Avatar – Holy Smokes… what a movie!

I just saw Avatar today and it had me sweating, laughing, in tears and joyfully rooting for the Navi!

I don’t want to spoil the plot or movie for anyone but I do want to say that I was blown away. I am not surprised since James Cameron has yet to disappoint me. I just have to share my feelings while they are fresh.

For a short span of my life when I was a young boy, I believed what the old Hollywood Cine-guard wanted me to believe, namely that the American Indians were blood thirsty savages. When I found out how I had been duped and heard the rest of the story, the real story (and later became friends with some Apaches and Navajos here in Southern Arizona) I was appalled that I had believed such blantant lies. It was the first of many shocks along the way of rising above my raisings – the second biggest shock when I realized that my parents would never share my open mind and shake the “almighty white man” illusion. I was young, I was ignorant and I was naive – but that was 1962. The times changed and so did I.

When I learned the truths about my ancestors I wept. I literally laid on my bed, put my head on my pillow and sobbed in convulsing waves of agony. I felt so betrayed. It took a long time to adjust to the fact after that that I was white and I was stuck in this body with an ugly heritage of atrocities. White Anglo men can be the most fiendish of all of Terra’s creatures! Still that didn’t mean that I had to follow in those foot prints and I have demanded of myself that I not – and quite frankly it has been one of the easier choices I have had to make in this journey.

So… back to the movie. When I saw this huge metaphor in 3-D no less (and yippee on this note: it was made by a white man) for so many human struggles on our planet. I was giddy to root for the Navi and pray that this would go the way it should have in the American west 400 years ago. I will say no more about how it goes in case you haven’t seen the movie yet. It was a fabulous fantasy/metaphor method of shining a light on some of our ugly capitalistic notions and how greed and money can so easily corrupt the human mind.

It never ceases to amaze me how we can use our thoughts to spin things in satisfaction of our fears and desires any old way we wish to make even the worst decision seem okay. Even at times when atrocities are afoot, a human can spin it and believe it and then kill in the name of it.

We are all capable of this, just look at any religion and you will see by its history how revved up someone can get with righteous indignation: bombings, massacres, inquisitions and even something as seemingly benign as ostracization is a form of the same spin. My mother’s religion: Jehovah’s Witnesses spun her in to not associating with me for the last 25 years of her life. As for me, I rely on my ability to get my mind quiet, so I can hear wisdom beyond my own intellect. When I get quiet I can hear my body. I hear my heart beat, i fell the oxygen in my lungs. I hear wisdom from the wind and the trees. And unless you have ever really and truly been quiet, you do not know, you cannot know what I mean, so doubt me not. Rather, spend 5 minutes without thoughts and then leave a comment here.

I am so grateful for the meditative connection I have developed to the creator and the creative energy she has blessed me with, it is this connection and the silent communion that keeps me from spinning too far out of control. I am happy to see a world that – even in its slow evolution – is evolving into a more embracing and loving planet. If you doubt this comment, look back in history just two hundred years at the state of things then and you will see how incrementally, a generation at a time, things get better. I am yours, forever the optimist.

Thank you James Cameron and thank you for letting me share.

Love, Light and Happy Holidays,
Rusty