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Avatar - Have We Forgotten How to Experience Myth?

by K. L. Van der Veer

Does Avatar Have a Racist Message? (msnbc associated press)
Dances With Discrimination (globalshift)
Audiences Experience Avatar Blues (cnn)

These are the titles of several articles that have commented on the film “Avatar.” Granted, a couple of them offer a few tentative hopes in closing, but the dominant themes, the ones readers are most likely to take away and that I hear repeated are:

• Avatar is simply a rehashing of “Dances with Wolves,” “Pocahontas,” and “The Last Samurai” mixed with various native and pagan cultural elements
• The Na’vi represent “people of color” and the white man comes to them, is enlightened by them, and then saves them
• The film places undue emphasis on the idea that being disabled is negative and fails to bring Jake to terms with his disability
• Sexism is present in the warrior “choosing his woman” as a final step in his path
• People are so enthralled with the magical world of Pandora that they are having trouble facing reality and seeking escapes and contemplating suicide

I think these articles are dealing with surficial elements of the movie and neglecting its depths. Anyone with a cause to fight for will see battle wherever they look. People who think the world is a discriminatory, unfair place will find it to be so. Great stories speak to many people, and because they often involve courage overcoming fear, we can pick what we want from them… we can take hold of the courage or dwell in the fear.

The best stories aren’t new ideas. They are deeply held ideals or archetypes brought into a new light. Bards used to tell the same stories over and over with only slight variations because those stories spoke to people. Now, we do the same, but because of the different settings and a different cast of characters, we think we must be in for a different story. We’re looking for a surprise. Simple surprise can be done by anyone and is not the mark of anything of great significance. Greatness doesn’t have to be unfamiliar. It just has to speak to us, to move us. I believe that Avatar’s familiarity of story allows us to start from a zone of comfort and step deeper into the magic and find a new light.

To begin with, no “one” saves the Na’vi or Pandora. Pandora saves Pandora. That’s the whole point of the movie. The classic definition of Avatar is the manifestation of a deity. This movie uses that word in several ways. Jake takes on a new form in a Na’vi body. Pandora is the avatar of Eywa. As a result, every Na’vi is also an avatar of Eywa. Such a balanced culture cannot conceive of hurting itself in the way that humans do, so Jake’s main role is to show Eywa what humanity is capable of. Eywa then rises up in the form of all life on Pandora and defeats the humans. Without the goddess moving, without everything acting from one source, the Na’vi and Jake would all have died.

Avatar is not a movie about any of the physical aspects that we can get hung up on. It’s about getting through all of that to our source. What we are struggling with in the plot of the movie is what we are struggling with on the surface of our existence. Avatar offers us a glimpse into what we can be when we stop poking at the surface, reach beyond our concept of reality, and open ourselves to the depth of creative force that is within us and uniting us. When that happens, we will not, as one of the people quoted in the associated press article suggested, “start thinking about race in a new way.” Race will not be part of our evaluation process at all. Race will mean all of us, all of humanity. We will not help people come to terms with disabilities. We will understand that each and every condition is unique, and we will no longer hold up a “normal” against which we compare people when assessing ability or a perceived lack thereof. The concept of “disabled” will be gone. We will not seek to escape our reality but be inspired to transform it.

We are all avatars, and if we give up our notions of the story that we make out of our lives, we will be able to create a world as magical as James Cameron’s.

Overlooked - Art as a Standard of Living

by K. L. Van der Veer

It’s curious, how our society approaches art, education, and employment. When I really look at the purpose of each, I wonder if we haven’t gone a bit astray .

Great emphasis is put on education, and, to most of us, education consists of those things that give children a foundation of knowledge that can then be applied in a job or career through which they earn their living. But what is that living? We measure standard of living by what we have, and what we have consists of two things—things we need and things we want. Most, if not all, of the things we want are tied to emotional responses. I like this or that thing for this or that reason. But even meeting our needs is tempered with emotional attachment—if we have a choice between two things that meet our need, we will take the one that appeals to us most. If we can’t afford that the things that appeal to us, we look for ways to increase our standard of living (re-education, new job, additional job) so we can get them.

All those things that stir our emotions to wanting are rooted in art. Art is an emotional experience, not too far removed from religion, which speaks through imagery and connects to many of the same intangibles as art. The beauty we strive to fill our homes with, the well manicured lawn, the sleek lines of a car are all art. Televisions and stereos allow us to experience art. Architecture, interior decoration, books, cds, paintings, furniture… all of these things by which we measure our standard of living are art. Our life is wrapped in art.

So, what does our education focus on? Primarily skills that will earn us money so we can obtain the art by which we measure the value of our lives. Oh, art is present in education, but it is not treated equally, and it is often elective or extracurricular. Children are often discouraged from pursuing an uncertain career in the arts, and yet the idols of our era are actors, musicians, authors, and athletes (which, at the level they perform, is artistry). Not only do they produce art, but they also achieve the highest standard of living. It’s no wonder they are looked up to. They embody everything our creative, emotional side screams for and represent success in the quest for the uncertain.

I think another aspect of art that is overlooked is its effect on the “harder” disciplines. It’s our artistic, creative side that puts different ideas together and spawns great leaps in science and medicine. It’s creative inspiration that sparks a brilliant new business venture. From my own experience, creative writing has drastically improved my technical writing because it taught me new ways to view the world and how to use the word to shape emotions and perception, factors that are present in any thought process, no matter how objective we try to be. Without the ability to think creatively, artistically, we can offer nothing but a regurgitation of data loaded into us throughout our education. We are a computer terminal. And that is a prison… which is how we can come to see our jobs. The job becomes a task performed to get money so we can get the things we want. So we label the job as restrictive and money and possessions as evil because they ultimately fail to bring happiness.

And there’s the fulfillment of our self-delusion. There is no evil in things. Someone made them, fashioning them after a vision that arose from their creative center. We appreciate their art, but we are lacking our own because, in our pursuit for the beauty they uncovered, we forget to nurture our own. I think that failure to see ourselves is something that is learned. Part of our education, so to speak. Perhaps one day, we will focus on becoming sources of art. Perhaps one day, when a child talks about becoming a scientist or an accountant, we will say, “That’s nice, dear, but make sure you concentrate on your arts. That way you can be anything you want and be one of the best.”

Painted Warrior - Trapped in the Idea

by K. L. Van der Veer

You know what I like most about painting? The idea of how it will look when I finish. I look at my new, white windows with and imagine how wonderful and inviting the living room be once the old, stained trim is covered in a new coat of white paint. I tell people about my plan, and they respond with enthusiastic accolades for my vision. I don’t like sanding the old trim. I don’t like taping the windows. I don’t like priming, sanding, priming some more, painting, sanding, and painting. I may not even be as satisfied with the result I produce as with the image I created in my mind. So it’s easy not to start and enjoy the experience of imagining how it will look.

Writing, in fact any art, is like this as well. We get so much satisfaction from what we imagine the finished product will be like and how much we think everyone will love it, that we often don’t bother taking on the project. Or, if we do, we don’t finish because the work-in-progress is not living up to the work imagined. We set it aside to think about it some more. We plan to get back to it, and that plan combined with our imagined greatness of its completed glory and the support of others for grand design sustains us, and our life is spent in that in-between place…inspired limbo.

So, too, is it with those in the stories who could be heroes. Everyone dreams of a better life, of being free from the evil overlord. But why does a whole community, city, kingdom sit and do nothing? For the same reason that we do not write our story. Most dream. Some make plans. A few work to gather support. But there is only a handful, maybe even just one, who is not sustained by the idea, reaches beyond the dreams, grabs hold of the possibility, and shakes it into reality. What makes that one different? What does she see or feel that the rest of us don’t?

There is no answer than can be explained or taught so that it can truly be understood. Part of it involves letting go of the future, of what could be, and living for a new now. The hero lets it all go and lives for each step, knowing that she can take another one and another, ready to accept what she has wrought for that moment. But these are just words. You have to finish that project in order to understand.

Me? My windows are painted.

FALO, Fantasy, and the Flattening World

by K. L. Van der Veer

The fantasy genre has been growing in popularity and more and more fantasy roleplaying groups are springing up. Why is there such a surge in fantasy interest, and what role does “living fantasy” groups such as Fantasy and Legends Organization (FALO) play in this growing subculture? It is my belief that thriving fantasy is related, at least in part, to the changing face of the world....

I’ve been reading about the flattening of Earth in Thomas L. Friedman’s “The World is Flat.” Technology is changing the landscape, and the rest of the world is no longer hidden beyond the curved line of the horizon. As a result, our economy is changing. What affects one country affects us all. Likewise, the political arena has also changed. As Friedman noted, a political bastion may no longer encompass all the entities that are supposed to support it and for which it is expected to provide a foundation.

But economy and politics are only two dimensions of a three dimensional world, the X and Y axes, if you will. What about the Z-axis, usually invisible if you are looking at the X-Y plane but no less potent in defining shape and form. This Z-axis is the religious dimension. Just as ways of conducting business and politics are changing, so are our perceptions of the divine and, consequently, the way we come into our personal beliefs, which in turn determines how we conduct business and politics.

Since the beginning, define it how you will, people have been on a spiritual quest. We have explored polytheism, pantheism, monotheism, mysticism, rationalism, transcendent illumination, and a rejection of religion and the divine, altogether. And always, religion has changed as it came into contact with other cultures and beliefs. Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are certainly not the same now as when they began. If nothing else, when each came into being, there was just that one way. Now there are many ways. Folk religions change to encompass new ideas as rural cultures bump up against more developed societies. The Nature religions have always, as a broad category, encompassed many paths, and, with our modern technology, those paths can interconnect like never before. Even atheism has changed over the centuries depending on how the divine is defined by the dominant culture.

From the above, it's clear to me that our beliefs are not immune to the effects of flattening. We are more aware of other religious beliefs than ever before; however, I don’t believe that the flattening forces in the world are affecting religion in quite the same way, or perhaps just not at the same rate, as they are affecting economics and politics. People are willing to change their style of doing business if it will change their standard of living. They are less willing to change their beliefs.

We may be aware of different religions and beliefs but we don’t have a clear understanding of what to do with that awareness. So, what has manifested is a hypersensitivity to religious presence. We are so afraid of excluding a belief, or really that our own views might in some way be overlooked or trivialized, that if every belief cannot be incorporated into something, than none can. To enforce this, an army of protesters sits waiting to pounce on any symbol, prayer, gesture, word, or other glimmer of faith, driving the quest for meaning and enlightenment into segregated meeting places and shuttered homes like a disease or distasteful habit. Yet ads for business or political campaigns are just part of the landscape, and religious politics seeks to preserve the beliefs of select groups in court rulings, legislative decisions, and even open warfare.

We are caught up between the natural tendency to let our beliefs guide all our actions and our desire to separate religion from politics and economics. Once, religion and culture were closely tied together. The people in a culture built up a body of stories that incorporated their beliefs and ideals. Through the sharing of those stories, the essence of that culture was reinforced and passed on to subsequent generations. This interweaving of belief and story formed that culture’s myth base. In “A History of God,” Karen Armstrong links the word myth to the Greek musteion, meaning to close the eyes and mouth and ties it to an experience of darkness and silence. It is in those dark, quiet places that we each find our personal truths and place in the world.

But in a flattened world of many religions and hypersensitive suppression of religious expression, we are slowly losing our body of stories, and myth has come to mean something that is simply made up. Instead of sitting quietly in the dark, looking for our essence, we switch on a flashlight and rush onward in artificial illumination, thinking we have found the way. Without myth, we run in well lit circles, or worse, in the wrong direction. Without our stories, our mythology, we lose our frame of reference and our ground of being.

The essence of faith and belief is often indefinable, ineffable. Just as words are merely tangible vehicles for conveying intangible thought, so stories are vehicles for conveying the entire inner journey of a culture or individual. Through myth, the ineffable is brought together with cultural foundation to create events and actions which form context and a point of departure for our personal journeys.

This, finally, is where fantasy enters the picture. Fantasy is allowed to create whatever culture it wants, whatever ordering force it wants, whatever gods it wants. In fantasy, we can explore our own belief or pull together something that speaks to many beliefs from a common foundation. Because we create new worlds and new cultures, nothing in this world is threatened.

And so, here we are. Fantasy and Legends Organization. We have always made a point of emphasizing that we are not a platform for religion and politics. That leaves the economy, and judging by our treasury, economics is not our platform, either. In truth, through fantasy, we are about all of it, and our members come from a broad cross-section of our triaxial society. We put this world, with its fears and misperceptions, aside and open up the dark, silent places of the mind to build a new mythology that speaks across the flattened void with a voice pitched to each, individual ear.