power was destroyed forever. This round with evil won, their
heroic task completed, the hobbits returned home to the Shire. The
rabbits of Watership Down also survived their heroic journey to come
home, to their new peaceful community. T. S. Eliot, in The Four
Quartets, writes,
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
All seem rather unspectacular endings—paralleling real life. The
recovered alcoholic may have gone to hell and back now to reappear
an ordinary sober person. The heroine who fended off hostile attacks,
reclaimed her power, and struggled with goddesses may seem
similarly ordinary—at peace with herself. Like the hobbit at home
in the Shire, however, she does not know if or when a new adventure
that will once more test her very being will announce itself.
When it comes time for me to say goodbye to patients when the
work we have done together is finished, I think of myself as someone
who has accompanied them on a difficult and significant part of
their journey. Now it is time for them to continue on their own.
Maybe I joined them when they were between a rock and a hard
place. Maybe I helped them to find the path they had lost. Maybe I
stayed for a time in a dark passage with them. Mostly, I helped them
to see with more clarity and make their own choices.
As I finish writing, and reach the end of this book, I hope that I
may have been your companion for a while, sharing what I have
learned with you, helping you to be a choicemaker on your own
particular journey.
Love to you.The Heroine in Everywoman