“Not, infrequently, the supernatural helper is masculine in form. In fairy lore it may be some little fellow of the wood, some wizard, hermit, shepherd, or smith, who appears, to supply the amulets and advice that the hero will require. The higher mythologies develop the role in the great figure of the guide, the teacher, the ferryman, the conductor of souls to the afterworld.”

From the water and the primordial mud you and your grandfather pull two bicycles (useful tools for a journey) and find the remote control. The bicycle is interesting; it is a tool that makes traveling easier, but it is self-propelled, so you must do the work in order to benefit from it. Perhaps the remote control is the opposite of the bicycle, the remote control allows you to sit back and change things without much effort. Bodies of water often represent the unconscious, whose depths contain dark, hidden creative powers. In myths and folk tales they can appear as wells, springs, rivers, streams, and lakes. The water itself may have creative power or it may contain a special object such as a sword or golden ring or may be the home of the dragon or the frog who poses the challenge that the hero must overcome. The bicycles and the remote control are gifts or messages from your unconscious mind to your conscious mind. They appear when you need them along with a friendly guide to help you find them and teach how to use and interpret them.

Later your grandfather leads you and your girlfriend across the creek. Crossing a river or stream is often symbolic of a journey from the ordinary world of waking life to another, non-ordinary world. For example crossing the river Styx (by means of the ferryman Chiron) leads to the underworld. In Buddhism “crossing to the other shore” (paramita) is used to symbolize the movement from samsara, the world of suffering, to nirvana, the liberation from suffering.

As your grandfather guides you across the stream you have to pass through a “rough spot”. The hero's journey always includes obstacles and tests that must be successfully negotiated in order to move on to the next level. And once you cross over to the other shore you see the tree. The tree is very common in myth and folktales as a means of traveling up to the upper world(s) or down through the roots to the lower world(s). Jack and the Beanstalk. In Germanic myth Ygdrasil is the World Tree and plays a very significant role in many stories. The Cosmic Tree is the “center of the universe” the place where all levels of reality meet. So here on the other shore, a place that is not the ordinary world (water flowing up the tree reverses the ordinary direction) and you are given the gift of a powerful experience of beauty. Perhaps even a beauty of a spiritual nature.

Well, make of that what you will.

Thank you.

I've seen Joseph Campbell books around, but have never read any. I'll need to add one to my list of things to do.