Mountain King

In the hall of the Mountain King you must fight the demons, unless you choose to be turned into a cardboard cutout of yourself, and go to sleep. When you wake yourself up, there will still be demons to fight.

So goes the only story on earth.

We are all called to step forward to take our natural places in the world. And if we do, we receive magic. But with the magic we have to fight demons - the demons of torpor and anger, of resistance and fear, of danger, uncertainty and the unknown. Or we can choose to sleep.

If we choose to sleep, we lose the magic and join the queue of the ordinary and turn back into our everyday selves, until we decide to wake again.

This is the only story for humans on earth, because it's the story of the hero's journey. All stories - from Star Trek to Spongebob to Mission Impossible to Brokeback Mountain are the same story. Anyone who tries to write outside of the hero's journey writes a book that won't sell.

The hero's journey is the walk we all take. If you're awake and fighting, joy to those around you. Zap that demon!

In the end, we become the Mountain King. Because his cave is the cave of our hearts, and the demons are places of our darkness, waiting for transformation. Each demon transformed becomes a new magical tool, until we become king over all the demons, the Mountain King himself. We also become the Mountain, and the hero's companion (Dr Spock, Patrick, That Pretty Girl with Tom Cruise) supporting others on their fights to become wholly themselves.

We can continue to pursue our dreams and fight obstacles or we can go back to sleep, to the safe life of errands, to-do lists, and live without a vision. Safety's price is torpor, and the reward of safety is uncertainty.

The vision's price is energy and uncertainty and the fighting of 'demons' - internal and logistical. But the reward of the vision is magic and accomplishment, true security arising from a core of internal peace, and the view from the mountain.