It is the last Sunday of Epiphany, a season in the Christian calendar where we reflect on the Epiphanies we receive about our relationship with God after the celebration of God coming amongst us as a newborn baby at Christmas. The readings were about people heading up to mountaintops to experience God; Moses when he received the Ten Commandments and Peter, James and John when they experienced the transfiguration of Jesus.

Father Peter has spent time with the Lakota Indians and compared these experiences with those of Lakota’s going on a vision quest. It made me think of the monomyth, or hero’s journey as described by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces. In the monomyth, as well as in the stories of vision quests and other trips to mountaintops, the story starts with a call to adventure, leads to some experience of the divine or transcendent, and then the hero returns to share the results of the experience in one way or another.

The season of Epiphany ends on Tuesday, as everyone cleans out their larders with a Shrove or Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, or carnival before entering into a period of fasting and prayer called Lent. This year, for 22 states in the United States, there will be a primary on Fat Tuesday. I could go off into a long digression about the primary and Fat Tuesday, but I have something else to write about today.

You see, over the past several months, friends of mine from a mailing list of group psychotherapists have been encouraging me to attend the annual meeting of the American Group Psychotherapist Association. Years ago I hired a management consultant to help me navigate some of the political waters of a large matrix managed international bank I worked at. Her training had been in the psychoanalytical study of groups, particularly within the Tavistock Group Relations tradition. I’ve been to a couple Group Relations conferences and several social dreaming matrices that have grown out of these. While I’ve seen the power of groups to be destructive, I do believe in the power of groups to heal, to provide insights, and, well, we shall see what else this coming month.

My whole experience leading up to attending the AGPA annual meeting has felt very much like the beginning of a monomyth. It has started with the call to adventure, friends urging me to attend the annual meeting. I tried half heartedly to find some way in which it could happen. I am not a group psychotherapist. I’m not studying to become one. I don’t have the money to afford attending. Were there volunteer opportunities, scholarships, chances to be on a panel, or media credentials possible? Each option, along with various interesting side diversions ended up in a dead end, so I finally ended up sending out a message that I wasn’t attending.

Then, at the last moment, I received an email from a dear friend that included the address of the public affairs director for the AGPA. It was like the magic amulet a hero often receives on his journey. The next thing I knew, I had a press pass, dinner plans and several people to meet with.

So, now I am on the journey. I don’t want to go in with expectations that are too high. It is an annual meeting. I’ve been to many different types of annual meetings. There are experiential components and I’ve been to large and small experiential groups before. What is different is that I am attending as a blogger. How will I fit together the role of an experiential participant with the role of an observer and reporter? Will this be a vision quest or monomyth, or just another chance to blog and see some friends?

Perhaps a lot of it is in the approach. Perhaps too many of us too rarely look for the opportunities for transformational moments in our daily lives. So, following the old political adage, I will hope for the best, be prepared for the worst, and take what I get.