The Fountain, Part Deux [spoilers]

I looked at the journal entry I scribbled off right after seeing The Fountain, and realized it was way better than my post about the movie.

[Confusatory note: In the beginning was pure consciousness, pure being. The thought arose: "what am I?" and so, to quote the bard, It divided for the sake of love, for the sake of union. This was the creation of the universe and the first act of love.]

So here it is:

This is The Myth writ large--Isis & Osiris, Shakti & Shiva. I understand some things better now: the "God" sacrifices himself by becoming matter. This is his ahamkara, his manner of individuation, because he is the original Object. She, the Subject, becomes Energy and thus individuates, but it's pure energy without form or object. They need each other. To love each other, they had to separate, to individuate, to become an "I" separate from all else.

The ego we inherit from this original separation seeks reunion, seeks dissolution in total love, but it cannot achieve this union while still an "I," while clinging to its separateness from all. This was the punchline of the movie, when the God/Tom character finally tore himself away from his scientific (death-denying) experiments and followed Izzi (Isis rearrang'd) out into the snow (symbolic of the plenum?) -- into wonderment and play, away from his selfish absorption and arrogant denial of death. She leads him upward from the material; he finds his union with her only when he can let go of himself and finish the story--collaborate with her, as in the beginning. His alter ego Tomás blooms just as Osiris did upon being healed by Isis. His fire (ardor for the quest) is transmuted into water (the Fountain) at the same time as her water (ink in which she writes) becomes fire (new creation).

We are all constantly emulating the Goddess and God, just by being ourselves (individuated selves who seek dissolution, usually in love but sometimes in hatred, or intoxication, or--). The way to get back home is bhakti, to love (the Divine) in every moment, as everything is the Divine; to dance with It in spontaneous engagement/love. Devotion and gratitude are potent tools because they minimize ego while maximizing love.

The Divine Mother, as Izzi was in the film, writes the story of life but we must collaborate by being ourselves fully, by letting go of ourselves when we most want to cling to ego--when we are in love or are afraid or desirous or in pain. Izzi dies well; she lets go, as eventually Tomás does. This gives new meaning to Robert Anton Wilson's "final secret of the Illuminati" as presented in Cosmic Trigger. He was right after all. He was saying--in the darkest times we must embrace Her [the God of your understanding, Dear Reader] and if we do She will lead us beyond ourselves to a new union with Her, a new creation, a new Heaven and Earth.

The original Cosmic Trigger quote [emphasis in original]:

Tim Leary was here last week, lecturing at UC-Berkeley. The news arrived that his appeal had been rejected ... and he might have to go back to jail again....Tim continued to radiate humor, cheer and optimism....

Tim was stopped by one of our guests with a final question before he left.
"What do you do, Dr. Leary, when somebody keeps giving you negative energy?"

Tim grinned that special grin of his that so annoys all his critics." Come back with all the positive energy you have," he said....

And so I learned the final secret of the Illuminati.

[Confusatory note 2: There is a mistaken belief that, on the earth plane, the most efficacious act of magick must therefore take place only between a man and a woman. Believe me, there is nothing more wondrous nor more powerful, and it will definitely take you to places that (you) have never been--if you're straight. But as my Holy Guardian Angel hath pointed out, we must ever be on guard against universalizing our personal and cultural--and species--preferences. She takes as Her example those species which are asexual, those which can reproduce both sexually and asexually, those which diverge into more than two sexes, those which switch back and forth from male to female. Surely these, too, reflect Ultimate/Intimate Unity; surely they outnumber humans. Does Shiva/Shakti have an inordinate fondness for polymorphous polyamor(alit)y?]