May The Force Be With You

I love Star Wars action figures.  I love the movies too, but my children would say I love the action figures more.  You would think this collection would be in one of their houses, but no. It is in mine. I have three boys. How does one divide up a collection like this? And when the youngest started pulling the heads off and interchanging them, it became sacrilegious and that settled it. It's MY collection. I mended all the misplaced heads and broken legs and protected them like they were my children.

These are quotes from Joseph Campbell's  The Power Of Myth (I put them here to justify my adoration of the characters):

"Certainly Star Wars has a valid mythological perspective. It shows the state as a machine and asks, 'Is the machine going to crush humanity or serve humanity?' Humanity comes not from the machine but from the heart. What I see in Star Wars is the same problem that Faust gives us: Mephistopheles, the machine man, can provide us with all the means, and is thus likely to determine the aims of life as well. But of course the characteristic of Faust, which makes him eligible to be saved, is that he seeks aims that are not those of the machine. Now, when Luke Skywalker unmasks his father, he is taking off the machine role that the father has played. The father was the uniform. That is power, the state role."

...you have to salute Luke Skywalker in Star Wars for that moment when he says, 'Turn off the computer and trust your feelings'....he's saying to turn off your machine and do it yourself, follow your feelings, trust your feelings. And when he did, he achieved success, and the audience broke out into applause...It is in a language that talks to young people, and that's what counts. It asks, Are you going to be a person of heart and humanity - because that's where the life is, from the heart - or are you going to do whatever seems to be required of you by what might be called 'intentional power?' When Ben Kenobi says, 'May the Force be with you,' he's speaking of the power and energy of life, not of programmed political intentions...Ben Kenobi says, 'The Force is an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, it penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together.' The force of the Empire is based on an intention to overcome and master. Star Wars is not a simple morality play, it has to do with the powers of life as they are either fulfilled or broken and suppressed through the action of man."

(the interviews between Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers which became the book, took place in 1985 and 1986 at George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch)

"The goal of life is rapture. Art is how we experience it." - Joseph Campbell

Out of the void came two particles. They bumped into each other and created an electrical impulse. The proton particle wanted to know what the fundamental element of his make-up was. He wanted a unified description of gravity, space, time, truth, beauty and superstrings. The antiproton particle just wanted to keep bumping into the proton. She saw the collision as wonderfully resonant vibrating music. She knew what the fundamental element of her make-up was. It was passion: the infinite joy of endless giving and receiving. He was confused by quarks, leptons and the unpredictable nature of how particles interact.

And out of the void came a voice. And the voice said, "What you are experiencing is a performance by Mantovannis' Superstrings. Don't try to analyze it or you may scratch the record. You may even stop life itself. Just let it play out. The more you experience the performance, the more you will 'become' the performance. It is a cycle: foreplay, arousal, climax and afterglow. Some people call this 'sonata form.' The music alternates between dissonance and consonance. The feeling of neutralness, of being neither attracted nor repelled appears and disappears. Back and forth. Together and apart. Up and down. In and out. It is like the breath which never ends as long as you are alive. It is like the bow against the string, the mouth on the reed, the finger on the key.

Live with a passion for these connections and contradictions. Embrace the contrapuntal and fugue-like details. Don't perform out of guilt or obligation, but be aware of the dangers associated with creating a fully realized musical experience. If you choose to share all that is in you, there may be performance anxiety. If you don't take the risk, you will experience despair. Say 'yes' to what expresses your passion. Consciously decide to celebrate your perplexity. However conflicted, make the music happen. It takes courage to be an artist. Choose the enchantment of uncertainty. Nothing is exciting if you know what the outcome is going to be. Part of being an artist is being willing to be surprised, shocked, disappointed. Yet there is delight in all of these things. You can even transform pain into bliss. You always have a choice. You can choose to deaden yourself to all the possibilities of the present moment or you can perpetually choose to fashion something out of the collision of particles, drop it back into the cosmic void and call it art."
Kathryn Feigal©1997