5. Crossing The Threshold
Armed with the wisdom of the guide, the hero can act on her Call to Adventure and begin her quest, having quelled her fears and doubts. The quest doesn’t have to be something physical, it can also be the search for something emotional or spiritual. She may embark on her quest with a full heart and with lots of determination, or some person or situation may have to push her into action. But either way, she crosses from the world she knows into a world that is unfamiliar. She may leave her home for the first time in her life or just do something new that has always frightened her. When crossing the threshold, the hero shows her commitment to her journey no matter what she may encounter along the way.
How did Doris cross the threshold?
She baked the cakes faster than she thought she would and had time left over to decorate her little fairy home with lots of streamers and little fairy party poppers and horns, the kind that crinkle and roll out long when you blow on them. And when the fairies finally woke up, they flew around Doris’s house all excited. They couldn’t wait to eat their honey cakes.
“This is the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me!” one fairy said with a smile so big, well big for a fairy, that it melted Doris’s enormous heart.
The fluttering of fairy wings and party horns woke up the bats. They couldn’t fall back to sleep because of the fabulous fragrance of Doris’s honey cakes. They fluttered down off the rafters of Doris’s home.
Doris crosses the threshold when she acts on her idea to bake the cakes for the bats. On one hand, it’s in Doris’s normal world to bake these cakes; however, she’s never baked honey cakes for bats before while they were sleeping in the rafters of her house. Will they like the cakes? Will they stop being so afraid? Do they even like parties or will the party scare them? This is a new world. Doris has never lived in her house with trembling fairies AND shaking bats. Will her instinct to bake new crunchy honey cakes serve her well, or will the crunchy honey cakes and the party turn into a total disaster?
When have you stepped out of your comfort zone into an unknown world? Was it the day you went to high school? The day you got married? The day you started a new job? Were you like Doris, uncertain of the outcome, but stepped out anyway? Write about how you crossed your threshold.
This is Part 5 of a 12 part series.
Be sure to read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4, if you missed it!
