Midnight Pub
The Cosmos of Kansas, and the Wonderful Life of Oz
~tffb
Dorothy, in plain old boring Kansas. Black and white film, unhappy with her upbringing. Toto is her only friend, refuge in the world. Until that world, the tornado, strikes her house, then she gets drifted to another land. The world of fierce demands, of natural intensity - beckoning her ("more must be").
So, she arrives in Oz. Where everything is NOT boring. The symbolism is that of merely opposites in the movie (and originally book). Fields of repetition? Glorious fields of technicolor flowers. Aimless grass and non-eventful interruption? A yellow brick road. A blank horizon? A glorious palace shining with promise.
The ones she helps along the way are fine. Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion - characters who need her, and she needs them, to a certain extent. But in this journey, threats make themselves known. A Wicked Witch, promising harm to her and her friends and her beloved Toto. A Good Witch comes to reassure her, to continue what's in front of her, and she (Dorothy) will surely defeat the Wicked Witch.
Toto, Dorothy's loving friend and Thing To Protect, gets taken by creatures sent by the Wicked Witch. Hell-bourne flying chimpanzees that look as strange and terrifying as any Luciferian conjuring could be. They go to the castle of the Wicked Witch, confront and destroy her with the one good, pure element in the world - water. Toto is saved. Dorothy renewed.
Continuing, more discoveries, findings, knowledge and amusement, until they reach The Wizard of Oz. Timidly behind a curtain, Toto unveils he (the Wizard) is not an all-knowing being, or an intimidating threat, but a man projecting himself to be. Nevertheless, with powers to make incredible things come true. To grant Scarecrow his brain, Tin Man his heart, and Lion his courage. And also, Dorothy's ruby slippers. To click together, and remind herself "there's no place like home".
Then, back to "plain" Kansas. A land of Mother's Milk and familiarity. Knowing all the while the land of Oz is there - people of need but also people of adventure. To show as much as they need to be shown.
But home, Kansas, is where the soul is spawn, and where one truly lives.
inquiry
(saying it a little bit differently)
Not unlike any individual life, really, in the sense of a seeming objective reality full of this and that, varieties of persons(hood), all of it revolving around - if not in cahoots with - the individual's beliefs stash.
And then the occasional reminder that its heart - i.e. literally the heart of its *matter* - is, in effect, a basis for all that: "all that" as interpretation of a heart/center from which the sparkly hot firework glitter sprays and arcs, the wee little individual never utterly trapped in itself, but a simple faith embrace that heart/center/home has never ceased, nor could it, but very much will all its seeming emanation into the dream of time/space.
Maybe.