This world is filled with mystery, and by mystery I mean hidden connections, synchronicities, brief moments where the underlying structure of things–or structures–are briefly visible.
It is not hard to critique those who point to these things, to call them coincidence, without meaning. And sometimes this view is correct. But not, in my view, always.
It is both my belief, and my belief that this is a useful belief, that this world has an order behind it, underlying it, which is vastly too complex for human minds to think or perceive. We are left with clues because at this level of existence, we are incapable of consciously playing our part other than through trying to live in accordance with decency, with dignity, with self respect, kindness, generosity, love, and faith. All of these are small orders which blend with the larger order.
As I may have mentioned, one of my favorite movies is Terrence Malick’s “Thin Red Line”. That movie wrecks me every time, but in a good way.
I watched his Tree of Life for the first time last night, and it also wrecked me. It brought up powerful emotions. I spent much of last night dreaming about my family, about what could have been but never was.
And I think of this wind flowing through the world. It played in a few scenes in that movie, and it made me think of the very powerful wind theme in Fellini’s “Amarcord”, and if memory serves Juliette of the Spirits. I recall that at the end of Marquez’s 100 Years of Solitude, the winds blow everything away.
Watching the movie, I felt powerfully this wind that blows through all of us, through every human life, this spiritual energy we do not understand, which is close to God, but perhaps not. Perhaps it is just another kind of wind.
And lo and behold it blew all night here. We occasionally–perhaps 3-4 times a year–get all night winds, and they always feel to me like change. I will draw a new Tarot card, because it feels like a season is beginning or ending.
And I felt keenly this morning this connection to these seasons. Modern society does not recognize seasons which are beyond our control. We have mastered the elements. We can be warm in the winter and cool in the summer, no matter where we are, if we have joined modern society, modern technological society.
And there are to be no periods which we do not master. We control the sun and moon with alarm clocks. We banish them from relevance. We work the same hours every week year round. We work like machines, with no souls, and with no intuition. Of what use is intuition in a world where your time is not your own?
And it struck me that this movie in large measure is about grief, tragic loss, and redemption. It is about a season in a life with a beginning, a middle, and an end. There is nothing said about grief in the liner notes. And it struck me that this theme was missed entirely in Kieslowki’s Blue as well, in the liner notes, and by most of the reviewers I read.
Grief, it seems to me, has its own season. It has its own pace. And we incorporate it poorly in this world we have built because as something outside the mechanical system–which cannot be tamed, which cannot be medicated, truly, which exists as a strange and unwelcome animal in our perfect world–it is a reminder of everything we have lost: the love, the intimacy, the shared moments free of guilt and time, the joy, the dancing, the spontaneity, the goodness.