We who are readers have all threaded Life’s sinuous paths, wrestled the impossible beast, and returned out the gateway again bearing its gifts of meaning and value. There are many such doors. Every human soul contains its own secret world, and our work as human beings involves finding our way back to ourselves, and beyond ourselves to the love of others. Countless times I have revealed the Lost Gate and guided others as a living Ariadne's Thread; for such is the work of teachers and counselors, but also of family and of simple friendship as well. Each of the elements of the original myth are important, charged with vital force and bearing transformative power. The struggle with the chthonic figure of the Minotaur is at the heart of the journey, but equally important is the embrace of the bride upon return, among other things a figure of creative vision empowering the task of making our new insights real through art, music, authorship, or as our abilities permit as a gift to the world.

Theseus fails his exit exam in the Abandonment of Ariadne, failing to conjoin with his feminine creative force and achieve wholeness, but he is not the hero of this story. Theseus the Oath Breaker fails and is punished by his fathers suicide. It is Ariadne and Bacchus who enact the Union of Opposites, ecstasy and wisdom harnessed together to renew the world. As a myth of the power and meaning of Art , of spinning our straw into gold, our pain and joy into beauty, it remains a living path of our journey to becoming human. ( )