Newton’s gravitational notion of “what goes up must come down” is not nearly as old or as relevant as “what goes down must come up.”

What goes down MUST come up or it will be lost forever. In our daily struggles, we trip and fall but if we stayed down we would perish. We MUST rise up and face what pissed us off or who slighted us.

This is the essence, especially in terms of fairy tales and myths and cinema, of descent and resurrection. As I write in my new book Once Upon A Place: Forests, Caverns, and Other Places of Transformation in Myths, Fairy Tales and Film, “Descent and Resurrection. Falling down and coming up. Plummeting and ascending. These are the pivotal points of the World Journey, the framework in which the seeker struggles, the directions in which one falls or climbs. Aside from a culture’s creation story, the idea of descent and resurrection is the oldest plotline we’ve ever read. Anchored in our myths, texts, and tales, the World Journey provides the mind a way to envision entering these underworld places, and then it provides a way to imagine climbing out. Ascending. Resurrecting.”

Imagery of Personal Growth in Film

Can you think of your favorite movies where characters must travel downwards? We hardly even notice anymore when we go to theaters that producers and actors are using the images of falling and getting up. But they are. Consider It’s a Wonderful Life, starring one of my favorite actors Jimmy Stewart. When his character feels at his lowest–depressed, worthless, and abandoned–he finds himself on a bridge overlooking rough water, and he considers jumping to end his life. But the angel Clarence, who has been following and pestering him, jumps first. Surprised, Stewart’s character jumps in to rescue him and his adventure begins. In other words, he descended, going down as all characters do, whether to a river, a cavern, a grotto, into a well… most portals leading to epiphany start with going or feeling down. It’s an image and literary ploy as old as history, with stories going back thousands of years to Gilgamesh, probably the most ancient story we have recorded.

Some other films I love that include the descent of descent-and-resurrection include Honey I Shrunk the Kids (as they get smaller they also get closer to the ground) and Jurassic Park (they literally descend via helicopters into the jungle). Another location I share in Once Upon a Place is the top of water, whereby the character travels in a boat (think Life of Pi) or across the surface of a cauldron or lake (think of the goddess Ceridwen in the Celtic myths of Merlin). These images are so varied and colorful but they all relate–in the end–to one of the five locations: the Cavern, the Deep, the Forest, the Vessel, or the Labyrinth.

My book explores all these and I spent years fascinated with the subject of epics, quests and adventures from all over the world. It’s been a magical season of research and growth, and I can’t wait to share my thoughts and findings with you, especially as these tales reach out through space and time to touch us personally as we experience challenges of our own.

Once Upon A Place: Forests, Caverns and Other Place of Transformation in Myths, Fairy Tales and Film is available for pre-order now! Purchase from your favorite bookstores or order from Amazon, Llewellyn, Barnes and Noble, and anywhere you get your favorite books. Go here for more info about Once Upon A Place.