No matter, I believe this will be a great event and that I will see you there. I look forward to bringing you more information soon.

Here’s the website for the event.

The need to feel blessed is, I believe, a bedrock need for all human beings. When we grow up, we need to feel blessed by Mother and Father – demi-gods that only the passing of time reveals as imperfect human beings with their own set of challenges. And yet, no matter how mortal, if the level of blessing that I needed was not provided for by them, my blessing tank will need to be filled by others. The person for whom that is true will set out on a journey to seek out others who will provide those essential drops of blessing water. Some people spend their whole lives finding but droplets. They surrender power over their lives and look for that one person who will make everything just right, in the way Mother or Father never could. We know how that story goes…

The good news is that there are good people in this world – be they elders, loving and wise peers or a good partner – who will help fill up that blessing tank outside of the context of co-dependency. And yet, this afternoon, all those people who have contributed so immeasurably to my life could not help keep at bay this subtle, but pervasive longing for something more, something richer and fuller.

Four hours later, the workshop was over and I felt full, open and warm. Many people I care about attended and in the time I held space for them and facilitated their exploration of King energy, I was more focused on blessing than on being blessed. And this dispelled my flatness and hollowness completely.

There can be only one explanation for this – when I bless others, I get blessed.

Embracing the awkward

Now, the challenge that many have is that blessing others – telling them truly good things – feels really awkward. It seems to me that many are so used to minimizing their own worth that they simply won’t consider themselves worthy of blessing another human being. Instead, they will remain negative, masochistic or self-involved, and hope that one day, their blessing tank will magically fill.

What gets in the way of addressing this challenge is often people’s sense of integrity. It seems to me that there is a danger to conflate integrity with maintaining habitual patterns (I saw that in myself first by the way . The weird logic that a lot of people end up running their lives by then goes something like this “I’ve felt empty and depressed for most of my life. I have never felt like I had anything to contribute to others. I am not worthy of that. So for me to go around caring for people all of a sudden would be totally inauthentic and out of integrity.”

Now, I’m not saying that this thinking is completely without merit: To put on a happy-mask in an attempt to bless others is futile and incredibly draining. But the truth is that many of us have done the requisite work to authentically bless others. And what this evening reminded me of is that even when I believe I need to be blessed, I can choose instead to bless. I can go against the current of my own habitual patterns – which tells me I must wait for others to make things right – and bless others even in moments when it does feel awkward, when it does feel out of integrity. For feelings are as fleeting as clouds in the sky and if it takes but one little move against what feels like “me” to dispel days of brooding dark clouds, is it not worth it?

Emperor Marcus Aurelius blesses his loyal servant General Maximus - even as he nears death. We used this movie example in the evening workshop.

Bless another today!

I was reminded yesterday that instead of surrendering to the pain of my heart like I often do when I feel the need for blessing, I can tap into the vast energy of the archetypal King. I can open that channel and be nourished and fully served by it, as its gifts flow through me and into the eyes and hearts of another. For as the archetypal King pours through me into Other, he blesses me in full measure. It is a win-win situation.

Blessing another may not feel natural, but try it. Find someone, look them in the eye, and tell them they are beautiful, powerful, worthy. Then report back here and tell me how it felt.

I’m not kidding around. I want to hear some good stories here.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays a white African called “Danny Archer” and in my opinion has a very real and deep sense of himself as a self-assured man.

Danny Archer is a self-made man and diamond smuggler. While little is given of his past, it is mentioned that he had a rough one… seeing his mother raped and murdered as a child and his father hanged. He also served time in the military and is very skilled on the land as a tracker, fighter, shooter and generally solid survival skills and connections.

He seems to hold no illusions that he is doing something grand, he simply wants out and away from all the violence and bullshit and conflict that he has experienced all his life and is waiting for his big score that can get him out of Africa…. which is where the story starts as he hears of such a diamond found by a black slave laborer and goes to any means to get that diamond.

What really gets me about this movie is DiCaprio’s character is so damn cool. He absolutely and resolutely stands up for what he believes in regardless of those around him and at the same time as the movie progresses is able to open his heart and allow his beliefs to expand and grow without compromising his sense of self or purpose.

Many scenes stand out for me, one in particular is when Danny is in a bar and sees an attractive woman sitting there. He proceeds to talk to her and as she starts to ask him questions it dawns on him that she is a reporter.

He asks her “so you are a journalist?” to which she affirms and immediately Danny returns with “piss of huh” regardless of being very obviously attracted to her and walks off.

She follows him out asking for help in exposing the blood diamond trade asking if he can help her “off the record” to which he replies “well off the record I like to get kissed before I get fucked” and departs.

The movie follows a blossoming romance between these two characters as Danny seems to be inspired by her resolution and dedication to really making a difference while Maddy (the woman journalist) seems to be increasingly impressed by his determination and unwavering commitment to what is right, for him, and watching as he seems to evolve and begin to question his own beliefs and embrace the idea that it is possible to make a difference.

Right towards the end of the movie, before the wrap up, there is a final interplay between these two characters which shows, to me, right up until the end Danny is a hardcore man and will keep her safe even with his last breath…. and I’m not gonna talk too much about this last scene.

Danny Archer’s character is one of my favorite characters I have watched in any movie and I cannot write enough words to explain how I feel when watching this movie.

I highly recommend this movie if only as a man to watch this kick-ass embodiment of masculinity.

Enjoy!

Brett Churnin of www.mensgroup.info wrote me some time back and told me about his website. I checked it out and loved it. It is professionally done and offers lots of great resources on how to start a Men’s Group.

They’ve even gone to the length of compiling a Men’s Group field guide. Click here to get to that.

On their site, I read

Men in Men’s Group hold each other accountable to live a life at the edge; to us, this means being committed to a fulfilled life consistent with your unique purpose, and to be held accountable for what it takes to live that life.

Love it!

I’m in a men’s group myself. In fact, I spent last weekend with a majority of its members on a men’s workshop in Sweden. I really enjoyed it. We are such a diverse group of men – many are guys whom I would likely not have connected with outside of the context of a men’s group.

But having been in a group with them for over six months, I’m feeling ever closer with them and am really enjoying the expanded horizon for what kind of men I want in my life. It’s a real blessing to me.

So it’s clear that Brett and his partner in crime Mike Britton are onto something here. I suggest you check out their page now.

Visit mensgroup.info. 

I did my New Warrior Training Adventure last summer and the Primary Integration Training in Edinburgh shortly after. Many of my NWTA-brothers didn’t have that chance and several of them will have the opportunity this weekend. I enjoyed my PIT and I’m looking forward to facilitating it this time around. MKP-work features some amazing tools that I will be glad to revisit and integrate more fully.

The NWTA is still one of the most powerful experiences I’ve ever had and I recommend it whole-heartedly.

The Men await. I wish you a weekend full of joy and truth-telling.

Eivind 

What ‘Secondhand Lions’ shows is how men are complex characters, battling their own demons, protecting those in their care – albeit somewhat reluctantly at first – while hanging on to what is worthwhile to pass on to the next generation.

The story centres on Walter, of ‘coming -of-age’ -age, and how he settles into an initially uneasy but ultimately warm and inspiring relationship with his two elderly uncles. These two men have a lived a full life, and their history has profoundly shaped who they are. Living with the his uncles and hearing about of the adventures of their youth Walter learns about strength and sensitivity, the dichotomy and the tension of what mature manhood is. This duality can be in fact so difficult to live with that it could be argued that Hub and Garth, the uncles, each show a predominant aspect of the balancing act.

‘Secondhand Lions’ provides an entertaining (it is a family favourite) yet a thought-provoking and a challenging story of manhood – one life ready to start on the journey, and two lives, having a full life behind them, still looking forward to the next stage.

Five stars out of five.

Some snippets of what I wrote you:

It’s been a while since I wrote you! That’s why it feels good to sit here in the dark of a early January morning typing out these words.

I spent the New Year in the woods with a group of 12 people, facilitating what was to many the best New Year of ther lives. There is a hunger in Norway growing for authentic interpersonal connections, dropping the social masks and just being real with one another.

I think that’s the real challenge for men as well in 2012. So many of us are still stuck in roles. It often takes some form of “I can’t show how vulnerable I really feel inside on the outside, because then I won’t be a man and everyone will reject me and think I’m a loser and then I’ll be lonely”.

But it’s those exact thoughts that make men lonely and weak.

In that way, 50s male stereotypes still live on in modern men. But I see signs that a tidal wave of change is coming. I look forward to us men becoming truly powerful in 2012 by dropping our masks and stepping into our true, authentic power.

……

One of the most important things in 2012 will be that more men of consciousness enter into the public’s awareness. I expect that men’s issues and authentic masculinity will be larger themes than ever before.

I challenge you all to start manifesting those wonderful visions and dreams you carry deep inside of you in the coming year. The world will need them.

Jack Campbell is a successful, driven and ambitious Wall Street executive. Not only does he give no importance to family-oriented festivals like Christmas (he does not even think about his family), he also expects and drives his team to do so. But he is no red-eyed, spitting work driver either. He is suave and sophisticated. He knows just which buttons to press to “motivate” his team – these buttons usually have the dollar sign and a lot of zero’s on them. He is with his team on the eve of a billion-dollar deal but he is distant from them and his own feelings, unable to feel any emotion at making them sacrifice time with their family on Christmas Eve.

He does have time for women though. But even there, he is distant. Instead of going to meet her family for Christmas, he offers to bathe his lover in liquor. When an old girlfriend – Kate – leaves messages for him to call back, he dismisses her outright, even taking advice from his boss, an even bigger money-chaser than he. Kate used to be his girl-friend 13 years ago before Jack flew to London to study to be an investment banker. At the airport while seeing him off, Kate had a premonition and begged him not to go, somehow sensing that his leaving would mean the end of their relationship. But goal-oriented that Jack was and focused on his trip, he dismissed her fears and flew anyway. Kate’s premonition was accurate.

Our distance from our true inner self

Jack has been and is distant from his feelings and his emotions – they are buried deep within, and it will take a monumental shift in his life (which we witness as the movie progresses) for him to understand what it means to connect with himself, with his masculine self, while also understanding his feelings, priorities and sense of happiness. A lot of adult males his age are like him, and young men – our sons – of our times are unfortunately learning to be like that. They are capable of hurting but incapable of recognizing the hurt they cause. They deeply and truly believe that the trappings of materialism and making a huge amount of money is success. We are raising an entire generation of sons by forcing them to be less “manly”, because popular culture and political correctness informs us that being manly is synonymous with violence, aggression, lack of feeling or unfair competitiveness, which is nonsense. When we raise boys to be “sensitive”, to be more in “touch with their feelings”, instead of helping them understand these attributes from the masculine perspective, we mistakenly try to mould them to be more like girls (albeit not consciously) because again mistakenly, qualities of caring and nurturing are normally associated with girls, not boys. This drives the boys’ natural masculine instincts such as centeredness, individuality, loyalty, morality, nobility, purpose, feeling, adventure, integrity and honor underground into their (Jungian) shadow, a subconscious full of repressed, ignored and suppressed feelings, emotions and drives. This shadow shows itself in mindless consumerism, hunger for power, violence, insensitivity, corruption and situation-dependent shifting norms of integrity.

Lacking strong masculine role models in their fathers, uncles and other male caretakers (who can themselves be confused about what is it to be masculine), boys and young men turn to their peers for role models, peers who are equally at a disadvantage or are themselves searching for strong, masculine role models. Jack’s role model is his boss who calls him a “tiger” for staying at work on Christmas Eve. Our boys search and often attach themselves to characters on TV, advertisements, video games or movies; places where manhood and being masculine has four main ingredients: materialism, violence, sports and sex but rarely has true masculine attributes such as centeredness, compassion, integrity, honor, adventure or individuality (not individualism which is I-me-mine). We raise boys into adults whose inability to connect to themselves and to others is only matched by their love for the “immature boy” in them and for their expensive toys. We do not know about Jack’s childhood (he never speaks about his parents or his childhood) but we can make inferences by his disconnect from his masculinity and his attachment to the trappings of materialism.

A twist of Fate

Fate has something in store for Jack. While trying to “save” a hold-up thug brandishing a gun, Jack shows that he is not completely lost; he does have some feeling left. But when the thug asks him “What do you want?”, Jack arrogantly replies that he has everything. The thug – Cash – is in fact a divine power who changes Jack’s life. The next morning Jack awakes in a strange bed, next to Kate with children’s voices in the background. Kate wakes up and interacts with Jack as if everything is normal, but Jack is stunned. He is completely at a loss for words and has no clue what has happened to him. He is in fact living the life with Kate IF he had not flown to London. It is the glimpse into a life with Kate that Cash has given him. Most of us are like Jack with an external locus of self-worth. We are so focused on what we want from this world that we do not even realize that we might have it in us to give something back. Not being able to grow up into manhood, we take our boyish toys with us into adulthood; only the toys are more expensive and look different. But as long as our sense of self-worth flows from our possessions, we never realize that in reality, our possessions own us and not the other way around. After waking up next to Kate, Jack runs away to his super-rich apartment building where nobody recognizes him, much to his disappointment and anger. He has lost his toys, his prized Porsche among others, and his sense of self-worth.

Jack returns to Kate and the kids, resigned to his fate and starts to discover his life as a husband, father and car tire salesman – retail at that. But he has a few important lessons to learn, such as the difference between seducing a woman and penetrating the feminine. Seducing a woman is “relatively easy”, even boys (be they in the body of an adult man) can do that. But penetrating the feminine can only be done by a man who has understood himself and the feminine. We penetrate the feminine when we establishing a deep contact with what it means to be feminine in a woman, of submitting to her strength and her flow, not trying to overcome her. True submission to the feminine can only happen when our locus of control and self-worth is within us , not outside. Otherwise we operate from a fear of losing what it means to be us and fail to submit. Jack learns this crucial difference the hard way when tries to seduce the woman in Kate by using exclamations such as “Yeah! You’re bad”; stuff which probably worked in his empty relationships with women in his previous life, but which completely puts Kate off. But when he is genuinely amazed at the mature and beautiful woman that Kate has become, she asks him, “How can you do that?… Look at me like you haven’t seen me every day for the last 13 years.” Jack is learning what it means to appreciate the feminine rather than merely notice the woman. Another incident is when Jack forgets their wedding anniversary and is informed by his daughter that on one anniversary, her father had named a star after Kate. Jack, as most men would undoubtedly concur, thinks this is corny, but his daughter informs him “Mom liked it”. How many of us judge the sincerity of our love and our relationships by the monetary value of our gifts – economic-oriented transactions? Something ostensibly corny such as naming a star after a woman might actually be priceless. But to understand this, we need to understand the feminine, something Jack does not.

Jack goes through several incidents where he makes mistakes with his interactions with his children and even almost ends up having an affair. A couple of his true and deep realization moments are worth mentioning. One comes when he informs Kate that he has been offered a job with huge perks, lot of money and all the perks. His final argument is that the job will help them finally get a life that other people envy. To this Kate informs that they already do. Jack is speechless. The other one is when Kate tells him that to help him take up the new job, she will uproot all of them from a house they became a family in, where she expected to greet her grandchildren. She would do all of this because she loved him. Kate tells him that their relationship is more important than an address. Jack has never had such a relationship with anyone, leave alone a woman.

What have you done for me lately?

True relationships, not just between a man and a woman, are not based on give-and-take, on crude economic transactions such as “what have you done for me lately?”. Most of us live our lives in such relationships where we base their strength and value on the intensity, frequency and price of the transactions. This happens because we are not centered in ourselves. We are constantly seeking our worth in our transactions, in our relationships. Unable to measure a relationship, we attempt to judge its value based on the only thing we know – economic, monetary bases of give and take. Some of us never seem to understand that in a relationship, there is no give and take, only give and receive. Further, we have no right or entitlement to the receiving, only the giving. But this will not happen if we live our lives in fear, fear of giving away too much in a relationship and losing power, giving away so much that we seem to have nothing left for ourselves. Of course this does sometimes happen in single-sided relationships where there is an unhealthy dependence on the other person, but this is not what I mean here. Unless one is truly centered, unless one’s power rests in oneself rather than in the possessions and the appearance of power in a relationship, one cannot truly have any healthy, strong relationship. Nowhere is this true than between a man and a woman. True power in a relationship between a man and a woman comes when the man submits to the feminine and the woman to the masculine. The feminine flows, encompasses and nourishes, the masculine is centered, immovable and penetrates. Jack, in his own way, realizes the feminine and submits to it.

In the last scene of the movie, when Jack has been unwillingly restored to his previous (real) life by Cash, the tables are turned and this time it is Kate who is at the airport about to leave for a new job in Paris and Jack manages to convince her to stay. Not by rational exhortations, but by using feelings, emotional imagery of their life together which he glimpsed and by appealing to her feminine.

Conclusion

The Family Man might never become a cult movie. In fact, it could have been stronger on its symbolism, on Jack’s hard-driving financial job – he never faces a moral challenge as a financial expert, on Jack’s learning moments and in its final message. But what does comes across strongly is that Jack learns what it means to be a family man and what it means to understand and submit to the feminine, rather than simply get (as in conquer) a woman. All men should get the opportunity, within the committed and sometimes challenging relationship with the woman they love, to reach deep within themselves, touch a primordial place bereft of selfishness and transaction-orientated relationship-making and realize, as Jack did, that, “My God! All this time, I never stopped loving you”.

A new job

Daigo’s mother is dead. His father is gone, having run off with a waitress when Daigo was but a child. He is for all intents and purposes an orphan and his childhood home in Sakata northwest of Tokyo stands abandoned. It is a quaint house, surrounded by cherry trees, perched on a piece of land above a babbling stream. His mother lived alone there after Daigo moved out. The house was his only inheritance when she died two years previously.

Daigo sells his expensive cello to stabilize their finances for the next leg of their journey – a new life in his childhood home – and feels relief as he does it. Maybe the dream he had pursued wasn’t really his dream after all, he tells us in a monologue. This is a pivotal moment in his life, and he rightly recognizes it as such.

When a man finds himself stuck in a dead-end life, he is wasting his birthright. We are put here on this planet, I believe, to find our true gift and courageously give that to the world. Every man yearns deep down to leave a mark. I think I know that much about you, brother! I don’t think the gift that will leave that mark necessarily needs to be our livelihood though. But if our work is draining us of energy and makes us daydream of a life that isn’t ours, we should course-correct. Many men reach that point of recognition, but few are those who act. For stepping into that unknown is a scary thing, especially if he is the main breadwinner of the family (in certain conditions, it would even be irresponsible).

Men have always, it seems, sacrificed their inner yearning for depth, vitality and meaning in favor of a stable job that puts food on the table. But hearts of men close when their life experience turns certain, controlled, measured. So how do we make a living and live with open, beating, passionate hearts? Many, if not all, men will struggle with this question in their lifetime (I do – and I haven’t even started a family!). And finding a satisfying answer is always a process of risk and challenge.

Daigo is lucky in a way – fate intervenes and forces him into a time of transformation. It is as if the universe conspires to give him what he needs to find a truer path, when he himself has neglected the seeking (note that he only realizes after selling the cello that he was chasing the wrong dream). This process, when it arises in our lives, often signals an entry into the sacred time of the Magician Archetype. If we resist, we will suffer. But if we embrace the mystery of life’s unfolding and learn to die while we still live, we will be in for a ride that will almost certainly change our lives for the better.

A hieroglyphic job ad about “departures” takes Daigo to a red house on a hill where large wood coffins line the back wall of the front office. NK Agent is a company which has made dead people its business. The owner Sasaki prepares them beautifully and gracefully for their final journey as if he were an artist. Through his work, the bereaved uncover deep and forgotten feelings of grief, love and joy. This is the gentle and beautiful ritual of departure that has become his craft. And since business is reasonably good, he needs a right hand man.

Death as a doorway to feeling

When the story plays out, Daigo’s new boss has been widowed for nine years. When his wife died, he prepared her body and sent her off. When he shares this story with Daigo amongst the thick foliage of his upstairs living quarters, we understand there was a profound depth of love and feeling between the two. I’m reminded of the universal rule that suggests that our true gifts to the world shall emerge through our wounds. Sasaki has embraced his loss and transmuted the grief into a gift he can pass on to others.

Daigo’s first days on the job serve as a baptism by fire and he learns soon enough that dead people smell. He is challenged beyond his comfort zone, but something remarkable starts happening to him: He realizes, as if it were a surprise, that he is surrounded by death. When Mika brings home a dead bird one day, he feels ill. A wave of emotion takes him as he appears to tune in, perhaps for the first time in his life, to the frailty and preciousness of life. Perhaps he sees that we are all so fragile, so beautiful in our infinite vulnerability. He embraces his wife and starts kissing her with tender passion.

Later that night, he pulls out his old childhood cello, with which he performed for his parents in his early years. As he plays, memories of his father, whose face he cannot even remember, pour in. He remembers that they gave each other a “rock letter” by the riverside. A rock letter, his father taught him, was a way of communication used before words emerged. It would tell the recipient something about the mood of the sender based on its weight, shape and surface. He remembers that he gave his father a small, smooth stone back then. In return, his father gave him a rough and heavy rock.

Something in Daigo is coming out of hibernation. His naïveté is starting to give way to a deeper feeling landscape.

Standing tall in the face of challenge

Death is a taboo subject in Japan, so much so that the director allegedly feared for how the movie would be received upon its release. So when the people in his life discover what he does for a living, they react with disgust. His wife even screams at him that he is “unclean” before she leaves him and travels back to Tokyo. But Daigo has found a calling now; he has seen how Sasaki’s work heals the wounds of the bereaved and brings more love into the world. He has seen the grace with which he carries out the ritual. He has learned that there is beauty to be found even in death. He describes it with these words in one scene:

One grown cold
restored to beauty for all eternity
this was done with a calmness, a precision
and above all a gentle affection.
At the final parting
sending the dead on their way
everything done peacefully and beautifully.

Daigo is alone now. He only has his work, his boss and the office lady. Surrounded by people who are mortified by the concept of death, he finds himself in a form of purgatory. “Demons are eating his flesh” yet he presses on. His heart is in his work now. That is all he needs in order to endure.

Our twisted relationship to death

The way we relate to death in the world today is very unnatural. I know that to be true for the Western world. This movie tells me that it is true for the Eastern as well. Losing touch with the wisdom and gratitude inherent in contemplating our deaths has a huge cost: We forget that we are finite, here for but a short time. And with the arrogance inherent in forgetting our finitude, we lose the basic humility and gratitude required for living a fulfilling life on this splendid, little rock.

But what can a normal man do when there is such pressure on him to be happy-go-lucky, to shit diamonds for breakfast and manifest heavenly mansions out of thin air for dinner? All while smiling, laughing, beaming success and having not a worry in the world. Well, he must become a courageous man. Because it takes great courage to shed the facade and allow the grief and wildness that is inherent in the depths of us to emerge in an authentic way in his daily life. The mature man has access to his feeling body and there is so much repressed feeling in today’s society.

For a world entranced by trends, fashions, and reality TV, the “wild man love” that is lived openly in the truly courageous man looks way too much like the heavy dark of death and strange, hairy creatures that live under the ground. Who wants to get soil stuck under their finger nails when they can get the latest in manicures on special offer down the road and look splendid to their friends?

But lest we embrace that life is a series of deaths and understand that the key to living well is dying well, we will never be truly happy. Consumerist culture is an empty promise. It delivers only fleeting moments of joy in an ocean of half-life. Most of us feel hollow and miserable. And who are we kidding anyway? In the depth of our hearts and souls, we know the truth: Something is seriously wrong about our culture.

Letting go at the deathbed of his father

One day, a telegram arrives at Daigo’s door. His father has died. Daigo’s trials have all been presented him, it may seem, to prepare him for the most pivotal of them all – letting his father back into his heart. Ever since he ran off, Daigo has carried fierce resentment against him. He is now committed to not forgive. Fortunately, his wife is now back in his life, thanks to the beautiful ritual he performed for the sweet woman who ran the local bath. Mika has seen first-hand the beauty inherent in a graceful departure and with Mika back, Daigo has passed the test: He has remained true to his heart.

He finds himself at his father’s side somewhat reluctantly. His heart is closed – who is this sad, lonely man who lies on the floor before him? He doesn’t even recognize him! Then he starts carrying out the ritual of departure. As he works on the hands, stiff and cold with rigor mortis, something falls to the floor. It is the rock he gave his dad when he was little.

Daigo’s feeling body comes online like a great wave. His father’s last thought was of him. His father must have loved him! But life happened and feelings of shame and regret came between them. In that very moment, I know that a huge reservoir of feeling and power that was previously inaccessible to Daigo opens up. As he washes his dad, tears stream down his face. He forgives – and he loves. This is a good moment to remember that it is impossible for any man to stand up fully in his own power and beauty without finding peace in the part of his heart that holds the imprints of Dad. Daigo holds up the rock to the pregnant belly of his wife Mika as they smile to each other. Something is healed there – in the midst of the circle of life.

Conclusion

Departures is a wise and beautiful movie about life’s big questions. It is a movie about art: Music connects all cultures in a way similar to death and Daigo could take to the art of departure more easily because he was a musician. It is also a movie about mentorship: Sasaki opens Daigo’s heart and helps him reconnect with his own core truth in a way that empowers him to find his calling and forgive his dad. But most of all, it is a movie about life. It reminds us gently of the invisible cords that connect us, of the petty little things that keep us apart, of the vulnerability of life and humankind, and of the healing, life-giving power of true grief. In that, I sense that it beckons us to get more intimate with each other, to go beyond fear and judgments in order to heed the eternal call of the Lover archetype: Love one another today. Tomorrow may never come.