Part of the Club — A Hero’s Journey

THE ORDINARY WORLD

Forged of the same materials, they proudly stood on each side of the same pedestal. They were equal in size and their pose showed poise and skill. They were a prize, a trophy that would go to the best of the competition.

As they sat on the shelf between competitions, year after year, she started to notice differences between them. Different clothes, hair and especially the names that got posted on the wall. Richard, Harry, Tony, Scott, Kevin with the odd Sandra or Marilyn.

She: Do you notice that men usually win the competitions?

Guy: No big deal, you are just imagining things. Everyone is being celebrated. Isn’t it great being part of it all?

She can’t help but feel misunderstood. She wasn’t imagining things. She heard how men talked about women and how they gloated when winning the trophy.

THE CALL TO ADVENTURE

Another tournament day began and ended in celebration.

She wasn’t sure how it happened, whether someone intentionally broke it off or if it was broken accidentally in the excitement of winning, but she lost her club. The one thing she and the guy had in common, a golf club.

What she didn’t know was that it was broken intentionally during a drunken celebration whereby the winning members felt they had a need to defeminize the trophy. A specific member of the winning team was responsible. He still laughs out loud and recounts the story every time he sees her on the dusty shelf. She soon will recall the time her club snapped off so easily between his fingers.

REFUSAL OF THE CALL

She was disappointed that there was no attempt to replace the club. She learned to be content with the way things were and agreed with the guy that, “we need to not fuss about things and it’s better to accept how things are.” She resigned to the idea and stuffed her frustration.

Guy: You are great how you are; you are in this right place with me and every year we get to be their prize.

She: You don’t understand. He took my club from me.

The guy ignored her concern.

MEETING WITH THE MENTOR

Me (Mentor/to guide): Hey, look at this trophy. How do you think her club was lost?

Sarah (Trickster/to disrupt): I don’t know, you should make her a new one. Better yet, what if she had a magical weapon? Do you think anyone would even notice? Make her a sick sword and some elven princess bracers. You better give him something too, so no one thinks it’s a feminist revolution!

Me: [laughing] Right, we just want our girl to have what she needs to play the game and maybe a bit more, just in case.

CROSSING THE THRESHOLD

I take the trophy off the shelf to work on it at home. I wonder if anyone will notice it’s gone?

Mentor: I’m going to make you a magical weapon and bracers. What do you think?

She says nothing, since she didn’t know what to think. She trusted her new allies despite how the guy was feeling. She could tell he was a little scared and uncomfortable. Little did he know, a special weapon was being made for him too. (Allies/help through challenges)

Trickster: We made both of you weapons but hid them in the form of a golf club. No one will expect that you are so powerful. It will be our little secret.

Mentor: The world you are returning to can’t handle you being stronger yet. There will be a time when you can show your true form, and you will know when that time is.

Back on the dusty shelf, no one noticed the change. The trickster and the mentor hoped the girl would be able to handle the challenges ahead.

THE ORDEAL

The annual golf tournament fundraiser has come again. The organizer grabs the trophy and dusts it off.

Organizer: Hey someone fixed the trophy, this is great. I wonder who did it.

She: So far so good, and another ally. What could possibly go wrong?

In the car on the way to the tournament, she was nervous while listening to the guy retell all the competitions from the past. The competition was finished, and the same group won that had the member who broke off her club many years ago. The man noticed the replacement club right away and mocked it. He joked that golf is only for guys.

Man: Girls don’t have the strength to win at sports like guys do.

As he went to snap the club between his fingers. The club transformed into a sword and sliced his thumb off. In his shock and frustration, he dropped the trophy, while his thumb rolled under the beer fridge. She was afraid at his reaction and feared what he would do next. No one else noticed his pain despite the blood but did notice as he picked up the trophy and threw it across the room.

Everyone looked at him as if he lost his mind. But then laughed at him in their drunken stupor. Noticing his missing thumb his wife (the organizer) insisted that he go to the hospital. He grunted that his best club holding thumb needed to be found and re attached, but after an hour of looking they realized it was too late anyway and left.

THE REWARD

After the trophy was thrown across the room, the impact fully detached her from the base. She got up and ran over to the guy. They were shocked to see that she could move her body. He begged her to free him too. She swung her sword and released him. That is when he noticed his club had turned into a sword also.

A trophy member grabbed the trophy and scoffed how the guy was no longer on it and that the trophy was useless. They all agreed that a trophy was no longer necessary since it just collected dust.

And from that day forward, she and the guy traveled the world to free others from being trophies.

The end 😊