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Daily Meditations

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Daniel:
Monroe: It's okay, Alma, it's okay. Really, Alma, it's okay.

Beauty, the Invisible Embrace:

"Imagination returns us to our native wildness, to the natural and seamless fluency of our own nature."

"[Imagination] never blasts us with information or numbs us with description. It coaxes us into a new situation."

"We find ourselves engaged in [Imagination]'s questions and possibilities, and new revelation dawns."

"We enter into the life of a character. Our empathy and our minds are engaged by the depth and complexity of the characters heart and by the quest of his mind for vision and meaning."

"Suggestion respects the mystery and richness of a thing. All it offers are clues to its nature."

The characters Ennis and Jack rail against their own harsh lives which keep them from one another, resisting and twisting away from their social restrictions. They yearn, instead, to be themselves in a world of natural beauty - a return to an idyllic state of innocence where their love has meaning and silent companionship is as revealing as any conversation. Here, joy is expressed freely. Here, sorrow, grief, and dissatisfaction are shared vocally while such discontent would be frowned upon by society's standards. Here, lovers can be unified without fear of reprisal, vengeance or punishment from a world of darker shadows. The inner light shines forth, unhidden and unburdened by the weight of society.

When the inner light is exposed, the complexity of heart and meaning of mind are made real. Every emotional vibration, no matter its perceived significance, strikes the chord of empathic hope. Every vision, the kaleidoscope of truth and life.

Monroe's thrice-spoken supplication of calmness, the invocation of peace, and the assurance of continual support unite in a manner most becoming of love. They suggest the beginnings of a romantic entendre, and mirror Jack's words to Ennis which do the same: ((It is here that I am referring to the controversially and continually debated second tent scene)) "'s allright. 's allright. 's allright." Both sets of thrice spoken supplications provide some spiritual support.

Monroe: The supplication of calmness, the invocation of peace, the assurance of continual support (As mentioned earlier).

Jack: Assurance of acceptance, invocation of peace, presentation of agreement.

Daniel:
Ennis: "I doubt there's nothing we can do. I'm stuck with what I got here."

Beauty, the Invisible Embrace:

"A glimpse of an expression in someone's eyes can awaken a train of forgotten memories."

"Beauty loves freedom... The imagination always goes beyond the frames and cages of the expected and predictable."

"When everything has become locked inside a dead perspective and the consensus is that a cul-de-sac has been reached, the love and affinity between two people becomes sidelined into a repetitive and wearying pattern."

"The soul awakens in the presence of beauty and recovers and grows her external wings" - Plato.

"Beauty calls us beyond ourselves and it encourages us to engage the dream that dwells in the soul."

I do not feel as though I need to interpret, add to, or respond to tonight's passage other than to say that Ennis opens to Jack twice. Once in words, which is ultimately to be called "hope" and second in deeds, through a moment of "faith". He steps beyond the boundaries he's established for himself in order to be with Jack.

Ennis's third opening to Jack occurs after Jack's death - when finally he comprehends and can continually live for the love of Jack - recognized in the acceptance and demonstration of the nested shirts.

Hope by the opening of thought.
Faith by the opening of will.
Love by the opening of heart.

Daniel:
Jack: "And why is it we're always in the friggin' cold? We oughta go south, where its warm. We oughta go to Mexico!"

Beauty, the Invisible Embrace:

"In the presence of beauty, we are called to be gracious and worthy."

"The ruthless winter clearance of spirit quietly leads to new possibility of springtime."

"The beauty of compassion continues to shelter and save our world."

Does Ennis blame Jack for needing a warm relationship or does he feel guilty because he was unable to provide that relationship, or does he feel jealous for not having that same outlet to ease his need for a warm relationship?

(I'm not certain why I didn't complete this meditation, but it closely parallels another similar meditation that I did complete, so I will just combine the two here.)

Lureen: "Last time I seen it you was in it... the day we had that big ice storm."

"Beauty, the Invisible Embrace"

"To recognize and celebrate beauty is to recognize the ultimate sacredness of experience, to glimpse the subtle embrace of belonging where we are and to the divine, the beauty of every moment, of every thing."

"Beauty holds faith with the deepest signature of individuality: it graces the passion of individuality when it risks itself beyond its own frontiers, out to where the depth of the abyss calls."

"In that stillness the multiple futures of the scene are caught in the glimmer of the as yet unchosen possibility."

"In dance the gravity of the body is released."

"Beneath the skin is the brilliance of matter."

Coldness of nature imparts stillness: endless possibility from one beginning point. And in this icy embrace, Jack languishes for his personal freedom - always perceiving the endless possibilities but never able to pursue any as long as he remains in that icy grip. Lureen here ultimately represents the unchanging power of frozen water.

He manages to escape her icy, laconic wit through dance when he dances with the warm, fiery, and talkative LaShawne. Though perhaps he imagines himself with her husband.

The ice storm is a visual image which recurs many times, and its relation to snow cannot be overlooked. We can compare Lureen's "big ice storm" to Ennis's Christmas blizzard and both to the hail storm that drives the yoiung lovers to a more comfortable place. We can see in many ways that is is these same storms which drive action and response: a type of frozen coldness or numbness that we wish to avoid, and we avoid it by reaching for warmth. We avoid hatred, and its compatriate, cold indifference, by seeking the warmth of a loving relationship.

Lureen ofers little sympathy, does not move herself to help him, and in a slightly cold manner reminds him of the last time it was used. Her speech seeks to dismiss both him and the entire idea out of hand, as though it is not important to her and not worth the trouble.

Daniel:
Ennis: "Tent don't look right."

The Five Stages of the Soul

"Repentance is not self-chastisement or abuse, not regret over things done and past that cannot be changed. Repentance is a kind of turning, a starting again: self-cleansing; self-forgiveness; self-renewal."

Beauty, the Invisible Embrace

"We need to learn the art of inner reverence and never force the soul out into the false light of social gratification and expectation."

"Neither in environment nor in heredity can I find the exact instrument that fashioned me."

"To be human is to be ambivalent: every experience open to countless interpretations never seeing a thing completely."

"The soul always strains beyond the body."

In this scene, perhaps we finally perceive something of a nesting instinct. Ennis yearns to make the habitation a good one though this is after he and Jack have switched their jobs and it is Jack, not Ennis, that will stay in the camp. The tent is perhaps symbolic, then, of his love for Jack, which has only started to blossom and is not recognized on the whole.

To Ennis, the tent lacks something and he attemtps to fix it, to turn it into something better (even though it is not his to turn) - and perhaps some type of internal resignation that their relationship "don't look right."

That being said, it is this very same tent in which the relationship is consummated, and we can perhaps see a type of repentance on Ennis's part. Self-cleansing by fire, Self-forgiveness by choosing to enter the tent, Self-renewal by the acts of consummation.

Daniel:
Now that there are a week's worth of meditations, perhaps I might try to summarize just exactly what this week's meditations have done for me. Its always good to look back and be grateful for the small experiences during the week that have aided in transforming a simple life into a much more meaningful one.

It seems that this week's meditations all seem to deal with extension of the self in one way or another. Here is wisdom for those with eyes and ears. It is important to extend the self, despite our fears and anxieties that those extensions may meet with failures. Self extension is a part of the full life, and when we hold ourselves back, when we refuse to meet the challenges that life presents to us, we withdraw into ourselves and live a much lesser life. It is natural to experience fear and anxiety, but it is perhaps less natural to allow that fear and anxiety to dominate our lives.

When you put your best self forward, when you extend consciousness and the most loving and risking aspects of your self into a world "which may say that you're wrong", I think you will find that life will offer much more joy, wisdom, happiness, peace, and prosperity. I wish you all the best of luck in learning to transcend the fears and limitations of your weaker lives, so that you may continue to expand your consciousness and your lives along the spiritual and philosophical precepts that this film and a meditation upon this film will offer.

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