Invoking Your Inner Griffin

 The griffin, or gryphon as it was often spelled in the earliest accounts, is a mythological beast with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. It isn't difficult to grasp the symbolism of such a creature: the extraordinary sight of an eagle combined with the strength and courage of a lion. Scholars  believe that this creature was first mentioned by the Greek poet Hesiod in reference to the battle between griffins guarding the king's gold as they battled the Arimaspians, a tribe of one-eyed men in northern Scythia, probably the Carpathians. Still, in other stories, griffins guarded priceless possessions including the green gold of the forests, the trees of which are the archetype of life, and became the unfailing protective superheroes of mythical creatures. No villain could mess with a griffin. Such is the world of mythology.

But does it have to be only mythology?

I'd like to think all people have within them exceptional strength and courage and the ability to see more than they actually allow themselves to see. In moments of desperation we have been known to call upon these qualities, but how often do we trust in our own fortitude enough to call upon the eagle's eye and the lion's courage every day? 

Although we may question, with no small amount of trepidation, going out on a limb and exercising that bravery quivering below the surface, we do have a choice. We can step forward and choose to invoke our inner griffin. This decision isn't based on Jung's personality types, shy introvert or bold extrovert. Surviving difficult times for every one of us requires strength and courage and a clear vision of what is ahead--identifying our own personal truths, if you will, and then facing them head on. We have the skills we need to stand up griffin-like to the difficulties we face. Okay, we're not mythical creatures; we're real human beings with weaknesses. We don't always choose wisely, but often facing the enemy, whatever it is, begins with just making the commitment to change course. That's really where it begins.

For the first time in my life, in the midst of a raging coronavirus pandemic and a politically divided nation, record breaking numbers of people have already voted in the upcoming November 3rd election, and millions have stood in line for hours to cast their votes early; others mailed them or dropped them off in special boxes. This is the kind of commitment effort I'm talking about. People not only voted; they encouraged others to express their democratic rights as citizens as well. Why now? Hope?

Hope moves people to perform extraordinary feats. The goals of striving to become, of taking care of a family, of reaching goals, of living a decent life seem to be not just an American ethos but a universal one.

Myths, legends, fairy tales and general fiction are full of ordinary heroes like us who discover their strengths in time to save the day. William Kent Krueger offers a brilliant example of four vagabond children who do just that in his book This Tender Land. Readers may remember his Ordinary Grace in which a Methodist minister navigates through a murder mystery and the epitome of personal loss to raise his sons and survive tragedy with grace. 

In This Tender Land, four children escape the pitiless, dreadful Lincoln Indian Training School whose goal is to "kill the Indian and make the man." In the summer of 1932 three white children and a Sioux boy journey by canoe from Minnesota to St. Louis to find a place they can call home. It is through their own griffin gifts and those of the adult mentors they meet along the way that they find the strength to become the people they were meant to be.

Great leaders who rose above humble backgrounds didn't quit when life seemed insurmountable. Doris Kearns Goodwin tells us, "Even early on Lincoln's moral courage and convictions outweighed his ferocious ambitions." He remained quietly in the background while he educated himself, sure that was the best way to reach his goals of striving to make a difference in people's lives politically. He borrowed law books and studied on his own.  Many years later during the depression, famed science fiction writer Ray Bradbury lived in the library, unable to pay for college, and taught himself what he needed to know. He went on to become an accomplished award-winning author of books still read in classrooms the world over--The Illustrated Man, The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, to name a few.

Every day of my life I think of my beautiful mother who sacrificed her own needs to help her widowed mother of six children, dropping out of college during those depression years. Later, after sending her children off to school in the morning, my mother walked to a trade school several miles a day and again back home to get the skills she needed to become a purchasing agent for a hospital and subsequently an administrative assistant over four departments in this same hospital. Against the odds, she found the strength and courage to persevere and the foresight to gaze into her future with options. My sister and I and our two brothers paid attention.

No villain can mess with a griffin. Marguerite Ehlers knew this and lived it.  Are you ready to find out for yourself?