Stories are Transformational Tools
AN OVERVIEW OF KEY POINTS IN DOROTHY’S JOURNEY
Dorothy has found her way to the Emerald City; she has been on quite a pilgrimage. Her journey has been an inward search to make friends with her Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion. These characters represent Dorothy’s own sense of inadequacy, insecurity, and fear.
Her journey starts as a motherless daughter raised by her Aunt Em, who is emotionally unavailable as most farming families of that era had only survival on their minds. The story takes place in the 1930s during the Dust Bowl tragedy of the Plains States. There are two really good books you can read that help put the timing into perspective: the first is Finding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts, and the other is the historical novel The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah. Times were hard!
Now, hard times are mounting again, and we need to “get our own damn broom” regardless of what is happening. Dorothy’s story can be viewed as a tale of learning self-agency and coming of age, or it can be viewed as the classic Hero’s Journey. In my upcoming workshop, From Kansas to Courage On May 16 for Veriditas I will be doing an all-day intensive dive on practical and spiritual tools to return to our core self, symbolized by Dorothy.
The Wizard is a very interesting character in the book. In actuality, he devolves as Dorothy evolves. Dorothy arrives in Oz scared and regretful; she is immediately remorseful that she ran away. Asking for help to get home, Dorothy is told that the Wizard in the Emerald City will help her, and all she has to do is follow the Yellow Brick Road.
Our faith develops as we pilgrimage on our paths in life. Most of us, whether churched or unchurched, start off with a flicker of a feeling that there is something more—something bigger than ourselves. We often think that “bigger” thing is outside of ourselves, often a “sky god.” Dorothy alludes to that search for the external when she sings “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”