of Trials
The road of trials is a series of tests, tasks, or ordeals that you must undergo in an effort to control the pain. Often these tests, and tasks fail to improve the pain condition and leave the sufferer with the need to find a new focus and purpose in life which must include the chronic pain.
Temptations & Sirens
At one level, this step is about those temptations such as drugs and addictions that distract you from your pain, but at another level these temptations will ultimately also destroy you.
The Dark Night of the Soul
In this step you must confront and be initiated by whatever holds the ultimate power in your life. Often for chronic pain sufferers this is when they contemplate suicide. This is the center point of the journey. All the previous steps have been moving in to this place, all that follow will move out from it. Although this step is frequently symbolized by an encounter with death. For the necessary transformation to take place, the person as he or she has been must be "killed" so that the new self can come into being. Sometime this death is literal, and the earthly journey for that person is either over or moves into a different realm.
The Ultimate Prize
The ultimate prize is the achievement of the goal of the quest. It is the understanding and purpose beyond this earthly plane. All the previous steps serve to prepare and purify you for this step, since in many myths the prize is something transcendent it may be a deep understanding of the soul purpose for your pain. An understanding that allows you to transcend your pain.
Hermitage
When someone dies a physical death, or dies to the self to live in spirit, he or she moves beyond the pairs of opposites to a state of divine knowledge, love, compassion and bliss. This is a god-like state; the person is in heaven and beyond all strife. If you survived physical death this step is a period of rest, peace and fulfillment before the hero begins the return.
The Call to Return
For one who suffered a physical death the call to return is a call to reincarnate. For the person who survived that physical death and achieved the ultimate prize it is the call to return to one's people and share the prize with them; to help others who are suffering.
The Road Back
The trick in returning is to retain the wisdom gained on the quest, to integrate that wisdom into a human life, and then maybe figure out how to share the wisdom with the rest of the world. This is usually extremely difficult.
Be Here Now - Integration
In myth, this step is usually represented by a transcendental hero like Jesus or Buddha. For a human hero, it may mean achieving a balance between the material world of pain and spiritual. The person has become comfortable and competent in both the inner and outer worlds. Mastery leads to freedom from the fear of death, which in turn is the freedom to live. This is sometimes referred to as living in the moment, neither anticipating the future nor regretting the past.
