In the Divine Comedy, during his journey up the Mount of Purgatory, Dante encounters a wall of fire. His trusted guide, Virgil, has led him down through hell, up the mountain, and now beckons him to walk through this wall of flame in order to continue his ascent towards paradise.
At first, Dante flat out refuses: he will burn to death; the flames will peel his skin and turn his bones to ash.
But Virgil reassures Dante by telling him the flames will not kill him, that—even though he will suffer—he will come out the other side unharmed. Virgil reminds Dante that throughout their adventure—even when flying through hell on the back of a monster—he has kept him safe.
“My son, though there may be suffering here, there is no death. Remember remember! If I guided you to safety even upon the back of Geryon (the monster), then now, closer to God, what shall I do?” (Purg. 27.19-24)
Despite these reassurances—despite his rational acknowledgement of Virgil’s goodwill and protection—Dante is petrified by fear. He cannot step forward.
“And I still motionless, and 'gainst my conscience!” (Purg. 27.33)
It is only when Virgil mentions that Beatrice—Dante’s great love—waits for him on the other side of the wall, that he finds his courage.
“Now see, son: this wall stands between you and your Beatrice.” (Purg. 27.34-36)
Far more powerful than any rationalizations of safety, Dante’s reconnection with his passion and faith—embodied by Beatrice—gives him the will to step forward and walk through the flames.
Upon completion of this task, Virgil congratulates him, tells Dante he no longer needs his guidance, and that he is now master of his own fate.
“Await no further word or sign from me: your will is free, erect, and whole—to act against that will would be to err: therefore I crown and miter you over yourself." (Purg. 27.139-142)
At last week’s meeting of SOC, a discussion arose around the resistance and fear that we experience when confronted with important life projects. I was reminded of Dante and the wall of fire.
Just like Dante, all of us are confronted with—what I call—’the Path’: the journey to wholeness, to becoming the person we’re meant to be, to living the life we’re meant to live, usually resembling something much different, in the end, than we had initially imagined.
The specifics of the Path differ for each individual, but the archetypal patterns are always the same:
We find ourselves in a place of existential darkness and loneliness (like Dante’s dark forest), the only way out being a confusing and difficult confrontation with one’s fears and weaknesses (inferno), slogging up a strenuous and unforgiving mountain of labor and toil (purgatory), in service of transforming one’s life into what it’s meant to be (paradise).
We’re all on the Path—whether we like it or not—because we’re all human: we’re all confronted with the problem of existing; of Being.
Because of this, the Path is always calling to us. It often appears in the form of a faint murmur in the corner of our mind, beckoning us to do the thing we know we should be doing, to seek out the thing we should be seeking, to carry the torch handed down to us by our ancestors. “Become!” it whispers (though rarely with any such clarity).
The Path may look like any kind of professional or vocational journey; a search for a partner; a search for a community; endeavoring to start and raise a family; recovering from an accident, wound, or tragedy; or making sense of retirement, aging, and death.
None of these things can transpire without growth and transformation, and growth does not happen without pain.
The Path usually means repeated suffering, loss, rejection, and failure. It means death of the old self, and rebirth of the new self. It means letting go of adolescent joys and freedoms. It means sacrificing one’s many potential paths for one vocational path; sacrificing many exhilarating potential flings for one long term relationship.
In order to learn things we must suffer mistakes and failures. To succeed in a business or creative venture, we must suffer inevitable rejection and humiliation. To build a life with people—to love others—we must suffer all the broken hearts and tragedy and loss that comes with it. And so on.
The Path requires pain.
For all these reasons, the Path is scary; so scary that—like Dante—the steps to move forward often present to us like walls of flame: impassible obstacles that will destroy us if we get too close.
“I’m not talented enough.” “I’ll be laughed at.” “I will ruin my reputation.” “I will run out of money.” “My friends and family will disown me.” “I’ll get hurt again.” “I’ll fail.” “It’ll be the end of me.”
But this is built into the Path. Whatever the project—if it’s truly the project we should be working on, the one that will get us to where or who we want to be—we will look out at what we have to do and recoil in fear at the mystery, danger, and risk it presents.
In fact, that is often how we know it’s the right path: both “I must do this” and “I am terrified of doing this.”
If we’re not intimidated by the road ahead, if we’re not encountering any fear along the way, we’re likely not growing; we’re likely not on the right path. That doesn’t necessarily mean every domain of life must be an agonizing and stressful nightmare; just that the area in which you need to grow will always intimidate you.
Maybe we’ve got our career sorted out, but we’re shying away from finding a romantic partner; maybe we’ve got a happy marriage and family, but we’re shying away from an important business or creative project; maybe we’re retired and financially secure but anxious and depressed, shying away from important spiritual work or healing.
Whatever fears the Path incurs upon us, the difficulty lies in the fact that they are rarely conscious—we often don’t realize what’s slowing us down is that we’re afraid. These fears lurk under the surface, in the shadows of our psyche; unidentified, unnamed, and yet still influencing our actions and preventing us from moving in the direction we need to move.
So we tend to deny the fear—keep it safely suppressed in the unconscious—and instead of addressing it, we mask it up as practical, concrete barriers that we’re simply responding to rationally:
“Now’s not the right time for this business venture.” “I need to keep developing the idea before I release it publicly.” “Committed long-term relationships are too much work.” “It’s not ethical to bring children into this crazy world.” “I don’t have enough time for therapy.” “The other person is to blame for this conflict, not me.”
We don’t know it, but what we’re really saying is, “I’m afraid.”
What makes things worse, is that when we rationalize our fear—when we pretend it’s all just an logistical issue—we, accordingly, try to resolve that fear with rational solutions.
“My creative idea isn’t ready for implementation because… it hasn’t been planned out or engineered enough (I am afraid I will humiliate myself taking a creative risk)… therefore I must must keep planning and engineering.”
This doesn’t work, we don’t make progress, because the true source is irrational, unconscious fear—more engineering won’t resolve that. In order to actually move forward, we need to appeal to that deeper, emotional place; that place of eros and soul.
In the Divine Comedy, Virgil—Dante’s guide—is the embodiment of human reason:
“By intellect and art I here have brought thee.” (Purg. 27.130)
Because of this, Virgil can only take Dante so far along the Path, reaching the limits of his power upon arriving the wall of fire. In order to pass through, Dante must let go of reason and instead make contact with his soul—embodied by Beatrice—who waits for him on the other side of the fire.
So as we walk the Path, at some point—just like Dante—all the planning and calculating and advice-seeking reaches its limits, and we are still left with this lingering fear. No amount of reasoning will neutralize the fear; no amount of reasoning will propel us forward.
The only solution is dig deep and find our courage.
Courage is not the absence of fear; it is doing what you know you must do, despite being afraid.
For example, when preparing to launch Seasons of Change—specifically in the days leading up to my deadline to send the initial invite email—I encountered a wall of flame: “I’m about to pitch this to fifty of my contacts. What if no one responds? What if the idea sounds stupid? What if seven weeks is too big of a commitment? What if I make a fool of myself?”
I’d already been over the idea in my head repeatedly. I had written the blueprint out, the organization of the groups, the structure of the weekly meetings. I had asked trusted confidants their opinion on the idea and gotten positive feedback and gentle nudges to pull the trigger. I had processed the format and logistics back and forth, in and out. I had reached the limits of my rational analysis of the project.
And yet, still, I could not move. I could not send the email. “Maybe I need more time. Maybe I’ll delay until next season. Maybe I need more of a following. Maybe it needs to be better, more powerful, more perfect.” The flames towered above me, the heat licking my face, the overwhelming light causing me to turn my head away.
But after sitting with it a few days, I could see what I was doing: I was afraid. And I was masking that fear by rationalizing it as a need for more analysis.
Hitting the send button on that email, the domino that would send an entire multi-month, multi-participant project into motion, was a terrible fear that I could not out-think, out-engineer. So it wasn’t time for more planning, it was time for courage. I simply had to be brave, close my eyes, and walk into the flames.
So I did.
Of course, what happened immediately was that a dozen people RSVP’d with ‘yes.’ Several more said they had conflicts, but would be interested in season two. People were excited about the idea. And so on. It was a good idea; it was the right time.
This logistical obstacle of “needing more time” had been an illusion. The practical assessment that “no one would respond” had been an illusion. The rational judgment that “I wasn’t good enough and would humiliate myself” was an illusion. It all evaporated instantly.
Clicking the send button was painful, sure. But like Dante, I walked through the flames unharmed, then gazed down incredulously at my unburnt hands and said, “…that was it?”
So much of life is like this: riddled with irrational fears that will never come to fruition, that corral us into narrow channels of existence, holding us back from where we wish to go and slowing us down in the journey to become who we’re meant to be.
And so I always try to remember: the path without fear is not the proper path. The road without darkness and danger and flame is not the proper road. And when we inevitably come upon the walls of fire standing in our way, we must have the courage to walk through them.
Even if we get the occasional singed eyebrow, the danger of getting burnt is nothing compared to the danger of retreating from the Path, to the danger of a life decided for you by your fear, to a life spent inside Dante’s dark forest.
No. Just as Dante found his way to paradise by traveling through the terrors and trials of hell, we must confront our fears, and disperse them, by the grace and divine love of Beatrice’s courageous soul.
“But already my desire and my will
were being turned like a wheel, all at one speed,
by the Love which moves the sun and stars.” (Paradise 33.142-5)
Thanks for reading.
Got any thoughts on this topic? Leave a comment!
Have you ever felt paralyzed by fear when working on a venture? How did you resolve it?
What are your strategies for finding courage when dealing with fear?
How do you dialogue with a deeper, or irrational part of yourself? Does that come easily?
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