Hero’s Journey

A year of living mythologically

/ Rudy Owens / 1 Comment

Another year of my life gets ready to end. The clock will start anew to begin the exercise of measuring life’s passing by years. That means it is time to reflect on how I spent it, as my planet circled the sun and I counted away irretrievable minutes, hours, and days of being alive in the universe.

I felt a mythical pull to Finland last year, and found myself there twice in six months, completing a journey that started decades earlier.

Physically, I feel a bit older. That is a given.

However, the cumulative issues I have experienced and still feel in my back have sharpened my understanding of my mortality. I have been humbled, even as I respect every aspect about caring for myself. It is now more clear that my days of very good health could be over. I may now be entering a phase of manageable but slow decay. I’m still overall in great health. I run. I bike. I swim. I rollerski. I surf far less frequently, and cross-country ski even less often. But I can feel the reality of what “the slow glide out” now means. My best years, in terms of physical health, were in my 40s.

My mental health, however, has remarkably improved during the past five years, as I continue to appreciate what a purposeful mindset of “finding meaning” has brought to my daily life. The hardest challenges I have navigated the last two decades strengthened my ability to withstand the strongest storms. Maybe I have just accepted who I am, at last, and the wisdom of wiser predecessors who have offered ideas of living well. So despite many challenges, my outlook is very calm.

Awaiting the inevitable loss of family

I continue to plan for loss and death. Human myths have been doing this for all of us since we first collected our shared stories and passed them down orally. So this is nothing new, and because it’s not new, it should not be feared or avoided.

I have three family members who face very severe health challenges. Two are my biological kin and one is my adoptive sibling. The stress can gnaw at any moment, out of the blue. Yet I can do nothing to change what will inevitably come. That could be any day.

I took this shot in 2015 at the Detroit Institute of the Arts with one of my ill family members, who is nearing the end of their journey.

I fortunately have found my safe harbors in spaces that always serve me well: exercise, good food, a sense of gratitude for my own good fortune, being mindful of what is within my power to address, and deep knowledge of what I cannot change.

Feeling at peace with death is one of the oldest roles of myths for humanity, and I have found my place with its company this year even more. As Joseph Campbell, author of the Hero with a Thousand Faces, describes, death and death imagery are the very beginning of mythology. Campbell let all of us know that there is comfort knowing that what we all experience has been charted for millennia in myth: “So there’s a sense of death as not death somehow, that death is required for new fresh life.” 

In fact, it was the cumulative stresses surrounding the health and wellness of my surviving family that finally propelled me to visit one of my ancestral home countries of my biological mother, Finland. I felt what I can only call a mythical pull to go there.

Hearing the call of Finland

My planning started on an important day celebrating Finland’s great myth, called the Kalevala. On February 28, 2023, on Kalevala Day, I vowed to visit the Nordic nation that summer. What’s more, I would also seek out my biological family I could trace only as far back as my maternal grandmother and grandfather, who emigrated to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the early 1900s. There were no contacts between my Finnish-American biological family and their distal relatives in Finland since the 1950s.

Famous Finnish painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela’s study called “Kullervo Herding his Wild Flocks” (1917) is held in the collection of the Ateneum art museum in Helsinki, Finland.

I announced my idea publicly, to make it known I was taking a mythical journey: “And my new journey into my ancestral past has begun,” I wrote. “Where it ends now, I know not. Once the ship leaves its harbor of safety for parts unknown, the mind, heart, and soul breath in the fresh sea air that only is found by discovery. Finland.”

Everything about this idea was mythical. I could feel the tug, the way I did when I set out to find my birth mother and my biological families in the mid-1980s, completing the task in April 1989 in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

In fact, understanding myth and my adoption story gave me what I consider to be a tactical advantage compared to other adoptees who start their journeys for self-awareness far later in life. I was in a totally different place because I already had deep knowledge of myth’s meaning to the human experience because I read countless books on myths as a young person and learned the stories of the Bible in church every Sunday.

I knew intuitively why my impossible task had meaning and that I would succeed, like the “hero” celebrated in myths and tales across the time and all cultures. My memoir and study of the U.S. adoption experience explores interplay of myth and adoption in detail, where I describe why my experience closely resembled the “hero’s story.”

In this instance, I immediately recognized the myth dynamic in wanting to go back to a family origin location, in Finland.

That recognition propelled me forward with the power that can only be understood as mythical and by all the dynamic rules of a mythical story. It was familiar territory, and it completely energized me. I knew I was on a journey, which made it easier for me to throw myself completely headlong into this project. The myth played out almost effortlessly, with joy instead of sorrow.

I successfully found my long-lost Finnish relatives, thanks to blind good fortune of finding a benefactor named Satu, a professor who I contacted by email in the early summer 2023. (Even Satu’s role felt mythical, like the kindly stranger who intervenes to propel the hero forward on their journey to the unknown.)

In my long story about meeting my biological family, I describe how we first met by video calls and email and finally in person in Kurikka and Tampere, Finland, in September, 2023. Even before I met them, we knew that the meeting would be special for all of us.

I described in my story how one of my aunts told me how I resembled her adult kids. “I find same features on my sons’ and your faces,” she wrote to me. I also noted: “Later I learned that others in the family, including two daughters, said the same thing, completely separate from each other. When I compared a photo to the youngest son in the family with myself, and shared it with friends, everyone I sent them to were mostly stunned; some swore we could be brothers. All my friends mostly shared that the power of genetic similarities were both astonishing and cool.”

Embracing my Finnish mythical muse: Kullervo

I stumbled on the bronze statue of the famous mythical antihero Kullervo and his loyal friend and dog, Musti, my first morning in Helsinki, probably by fate.

On my first morning in Helsinki in September 2023, I went for a run. It was cloudy and rainy. I got lost. Almost by design, I regained my bearings near Toolonlahti, a bay in central Helsinki. I stopped my run the moment I saw a bronze sculpture of the Finnish antihero, Kullervo. The statue shows the famous mythical character, and his dog Musti, the moment before he kills himself with his own sword.  It stands peacefully in an outdoor rose garden in Kaupunginpuutarha park in Helsinki, but feels tense with foreboding. This was no accident. It was myth at play. I immediately shared the photos with my Finnish relatives, who told me it was Kullervo.

Kullervo is perhaps the most beloved character from the Kalevala by the Finnish people, despite a mostly short section in the epic myth relative to other heroes in it. Jean Sibelius wrote an entire musical score with a chorus telling his doomed and tragic story. As an infant, he was enslaved and orphaned, only to be tormented by the clan that destroyed his family. Despite abuses, he learns he has magic power, befriends a dog Musti, sleeps with his sister unknowingly (who kills herself), murders the man and clan that enslaved him, and finally kills himself in anguish.

This is my favorite painting by the great Finnish artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela called “Kullervo’s Curse,” which I know proudly wear around town.

I made my T-shirt honoring Kullervo based on the painting by the great Finnish artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela, when I returned from Finland in February 2024. 

My latest trip to Finland in February 2024, visiting family again in Tampere and Kurikka, completed the mythic trip I had started in late September 2023. It offered fresh insights into a nation and its national identity and stories. The Kalevala, the national story, is part of this story the Finns tell themselves. It also gave me wonderful insights into my ethnic Finnish roots.

When I returned, I looked back at the year of impossible events. I did what I knew I would always do. I had visited my ancestral villages of my blood relatives. I found my relatives, with whom I shared a physical resemblance and a strong kin connection. I felt connected to my identity that was long hidden from me by laws in Michigan. All told, in one year,  I have written nearly 20 stories about my long journey back to my roots.

Without trying to write another book, I laid the foundations for one that arrived almost organically. I had no intention of writing any of these stories when the strange siren call to take the journey started. Yet it just happened, the way a myth naturally unfolds. My friend saw my new collection of essays and called me the “Finland Fanatic.”

What a perfect name for a book. What a perfect description of a mythical character, pulled by the power of the quest. My journey so far has been a happy one. Death of my family is still stalking my path forward. We shall see where it goes this coming year.

The Man of Steel, an adult adoptee’s journey of discovery

/ Rudy Owens / Leave a comment

I recently watched the 2013 blockbuster based on the prototypical American comic superhero, Superman, called Man of Steel. I was not expecting much. I hoped for mindless Hollywood entertainment.

This film adaptation of the 1930s original comic-book character took a new direction with a very overt narrative, amid the buildings falling down and space ships blowing up. In this rebooted franchise, the Superman tale is told as a story of a man’s—or rather, a Kryptonian’s—search for his identity.

Super Adoptee, Superman

Superman, the adult adoptee on interplanetary steroids–beloved and feared by many.

The Man of Steel relies on one of the oldest mythological stories of human civilization, that of a hero’s search for himself by finding out his “true lineage.” This is the arc of great stories, from Moses to King Arthur. The Man of Steel also includes other classic mythological storytelling tropes, such as confronting a nemesis, the inevitable conflict, and the return from the journey as a hero. In this case, the hero happens to be born of one family and sent across the galaxy to be raised by another family in Kansas. He then must spend years figuring out who he really is.

The Haywood Tapestries show King Arthur, a famous adoptee of noble lineage, like Moses, the greatest adoptee of the Bible and the Jewish and Christian traditions.

The Haywood Tapestries show King Arthur, a famous adoptee of noble lineage, like Moses, the greatest adoptee of the Bible and the Jewish and Christian traditions.

The hero’s journey

Minus the over-the-top special effects battles, this film is a basic tale a self-discovery. The most compelling moments in the film involve conversations the young Clark Kent has with his “adopted” father, Jonathan Kent, played by Kevin Costner. They discuss their ambiguous relations as non-biological father and adopted son. That tension bursts in a scene where the older Clark tells his father and mother, “You’re not my real parents.” Right on cue, following that conversation, Costner’s character dies in a tornado.

The adult Clark is left adrift not knowing who to call his parents or how to identify with his biological roots or his adoptive roots. So, the journey begins, and he wanders from the Bering Sea to the Canadian Arctic.

Clark Kent and Father in Superman Film

In this scene form the Warner Bros. film the Man of Steel, Kevin Costner’s Jonathan Kent talks to the younger Clark Kent, his adopted son from an alien race from the planet Krypton

This cinematic rendering of this rite of passage is nearly identical to what an adopted adult goes through when they have to decide for themselves if they wish to find out their history and biological roots, or accept the decisions institutions and others made for them.

A not-so-super real-life journey by adoptees

The actors who decided those adoptees’ fates are usually shielded by archaic adoption laws and the intransigent bureaucracies who supported the millions of adoptions, as was the case in the United States between the 1940s and 1970s. This adult adoptee decision is never easy, and is often costly. It can be very divisive and unpopular. Such a decision can forever change family relations and be condemned by people who know nothing about this desire to find the truth. It is at its core Superman’s tale.

In my case, I literally had to spend years, like Clark, on a pursuit that took me from state to state, bureaucracy to bureaucracy, until I finally solved the case and learned about the identity of my biological parents. I did not find a space ship buried in the Canadian ice like Clark, and my biological roots are not linked to Krypton. Nor did I meet my computer-generated father, Jor-El, played by Russell Crowe.

A scene from the Warner Bros. film, Man of Steel, showing Russell Crow as Jor-El, father of Kal-El, aka Clark Kent aka Superman.

A scene from the Warner Bros. film, Man of Steel, showing Russell Crow as Jor-El, father of Kal-El, aka Clark Kent aka Superman.

During their conversation, Crowe’s Jor-El tells Clark his “real name” is Kal-El. This is identical to what any adoptee experiences when he or she learns his or her “real name,” or the name at birth and on an original birth certificate. That document in most states is treated as a high-level state secret and never shared with adult adoptees unless they get waivers from surviving birth parents signed. This is the case with the state of Michigan for me, which still refuses to give me my original birth certificate, even though I have known my biological family history now for 26 years.

So Kal-El is also Clark Kent, much as I had another name for three and a half weeks until I was given a “new name.” It was a name I had until I changed it in 2009 to a name that incorporates parts of my birth and adoptive names.

In the fictional movie, Clark has all of his questions answered. His original Krypton father is a noble and great leader, as was his adoptive father, in Kansas. But in real life, how many people do you know have movie-style fathers? My biological father and my adoptive father clearly were not cut out for any story as formulaic as this film. They would never make it into a screenplay for the masses. I never had a conversation like our film hero did with his biological or adoptive fathers.

Finding your answers unleashes chaos, the not-so-subtle message of Superman

In the last act of the film, Superman is exposed as a space alien and chased by a rogue band of surviving criminals from Krypton, who force Superman to make a choice between his adoptive tribe or his biological tribe.

Superman must also tell his adoptive mother he found his “real parents,” watch her sadness, and then be redeemed for viewers by saving her life and calling her “my mother” while doing it. The rescue creates a comforting way we can have Superman be forgiven for being confused who is parents are or who is mother is, when such warm fuzzies may not be in abundance in the real world.

If you follow the narrative of the Man of Steel, these questions could lead you on a journey that threatens the very fate of the planet earth, or something equally dreaded.

If you follow the narrative of the Man of Steel, these questions could lead you on a journey that threatens the very fate of the planet earth, or something equally dreaded.

Ultimately, the film reveals that Superman’s activation of a beacon on the spaceship that he found brought the evil Kryptonites to earth, with the goal of total destruction of the planet. You cannot get more grandiose than the genocide of all of humanity as a penalty for discovering your identity and asking, who am I, and where did I come from. Once the chaos is unleashed by the bad invaders, only Superman, the misfit between both worlds and both families, can save the human race. That is a huge burden to lay on a guy who asked a very basic question.

In the end, Superman remains Clark Kent, not Kal-El. He retains his adoptive family loyalty. He will hide his biological self, except when needed, though he may never be trusted because he is “different.” He has solved his riddle, and the package is neatly tied as many Hollywood movies are.

Life does not follow this pattern. There are no heroic battles with invading aliens. Things are more messy.

But the journey of the real-life hero is no less epic than what the film Man of Steel shows. I  think the film resonated more deeply, more viscerally with those who have undertaken the quest of Clark/Kal-El/Superman. If you have never had to ask the question that confronted our hero, about who you are and where you came from, you may never understand his journey, and also the conflicts and rewards that must inevitably accompany such a quest.