Recently, I finally got the chance to watch A Wrinkle In Time. Don't judge. It was one of my favorite books when I was a pre-teen. I remember sitting in the school library, immersed in that book, thinking to myself, 'if Meg can do it, so can I!' That book gave me confidence, courage, and hope during an extremely difficult time in my childhood. Watching that movie brought back memories .. not all of them wonderful. However, it also brought to light parts of the story that I had forgotten, or maybe just not understood due to my youth. Parts of the story that, I feel, are truly relevant to life and the current political climate.
For those of you unfamiliar with the basis of the story, Meg is the preteen, self-doubting heroine that travels through space and time with her genius preschool brother, and their neighborhood friend, to save their scientist father who has been missing for many years. The pretense is that travel between far areas of the universe is, in fact, able to be done by tesseract (which is a sort of bending of time by specific vibration). Meg's father had discovered this and accidentally gotten trapped on a dark planet, created by an evil force called 'The IT', from whence there was no seemable escape ... until his children come to save him. Obviously, there are many more intricacies that are too numerous to go into in this blog .. (go watch the movie!) .. however, the manner in which the screenplay depicted the three muses, and their assistance tactics within the children's quest was wonderfully hopeful and enlightening for our current world.
I find it intrinsically fascinating that the name of the 'planet' created by 'The IT', is 'Camazotz'. The planet Camazotz initially appears in the movie with a menacing growl and the far off appearance of a cancerous tumor spreading its tentacles. Interestingly enough, the name 'Camazotz' is the name of the Mayan bat god associated with darkness, death, and sacrifice. How apropos that the core of the evil force in this tale should be named after that.
One of the muses in A Wrinkle In Time, Mrs. Which, counsels Meg that "The only thing in the universe that travels faster than light is darkness. It invades the place inside of us where hope and joy lives and replaces it with jealousy, judgement, pain and despair." Additionally, she notes that, "The IT does this one person at a time .. fear takes over, fear leads to rage, then rage leads to violence." So jealousy, judgement, pain, and despair lead to fear, which then lead to rage, which then lead to violence. Somehow I can only think of the current political climate. A state where currently, we have a U.S. President that espouses fear and hatred far more than empathy and understanding. As one BBC article recently put it "Donald Trump does politics with one crucial psychological insight. Rage is an emotion that sticks around a lot longer than hope." (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46099744) How is this a positive thing for the U.S. or the world in general? Day after day, we fight against the rage and hatred of religious sects and fringe groups that espouse nothing but bigoted disgust and disdain for those different from them. We fight them in the hope that the positive, shining light of democracy will win out. Yet the U.S. President takes joy in rallying the evil troops?
The henchman for 'The IT' in A Wrinkle In Time, is ultimately shown to be a marionette of the entity. Prior to revealing this, he tells the children "Everything is taken care of in total without options or alternatives." What a chilling statement. Almost as chilling as the scene where all the houses on the cul-de-sac are exactly the same, with a single child in each driveway bouncing a ball in absolute unison. It's a visual statement that leans towards the mindless flock of sheep mentality, which currently seems to be permeating the nation. However, there are rays of hope. Not everyone views the world through the same hue of glasses. Once Meg puts on the prism glasses given to her by the muses when they leave the children on Camazotz, she is able to see that things are not as they seem. The area is not enclosed, her father is actually held captive there, and she can, in fact, reach him. I suppose our world is a lot like that. Sometimes you just need to look through a different set of glasses to find the real answers.
I think that the most poignant moment for me in this movie, stems from another quote from Mrs. Which, "Do you realize how many events and choices had to occur, since the birth of the universe, to lead to the making of you, just exactly as you are?"
There are times in life when we all feel down, feel depressed, doubt our choices, even doubt ourselves and question our own self-worth. It happens to everyone. It's human nature. It's also a natural part of growing up. Having those feelings and thoughts, however, does not make them a true reflection of who we are. Our lives are essentially mirrors. Mirrors of our thoughts, mirrors of our actions, and most importantly, mirrors of those surrounding us. Whom we choose to closely surround ourselves with has the ability to, many times, show us the clearest reflection of ourselves, but only if we are willing to look.
It is easy to get bogged down in the minutiae of societal expectations, political rhetoric, and judgement, but, if we allow ourselves to truly see what those closest to us see in our hearts and minds, we can then begin to embrace and live up to the amazing people we actually have the potential to be, regardless of society's chain gang mentality. As we learned in Wrinkle, love is the only force that can destroy the darkness of 'The IT'. Love ultimately destroys jealousy, love destroys judgement, love destroys pain and despair. How we treat others, how we speak to others, how we respect those who think differently than us, is the truest measure of humanity. That's definitely something that the President, and all of those running for office, should remember every time they open their mouths.
~ The Girl In The Little Black Dress
For those of you unfamiliar with the basis of the story, Meg is the preteen, self-doubting heroine that travels through space and time with her genius preschool brother, and their neighborhood friend, to save their scientist father who has been missing for many years. The pretense is that travel between far areas of the universe is, in fact, able to be done by tesseract (which is a sort of bending of time by specific vibration). Meg's father had discovered this and accidentally gotten trapped on a dark planet, created by an evil force called 'The IT', from whence there was no seemable escape ... until his children come to save him. Obviously, there are many more intricacies that are too numerous to go into in this blog .. (go watch the movie!) .. however, the manner in which the screenplay depicted the three muses, and their assistance tactics within the children's quest was wonderfully hopeful and enlightening for our current world.
I find it intrinsically fascinating that the name of the 'planet' created by 'The IT', is 'Camazotz'. The planet Camazotz initially appears in the movie with a menacing growl and the far off appearance of a cancerous tumor spreading its tentacles. Interestingly enough, the name 'Camazotz' is the name of the Mayan bat god associated with darkness, death, and sacrifice. How apropos that the core of the evil force in this tale should be named after that.
One of the muses in A Wrinkle In Time, Mrs. Which, counsels Meg that "The only thing in the universe that travels faster than light is darkness. It invades the place inside of us where hope and joy lives and replaces it with jealousy, judgement, pain and despair." Additionally, she notes that, "The IT does this one person at a time .. fear takes over, fear leads to rage, then rage leads to violence." So jealousy, judgement, pain, and despair lead to fear, which then lead to rage, which then lead to violence. Somehow I can only think of the current political climate. A state where currently, we have a U.S. President that espouses fear and hatred far more than empathy and understanding. As one BBC article recently put it "Donald Trump does politics with one crucial psychological insight. Rage is an emotion that sticks around a lot longer than hope." (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46099744) How is this a positive thing for the U.S. or the world in general? Day after day, we fight against the rage and hatred of religious sects and fringe groups that espouse nothing but bigoted disgust and disdain for those different from them. We fight them in the hope that the positive, shining light of democracy will win out. Yet the U.S. President takes joy in rallying the evil troops?
The henchman for 'The IT' in A Wrinkle In Time, is ultimately shown to be a marionette of the entity. Prior to revealing this, he tells the children "Everything is taken care of in total without options or alternatives." What a chilling statement. Almost as chilling as the scene where all the houses on the cul-de-sac are exactly the same, with a single child in each driveway bouncing a ball in absolute unison. It's a visual statement that leans towards the mindless flock of sheep mentality, which currently seems to be permeating the nation. However, there are rays of hope. Not everyone views the world through the same hue of glasses. Once Meg puts on the prism glasses given to her by the muses when they leave the children on Camazotz, she is able to see that things are not as they seem. The area is not enclosed, her father is actually held captive there, and she can, in fact, reach him. I suppose our world is a lot like that. Sometimes you just need to look through a different set of glasses to find the real answers.
I think that the most poignant moment for me in this movie, stems from another quote from Mrs. Which, "Do you realize how many events and choices had to occur, since the birth of the universe, to lead to the making of you, just exactly as you are?"
There are times in life when we all feel down, feel depressed, doubt our choices, even doubt ourselves and question our own self-worth. It happens to everyone. It's human nature. It's also a natural part of growing up. Having those feelings and thoughts, however, does not make them a true reflection of who we are. Our lives are essentially mirrors. Mirrors of our thoughts, mirrors of our actions, and most importantly, mirrors of those surrounding us. Whom we choose to closely surround ourselves with has the ability to, many times, show us the clearest reflection of ourselves, but only if we are willing to look.
It is easy to get bogged down in the minutiae of societal expectations, political rhetoric, and judgement, but, if we allow ourselves to truly see what those closest to us see in our hearts and minds, we can then begin to embrace and live up to the amazing people we actually have the potential to be, regardless of society's chain gang mentality. As we learned in Wrinkle, love is the only force that can destroy the darkness of 'The IT'. Love ultimately destroys jealousy, love destroys judgement, love destroys pain and despair. How we treat others, how we speak to others, how we respect those who think differently than us, is the truest measure of humanity. That's definitely something that the President, and all of those running for office, should remember every time they open their mouths.
~ The Girl In The Little Black Dress
