World War III, Armageddon – the last battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil at the end of times is the logical outcome of the story of division and struggle that has nurtured our societies. Of course, each side will find reasons to consider itself as forces of good and others as forces of evil. But the more absurd the race to mutual self-destruction becomes, the closer we come to the degradation of the biosphere and the destruction of ourselves as a species, the more people wake up from their sleep and realize that the history of struggle is a mistake, and separation is an illusion. Now when the difficult year of 2022 is behind us and we have entered perhaps even more difficult 2023, time has come for
stories of interconnectedness and
cooperation. Our world now needs not great warriors, but healers. Until now, such characters could be found in works of rare depth, such as Hayao Miyazaki animations, but now healers are quietly coming to us through mass blockbusters, telling us that the collective subconscious of our culture is preparing to revise the core values, which have determined our behavior for at least a few hundred years.
At the end of 2022, the sequel to the film “Avatar”: “The Way of the Water” was released. Like the first part, at its core the film is a typical struggle story, where the white conquerors are bad, and the Indians are good, defending their beautiful living planet, with which they are in close relationship on the spiritual and biological levels. The main characters of this story are still warriors fighting for their families, values and beliefs. But in the continuation of their story there is a change of generations, and children, who are a mix of two cultures, connected to both white conquerors from the Earth and local indigenous people, begin to tell another story. One of them, Spider, helps his enemies to better understand the family ties that bind him to them. Another, Kiri, enters into a direct mystical connection with a living and intelligent planet and its inhabitants. The states in which she falls are defined by earthly doctors as epilepsy, still local shamans see it as a special gift that allows one to realize interconnectedness where only an illusion of separation is visible from the outside. Two peoples, Earthlings and Na’vi, are part of the same sacred web of life. The problem is not the origin or color of the skin, but the illusion of separation, which allows one to chop off one’s own hand, believing that it is the hand of the enemy.
So far, this story is typical action movie with shooting and killing, similar to the action movies from my childhood, but, unlike them, “Avatar” describes the real situation of destruction of our living and intelligent planet, clearly hinting that the key role in resolving this conflict will be performed not by warriors, but by healers who are now growing up in order to define a new paradigm of mindset and culture, so necessary for us in the midst of pain and chaos.
Welcome to 2023 – the time of new stories…