Each of us can tell our own stories, but it takes someone bigger to shape and recreate our collective story. That someone, or someones, is the True Bard. That's exactly what the Beatles did for us in the 60s. They were True Bards because their music still speaks to new generations. And so is Julie Taymor, the amazing director who created this Beatles rock opera “Across the Universe”. This movie re-awakens us to our collective story of change that we experienced in the 60s. It says, our story is still with us. The question is, what are we going to do about it?
If you haven't seen “Across the Universe” yet , run out and rent it right now. Besides its considerable high production values – the settings, the dances, the costumes, the feel make it delightfully magical to watch! - it simply tells the story of the 60s as it unfolded within our psyches to the soundtrack of the Beatles' music. Their music shaped my consciousness as well as expressed what was going on inside me and everyone else I knew. And now my children and anyone else who loves the Beatles but weren't there for themselves can see how those times might have played out in our lives.
The story itself is simple and fun, yet complex and psychologically astute. If it was a novel, I'd call it an historical fantasy. Part Beatle images and lyrics (one character says of another, “She crept in through the bathroom window.”); part semi-biographical (Sadie as a Janis Joplin character/Bono as a Timothy Leary/merry prankster character/a band playing music on a rooftop); part social commentary (draftees in formation carrying a Statue of Liberty on their shoulders are they trudge through the jungles of a miniature Vietnam singing “She's so heavy” from “I Want You”). “Across the Universe” has it all. The raw emotions of the songs come out through the acting. It's a mesmerizing mix of social commentary and youthful longing, hope and love.
Taymor's use of imagery is symbolically astute. The movie opens with images of wildly breaking ocean waves superimposed with images of social unrest, and then a young woman – Lucy, the love interest. Many people have dreams of tidal waves, and one of the symbolic meanings of these dreams is that the collective unconscious is stirring – all of our culture's repressed values and needs are rising up and overwhelming collective consciousness. And the beautiful young woman is an image of the New Feminine Spirit that is arising in the collective unconscious – a spirit that demands that we pay attention to the repressed feminine qualities of life – connection, compassion, intuition, feelings, nurturing, love and life. Taymor ends the movie with a heartfelt cry of “All You Need Is Love.” The rest of the story shows us how this is played out.
The story itself is true to the 60s. An all-American teenager, Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), leaves home to follow her older brother Max (Joe Anderson) to New York after her boyfriend dies in the Vietnam War. In Liverpool, Jude (Jim Sturgess) leaves his work in the shipyards and comes to New York and meets Max, and they all end up living at singer Sadie’s (Dana Fuchs) Greenwich Village apartment along with JoJo and Prudence. This youthful 'family' experiences the turbulence of the 60s together. There’s naïve Lucy whose eyes are opened to the possibilities of life beyond her 50s, sheltered upbringing; adventurous Brit Jude who breaks away from his working-class roots to make it as an artist in New York; Lucy’s brother, Max, a college dropout who eventually gets drafted and sent to Vietnam; Sadie, a Janis Joplin-esque rock singer; her guitar-playing lover Jo-Jo, who comes from the riot-torn streets of Detroit; and a closet lesbian named Prudence. As these sympathetic characters go through the ups and downs of life in the 60's, we share their growing consciousness that the most important thing in life is LOVE. I left the movie feeling and knowing that this is still True!
Now it's time for the astrology! I'm using information from an amazing, award-winning book called “Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a new World View” by Richard Tarnas, a professor of philosophy and depth psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. Tarnas spent 30 years researching astrology, (at first to debunk it!) and came away with the view that there is a direct connection between planetary movements and the archetypal patterns of human experience. He explores the planetary cycles and how they play out in human cultural events.
In the 60s, two planets aligned in the heavens in the sign of Virgo – Pluto, the planet that represents the archetypal energy of death, re-birth and evolution, and Uranus, the archetypal energy of revolution, innovation and freedom. They were joined during the exact conjunction in 1966 by an opposition from the planet Saturn, representing the archetypal energy of form, authority, maturity, frustration, and constriction in Pisces, the sign of the collective unconscious. In 2010, these three planets will again be in alignment, expect now in a three-sided 90 degree aspect to each other. The alignment is one of tension which propels us into action.
Tarnas states: “I was encouraged to examine the possible existence of historical correlations with planetary cycles when I encountered a number of highly suggestive patterns in which certain cyclical alignments between the outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto) coincided with major historical events and cultural trends of a distinctive character, as if the specific archetypes associated with those planets were emerging on the collective level in periodic cycles.” (pg. 141, C&P)
Because of the great distance of both Pluto and Uranus from the Sun and the Earth, their cycle is one of the longest between two planets, lasting anywhere from 113 to 142 years (because of Pluto's erratic orbit). When Tarnas went back to study what happened during proceeding conjunctions and oppositions of these two planets, he found that each time there were similarities of cultural expression – back to the times of Spartacus in ancient Rome!
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