The Sun Door

The Sun Door
“The meaning is that the grace that pours into the universe through the sun door is the same as the energy of the bolt that annihilates and is itself indestructible; the delusion shattering light of the Imperishable is the same as the light that creates…
The hero transcends life with its peculiar blind spot and for a moment rises to a glimpse of the source.”

Joseph Campbell “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”

As Campbell has noted, the ‘sun door,’ or the opening between the worlds of time and eternity, seems to appear in some form in every culture. We find its presence in the Sun Dance of the Plains Indians and in the spring rituals of ancient Egypt. In Japan it is the appearance of the radiant goddess, Amaterasu, out of the mouth of
her primordial cave.

This concept is often featured within a story about a young man on a ‘vision quest,’ searching for his origins, frequently in the form of a mysterious, long absent king-father. Through privation and danger the hero comes to a confrontation with this hidden being which very often proves to be life threatening. Theseus’ father tries to poison him when he first arrives in Athens. God the Father tries to kill Moses on his return to Egypt. There is hidden purpose however, behind this apparent ruthlessness. If he can survive, the seeker may find, beyond the test, a gift of life generating wisdom and the key to his own destiny. The veil between the worlds is drawn momentarily aside and heavenly light enters the ordinary, time bound realm.

Behind the father figures of these rituals and stories stand the unchanging qualities of the eternal sphere, opened to the young man through the loss of the false immortality of childhood. The birth of the man is the death of the boy. In the paradox of the opening of the sun door, life is both lost and ultimately affirmed. Human existence is renewed.