Avatar and Quality of Relationship

The movie Avatar has demonstrated its popularity by its grand income. Thus many have discussed it. Some praise its point of view, some warn against its philosophy. I have not yet seen the most important point to me, which is not content. "The medium is the message." Beyond whether or not pantheism is a good idea, or whether an indigenous society has been properly portrayed, or whether this is an attack on the US military or on all military thinking, or how the term Avatar has been inappropriately taken from something quite wonderful (a person who has come from heaven in full consciousness to assist humanity's evolution), or whether the biology is accurate -- beyond all of these, I have to note how this film has, more than any other, stuck with me. Hands of technology have entered into me more deeply than before (large screen, High Definition, 3-D, surround sound, subliminal input both through vision and sound) and it has been more difficult to reawaken into this world.

The "Avatar Depression" has been described, with many people expressing despair that "this world" is not as good as "that world," and that they wish to be in "that world," even to the point of suicidal thoughts to disconnect from "this world."
I too feel a lingering ache in my body for "that world," as if I had seen Spirit-Land and long to return there. Even in the movie, at the end the "takers" (they are us) are banished back to their dying world where they have "killed the mother." Deep down, they and we long to return....

The worthy themes of the content -- the beauty, the message of the existence and activity of the divine feminine, the loyalty to each other, to community, to the divine feminine... -- are actually secondary to the medium which has worked its way down into me very deeply. (Even the previews of the next HD, 3-D movie, an intrusive fantasy of the perverse and disturbed experiences of Alice in Wonderland, with no justification of redeeming qualities in its content, have stayed with me.)

Discussions of points in the content of this film are interesting -- whether it has done more work than the Copenhagen climate gathering to alert people to the environment, etc. -- but those concerns are the sugar-coating of a bitter pill of technological intrusion into our psyches. As long as I remain in the fantasy of the film, I remain drugged and unable to connect with the values apparently portrayed there -- relationship with another human being, with community, with the earth, and with the beauty and power of Sophia, the divine feminine wisdom underlying all of creation -- values that are portrayed but paradoxically made more remote by the medium of the film itself.

It has required more attention than usual for disengaging from fantasy and re-engaging with "this world," finding the inherent magic of "this world." One must quite seriously utilize antidotes to the medium of the film -- time in Nature, and not five minutes but hours. "Time in Nature" while remembering scenes from the movie requires many hours for Nature to have effect. "Time in Nature" where you look closely at the sand, the bark, the petal, the trailing wisp of cloud -- smell everything, taste everything, hear everything. Note the quality of the light (and note how it differs from the light in the movie theatre). Offer yourself to gardening or to a house plant, and tend its living-ness, even ask it to work with your healing. Gaze into the eyes of your beloved, stroke each other's arms, rub each other's back. Again, not just for five minutes with any of this, but with concerted effort to re-orient yourself to the wonders of "this world," "this body," "this lover," "this soul."

I have observed a young man design two seconds of animated movement of a dinosaur in a video game. He said it took him ten hours to get those two seconds right.He showed me the complicated grids hidden beneath the final image. Most importantly I saw his devotion to the computer screen, and observed a flow of his life energy into the screen. Where does that energy go? Does it work as nutrition for some being? Is it expressed into the world every time that video dinosaur makes that particular movement? When I saw the credits for Avatar, the hundreds of technical people who poured their being into their computers, I realized that this is what the anthropologist Leslie White would call an energy-capturing device ... but to what end? When millions of people watch this film, and merge with it, and enter into it, they are pouring their own precious attention energy into it. Where does that go? These are questions that (with Willie Bento and Robert Schiappacasse) I ask in Signs in the Heavens: A Message for Our Time. And the antidote, beyond what I've shared above, comes in the newly released One-Two-ONE: A Guidebook to Conscious Partnerships, Weddings, and Rededication Ceremonies, written with my wonderful real-life "this world" beautiful Lila Sophia.

These issues are not side issues, not something to be heaped over with new content in order to obscure the old images. The message is not in the content, but in the medium -- how someone else's psyche has gotten so deeply into mine. Marshall McLuhan called radio a "warm" medium as it required so much participation on the part of the listener to participate in imagining what the speakers and the scenes described look like. He termed television a "cool" medium because you've been given so much that your imagination is not engaged. This has now come to a new level of "coolness" and you are not warmed by it. If you feel yourself, it may be agitated after such a movie, yet cold.

I highly recommend that you rivet your attention to the real, the growing living warm plant and animal and sky, the beautiful, the good, the here, the now, for these are where your soul speaks to you. Find a piece of earth -- and it need not be glorious, as in a thousand-foot tall tree -- stand there and find the communion that your life offers right now. Find its inherent sacred character and let your heart be filled with the abundance-to-flowing-over of the actual world.

Prayers for the Needy

In an increasingly mechanical age, the tendency with something like Haiti (or the West Coast in the predicted difficult weather) is to watch the televised images and perhaps send some money via computer. More important is some computer-free communion in Nature with heart-felt support headed that way. Do not underestimate the power of such prayers. And do not estimate the power of time in Nature, and not plugged in. Forces exist that are eager for us to accept replications rather than the real thing. We can work with them, "Good morning, computer - I want to spend a half hour with you in communication with others, then calm down and go away." - but we need to balance with real time with real people in real Nature. Let your prayers for the needy include yourself, and those others whose lives are difficult right now.

Religion - its meaning

At the Parliament of World Religions (December, Melbourne), there were 240 religions represented, and many that did not come. I (David) was especially impressed with some about whom I had heard something, but here they were. The Dalai Lama brought the Gyoto monks, who created an intricate sand painting in one alcove, over the course of four days. As the painting was destroyed in one stroke, it was all about enjoying the present moment of a project, while not attached to its outcome. Indeed, I notice that our lives have many completed projects in the form of things in our lives, which have become cluttered. Thus, attuning to the monks who were making the sand painting, and their quality of intention as artists, was the best part of that exercise.

The Gyoto monks were on the general stage a few times, chanting, a group of four to illustrate their skill. They walked on in line, with their large curved yellow fringed hats, the closest thing to a Roman centurion’s helmet that I’ve seen. One of them must have been new, for on stage he had an irrepressible smile. He was dazzled by the audience, seven thousand people in front of him – he widely grinned and waved, as would a ten year-old. It was very sweet to see this kind of simple innocence, also demonstrating the skills that he had learned in toning and overtoning.

Famous spiritual leaders strolled the halls, in groups. Famous? To their own, certainly. In any case, you couldn’t get to the famous leader in the middle of a football formation, flanked by the admirers within the group. So I would sometimes go up to one of the followers, smile, and put forward my hand in greeting. “Hello.” I didn’t need to say my name as it was emblazoned on the name badge around my neck. “Hello, please tell me about yourself.” In most, but not all, cases, the result was a very dear interaction with someone from a completely different part of the world, who freely shared their philosophy. For example, I asked a Sikh, “I hear about the 5 K’s – what is that?” The man explained that this meant the five things that they must wear at all times, each item starting with the letter K – a small dagger (sometimes a sword), a wristband, one’s own uncut hair, a string around one’s waist – I think I got them right, though it’s not important because the man said, leaning over to me, “But the most important thing is the heart.” He pointed to his heart, smiled broadly, and nodded. I smiled back, and said, “yes,” and then he had to hurry to catch up with his group which had moved further down the hall.

The warmth of that encounter, and others like it, was more important than many of the words that were uttered. It became personal and intimate, across geography and dogma... it's all about relationship!!