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And yet, we do nothing, because our warrior nature is also wounded. Let's look at Jake as he learns from Netiri how to become a member of the People. He's courageous, daring, strong, inquisitive and persistent, playful, foolish and fearless, willing to take risks and willing to learn, all good warrior traits, and completely opposite the Colonel's attitudes of fear, control, and manipulation. What's our attitude toward life? Will we succumb to fear because of the economy or can we become courageous, daring, inquisitive and playful? Can we take a leap of faith in ourselves? That's the question!
The Divine Feminine
Once we return to our bodies, we reconnect with the Divine Feminine spirit of Life. Eywa is the spiritual energy of Pandora, an energy that pervades the landscape and beings of Pandora. As a matter of fact, it is the Eywa who announces that Jake is important to Pandora. How do we know that it wasn't this Spiritual energy of Life who substituted Jake for his scientist twin, knowing, because all of life is connected, not just the life on Pandora, that it was this particular Being, rather than the scientific "brain' that was needed to save Pandora.
Why would Spirit go outside Pandora for a new hero? Is it because white men, even the damaged ones, are superior to everyone else? I think not. Psychologically, Spirit brought Jake to Pandora because new knowledge has to be integrated into the Na'vi collective psyches if they want to get rid of the Sky People. It is not about a white guy knowing more than the natives, but about the integration between two different types of consciousness that takes everyone to a higher level of awareness.
Spirit operates in our lives, whether we know it or not. Spirit does not take away our free will, but rather opens us to the possibilities available to us in life. It is this deep connection to the Divine Feminine that heals Jake and opens him up to his "kingship', just as a connection to the Divine Feminine can heal our "wounded' body and Earth and restore us to a more balanced understanding of life.
Neytiri from "Avatar"
I love Neytiri! She's a perfect expression of how a woman lives the deep power of the Divine Feminine, grounded in her body, open to her intuition, in tune with her instincts. I love her fierceness, and I have promised myself that when my grown sons act up, I WILL say to them with a hiss: You are such a child!
It is Neytiri's fierceness that is called for now in our world, and like her strength and loyalty which open Jake up to his feelings, women need to stand in their fierce beauty and challenge men to open to the power of the Feminine. (Remember, the soul is feminine.) Clarrissa Pinkola Estes wrote about this kind of feminine fierceness in her book, "Women Who Run With the Wolves". Neytiri is one of the best cinematic female characters since Veronica Franco in "Dangerous Beauty". It is this kind of female strength that attracts and helps birth the king archetype in men.
Because between the three women in the story, Jake does grow up and take responsibility for the part he plays in the destruction of the Home Tree, which symbolizes the World Tree, the Tree of Life. We too have to grow up and to acknowledge our part in the destruction of life, our home - if we're ever going to step up and do something about it.
And it isn't only about acknowledging that corporations don't have our collective interests at heart. It's about looking at the underlying belief of our patriarchal culture which says that there is a Father God who lives in the heavens and who has no Feminine counterpart. This belief allows us to think the material world is 'dead matter' instead of the feminine aspect of the Divine, the Divine ability to Incarnate in material life. This belief in only the power of the Masculine Spirit has cut us off from Feminine Spirit, which comes through our bodies and souls and gives us a truthful 'standpoint' about life. When we get 'embodied' again, we regain our connection to the Feminine Spirit of Life and to our connection with Spirit in an intimate way. That's how we grow into conscious human beings.
Our hero gets a chance to be an Avatar, which means an incarnation of a god or spiritual essence. We could all take this lesson to heart and remember that each of us contains a part of Spirit, and it is our spiritual destiny to integrate our body and Spirit, which we do through connection to our soul.
Our hero, in connecting to his avatar body and to Pandora, learns the truth of the Celtic belief that the good king is wed to the Land to protect its health. (The Lion King has this story plot: once the evil Scar kills the rightful king, the land dies. We get the Wasteland.)
Avatar is the myth of the return of the King. This is another urgent demand of our times - we need men to take up their 'kingship' again and protect life, not create death in the service of the economy. The inner king has returned in many women, but we also need the feeling, intuitive queen to ground our energies. We need both men and women working as partners to use their energy and talent to reclaim our world before we destroy ourselves.
Avatar creates a holistic experience that touches our hearts, which is where we discover the truths of life. That's why people love it. Because it's realer than the mindless, soulless reality our modern corporate culture would have us live in.
We know something is hitting the mark because people are longing for the kind of beauty that fills Avatar. Sadly, one of the outcomes of this longing is that people are getting depressed because they can't live on Pandora. Unfortunately, this is because we do not understand how the imagination works. As children we did, and we could work magic! But as our imaginations were put to sleep by our education, we lost the ability to step into a story and make it our own.
Now that we are older and hopefully conscious, we can re-learn to honor the Imagination and listen to its voice. It will tell you: ask for beauty, truth, honor, body awareness in your life and then create it by invoking Spirit whenever you do anything, and your life will take on meaning. Learn to listen to your body, not just get in shape. Unite with like-minded people through ritual and learn to understand the signs Spirit sends you. When appropriate, let your fierceness make the point; take the leap, love someone who knows themselves, dare to risk death for the love of both your land and your people. If you want to live on Pandora, find the Pandora in your world, and defend it.
