(As I sat down, here in front of the computer,
at O.'s City Heights pad, I felt into the complete exhaustion of my muscles.
"I am spent," is how it feels
and how it sounded like was a long, string of laughter -
"Ha ha ha ha ha hah hahahahahahahahahahaha."
After all, how else can I show my gratitude for hours spent:
giving it all away on a dance floor;
running short sprints along a southern California shoreline, chasing after a Smash-ball;
and walking forty-plus blocks though the city of San Diego,
especially after the little amount of sleep I've been able to derive from the three, distinctly different houses I slept at this weekend?)
Today, as I traveled south on the Coaster and hiked through the city,
I reflected on one of my newest LOVEs ~
the work of Japanese film maker and master story-teller, Hayao Miyazaki.
I have greedily sucked up the sweet nectar of some of his children's tales this summer,
including "Spirited Away," "Howl's Moving Castle," and "Princess Mononoke."
All deep, complex stories that pay testament and homage to the human Spirit and journey.
"Princess Mononoke" is a wild-maiden raised by a pack of white wolves in Muromachi period, 1337-1573, Japan. She hates humankind for how it is desecrating the Earth, trees, forests and other animals. She sucks the blood out of her Wolf mother's wounds and spits it on the ground at the male protoganist, Ashitaka's feet, and I'm like,
"Hey!
There I am!" ; )
Ashitaka is a loyal warrior who protects his people from the attack of a "demon" - an animal corrupted by greed - and sets off on his Hero's Journey after his clash with the beast leaves him physically marked. "Cursed," his village's Medicine Woman calls it, and then tells him that he may, however, bee able to cure himself in the lands to the West.
Along his spiritual quest, Ashitaka meets Eboshi, the Queen of the prosperous Irontown, a femme fatale who employs her country's most vulnerable people, including prostitutes and lepers, instilling in them a sense of self-respect and dignity, even as they suck the Earth's resources out of its belly and generate industry by manufacturing weapons.
It's a wild ride and at the end of this tale I found my BodyMind craving a clear-cut ending in which the delineation between good and evil is obvious, "truth" wins and boy and girl end up in LOVE and happy, together forever.
It's Not Like That Though.
And, "ME?"
Well, today, I honored that my inner Princess Mononoke is still at war with my inner Queen Eboshi. A battle of warrior wills and ways, these two are FIERCE. RARRRRRRRRRR.
Thus, I now invite my inner Ashitaka back to:
connect these two warring factions;
bee the LOVE thread between my wild nature and my feminine desire to provide;
and bee the fulcrum - the balancing point between these two poles -
a unifying force.
