Knock....and the door will open.
What did you see when you took off your shoes and you explored, what happened when the door opened, or did you not go in?
Best,
AK
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In the beginning was the word...
Berwick Academy's World Literature class. A blog that dabbles in Universal Truths and steeped in true thoughts. A judgment free zone that promotes thoughtful conversations about difficult questions.
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The Invisible Man
In the beginning was the word...
20 comments:
Well I have to say that the Labyrinth was way more religious than I expected. I found myself getting lost in the religious aspect rather than the actual message itself. The Labyrinth appeared to be the journey towards true faith and God's Light. I'm not sure that I'm journeying towards God's light, but I believe that we should share our light with the rest of the world. Perhaps what we have learned in the underground is our light or enlightenment, and we must use that to the best of our abilities.
Aside from the religious elements, I did manage to take away several lessons, and I tried my best to immerse myself in the experience. I found stage 4 about our symbol of hurt to be very interesting. I don't think I could pin down exactly what my symbol would be, but the symbol of my hurt and the hurt I've inflicted on others would have to be the same. I am equally hurt by the damage I do in the world, which brought me to the final stage of the Labyrinth. What legacy will I leave? The choice of sand in the final message was interesting because overtime our footprints will smooth over and be erased. Most of us will leave a legacy that will last a single lifetime after we are gone, and then the wind will erase our footprints. If we aren't pulled away from our legend by forces of society, perhaps our legacy will last even longer.
I am going to be honest, I was skeptical when this started. I didn't really pick up on the religion aspect of it. Once I got to the thrid part though, I sort of realized that religion didn't really matter that much. You don't have to give all of your problems to God, as long as you realize that you possess faults and you face them. And, in time, dispose of them.
One part that stood out to me was the second level that talked about noise verses signals. I don't know, but there is something about pairs. Thought v. Action, Food v. Water, "Elixir of Life" v. "The Sorcerer's Stone". They said that signals were meaningful messanges that are meant to help us but the noise of our life is a distraction. I thought of a Universal Language and how noise or words are not necessary in order to understand. Only "signals" are really necessary to understand, but we often don't realize that because we are so focused on using language that we forget about the universal, silent language.
Towey
I was also skeptical, very skeptical in fact and not at all in the mood to go exploring on a website for forty minutes. I actually ended up doing it though, and I'm still not sure what to make of the whole thing...it was a little weird. I was not a fan of the religious element. I like Towey's positive outlook...but to me it does matter, it distracted me from the message and I wish it had been more neutral in that respect. That aside, there were some ideas that were brought to my attenion while in the labyrinth that I thought were worth writing down. I liked the idea of signal and noise -- I think it's often hard to separate the two from each other. That inability to distinguish between the signals (the meaningful occurences in our lives) and the the noise (the distractions and minutia of daily life) can lead to the "false norths" mentioned in the labyrinth. We start pursuing goals that aren't necessarily driven by what we truly want and come to a dead end. The only consolation in this is the idea in one of the last parts of the labyrinth, the space one. There, everything is in perspective; there are no lines, no maps, no human definitions only rock and forest and sea and desert. It's hard to recreate that space in our own heads, but I think it's worth trying so that we can have a minute or two without noise and thus eliminate our false norths and maybe find what we really want.
I agree, I too get thrown by the religious aspect of this labyrinth experiment. I must confess also that I am not a religious person, but I do acknowledge that I am spiritual—I wonder how different those two things are. With that being said, god (big or little G) is all around us and certainly present within the confines of The Alchemist. But it seems that the book is not about one religion but rather a fusion of many—and is asking us what we consider to be our faith? Ultimately, what is the one thing we should have completely faith in?
For me it is not god—but rather something much closer to my own soul—something that resides in the pages of book I fall asleep on every night.
Good luck and keep exploring,
AK
These have been enlightening and illuminating--I think the 'lights' are starting to come on. Kafka was right, and it is above my desk too, that the only word is 'wait.'
I have been waiting for sometime to share this with you--but it seems like a good moment:
There is a language older by far and deeper than words. It is the language of bodies, of body on body, wind on snow, rain on trees, wave on stone. It is the language of dream, gesture, symbol, memory. We have forgotten this language. We do not even remember that it exists.
In order for us to maintain our way of living, we must, in a broad sense, tell lies to each other, and especially to ourselves. It is not necessary that the lies be particularly believable. The lies acts as barriers to the truth. These barriers to truth are necessary because without them many deplorable acts would become impossibilities. Truth must at all costs be avoided. When we do allow self-evident truths to percolate past our defenses and into our consciousness, they are treated like so many hand grenades rolling across the dace floor of an improbably macabre party. We try to stay out of harm’s way, afraid they will go off, shatter our delusions, and leave us exposed as the hollow people we have become. And so we avoid these truths, these self-evident truths, and continue the dance of world destructions.
As is true for most children, when I was young, I heard the world speak. Stars sang. Stones had preferences. Trees had bad days. Toads held lively discussions, crowed over a good day’s catch. Like static on a radio, schooling and other forms of socialization began to interfere with my perception of the animate world, and for a number of years I almost believed that only humans spoke. The gaps between what I experienced and what I almost believed confused me deeply. It wasn’t unit later that I began to understand the personal, political, social, ecological, and economic implications of living in a silenced world.
--Derrick Jensen, A Language Older Than Words
Have been listening to Where the Wild Things Are soundtrack, so I could be all wrong too.
Great work thus far--for those who have posted, thank you for your honest and brave words: they are humbling and inspiring.
With gratitude,
Boy
I will admit that the religion part of the labyrinth somewhat ruined the effect of this video for me. I like believing that there is a higher being, but I disagree that I need to have him forgive what I've done wrong, or to pray to him. One part though that broke through the way I viewed this was in the third section. The narrator is describing breathing and then how that affects the way trees breathe and then unltimately how it comes back to us; an endless cycle. The fact that everything is connected is something that I think about often. Everything affects everything else. It's hard to argue that there is one thing that is completely untouched by anything else.
I'm only about halfway through this, I think. Part 7, maybe? I've lost track. But I wanted to take a minute to point out that my favorite part of this so far is these little buildings that keep getting closer then disappearing as they reach the edges of the page. I keep trying to stop them by moving my mouse, but I can't. I can only slow them down and, even then, only for a second. I want to slow them down, but I don't want to see them disappear, is what I'm realizing. And of course the two go hand in hand. If you slow down the buildings, you're forced to watch them disappear before they reach the edges of the page. If you let them go at the regular speed, they just exit the corners and sides and that's that.
I'm not entirely sure what compelled me to post that, but something did. I have to agree with the other people, the religion is a little overwhelming at times. I wish I could disregard it like Molly, but everytime the voice says GOD, it sounds like that to me, like it's in capital letters. This was most apparent in the section where it told you to take communion with GOD. I was a little wary of this, but I munched the cyber bread happily and drank the CGI wine. I can't decide if that was wrong, though. If I don't necessarily want to, why should I? But I did.
I had no idea what to expect from the Labyrinth. Some parts were a little too religious for me, but I liked the underlying theme. In the last part, the message, "where you walk, you've left an impression," really left me thinking. I have always seen the people and things I encounter just characters in the novel of my life, but this made me question whether I have an impact on other people's lives. I wondered, What will I be remembered as? Will I have an everlasting impression on this world?
I also really liked when part 8 said, "They see you without image, the you that God sees." Although I am skeptical of God, I do believe in a higher power that sees me as who I am and not what I am. Too often in this world people are seen as what they have accomplished and not what kind of person they are. Just a thought...
Dylan Martini
I haven't been a strong believer in God and I don't want to sound like a hard core religious person because I'm not, but at times I've questioned what we are doing here and where are we in relation to everything else. Where is the next place we will be or are we going to fade away. We never existed and all of a sudden we're part of Earth, the Universe, Life, and we're set on a journey or path of some sort, but what happens at the end and where is that end. Will we continue to exist outside of our physical state? I think one point of "taking off our shoes" was to immerse ourselves in this labyrinth and self reflect. Self reflection can help shed our regrets and worries. It will allow us to come out refreshed and cleansed from all stresses we encounter so we can see the big picture. We should open up and see where we are in relation to everyone and everything instead of just focusing on our narrow path.
One statement that stood out to me was "you can choose a lifestyle or you can choose life." Choosing a lifestyle is catagorizing oneself, but by choosing life you're letting yourself be free to fulfill whatever it is you want to without worrying about the effect it may have against a title. It's important to know who you are, not necessarily what you are, because not one person is the same and that's one thing that makes our place in the world worth questioning. Are we going to let ourselves blend in and allow ourselves to be forgotten or will we as individuals stand out and "shine our light."
Walk a different path than others and make it known who you are by letting go of the rocks you carry. Represent the person that plants a seed and contribute to life. Not all of this is as simple as expressed in the labyrinth, but maybe it's something worth aiming for because it may resurrect some things one has forgotten and put things in a greater perspective.
Kristen van Dissel
I had no idea what to expect from the Labyrinth. Some parts were a little too religious for me, but I liked the underlying theme. In the last part, the message, "where you walk, you've left an impression," really left me thinking. I have always seen the people and things I encounter just characters in the novel of my life, but this made me question whether I have an impact on other people's lives. I wondered, What will I be remembered as? Will I have an everlasting impression on this world?
I also really liked when part 8 said, "They see you without image, the you that God sees." Although I am skeptical of God, I do believe in a higher power that sees me as who I am and not what I am. One that sees people under the mask that society forces us to wear. Too often in this world people are seen as what they have accomplished and not what kind of person they are. Just a thought...
Dylan Martini
I, like Kate and Molly, was stuck the most by the second part of the labyrinth, distinguishing signals from noise. To find the signals, the truly important messages that we need to hear and not the noise which hinders our ability to achieve peace, we need to be aware of what is important and what is not. This is challenging because our lives are so filled with noise and it seems as though we need to hear all of it. In the Labyrinth we were told to identify the noise and place it to one side, to control it. This reminded me of our discussion of dreams today in the way that we can control our dreams and make them what we want them to be. If we are aware and able to control the noise around us, we can hear what we want and need to hear. Be making our dreams a thing of the conscious mind, we come closer to making them a reality, and by eliminating the noise we come closer to the signals that could perhaps lead us to our dreams.
When I knocked, I was jarred by the blatant presence of god behind the door, and I will admit that I was incredibly reluctant to step inside and listen at first, but I went inside, and did what was asked of me. I will say that i was very worried of becoming immersed for fear of it changing me in a way that I wouldn't like. However, once I accepted that religion could just as well be spirituality, i found it much more accessible. I consider myself a spiritual person, believing that everything is connected and that we are all part of nature. This labyrinth gave me ideas for how to experience the world and how to conduct myself in it. Differentiating between signals and noise is one example of this. People can go through life without knowing the difference between the two, and most people do. I probably do as well, but I now know what I should be listening for. This idea of signals and noise also relates back to the omens from The Alchemist. They are messages that are mixed in with everything else that can only be seen by those who are looking for them.
Before watching this, i have thought about this idea of the impressions that we leave on the world quite a bit. I often tell myself that I will be happy when i die as long as people remember me for better or worse. hopefully better. I tell myself that my success in life will be decided by the degree to which people are able to remember me. Since coming to that conclusion a few things have caused me to come back to that thought. the first thing was a scene from "Lord of War" in which the main character says that he doesn't want to be remembered at all. and the second was this and although this is saying that we should try to have an effect and a lasting impression, it made me come to a new conclusion: that we are all going to be forgotten in time. scrolls tear, statues crumble, stories get lost, tablets fall apart, books burn, data corrupts, and everyone that we remember, even ourselves, will be gone and forgotten. In the past, i think this realization might have worried or even frightened me, but right now i can accept it.
Much like the opinions of my peers, I'd also have to say that I think the religious aspect of this video really took my mind away from the point of it. Not all of us believe in a god, and I think that by relating it so much to religion, it took away from the universalness that the message attempted to deliver. More easily stated, I think that this is relevant to all of us in the world regardless of our religious beliefs or if we have none at all. I do however believe that there is some higher power, or something watching over this world. I can't quite explain the technicalities of it, but I do believe in things like Karma, and for such a thing to exist, there must be some overseer who determines these things. . After getting past this, however, i began to close my eyes a bit and really try to get enveloped into the task. I liked the idea of the light, much like the Underground Man, but like Briana I don't think we are following God's light, one because I don't necessarily believe in a god, and two because I think we need to find out light and slowly figure out where we want to shine the light, and therefore find the path we shall follow. If we were to follow God's light, doesn't that once again only make us slaves.
Two parts that stick out to me were throwing our worries into the bowl with water in it. For me, that was powerful. I really thought about a lot of things going on and releasing my mouse, hearing the splash, and imagining it sinking to the bottom was brought some relief along with some hope. Also, it later talks about the difference between choosing a lifestyle or a life. This jumped out to me because right now we are all at a critical moment in our lives trying to figure out where we want to go to college, and what we would like to do. But are we getting caught up in all of this and choosing to live a lifestyle bases on expectations and other's viewpoints of us. Whereas when you choose to live a life, you have the freedom of anything you want to do and how you want to live your life. I've never thought about it that way, and it just really sucked me in. Overall, I liked this assignment, but I don't think I really let myself fully walk through the door. I merely stood at the threshold and took a view of the things that lied within.
I could handle the god thing. I'm not a huge fan of God (the God of Abraham Christ and Mohamed); when one get's "closer to God," it is inherently an act of moving away from oneself. God asks you to say "I am weak, protect me." god (small g god), on the other hand, seems to be the process by which we say, "who shall be my master if not myself?" So, the "religious" aspect of the Labyrinth fit in quite nicely with my own personal nihilistic/pantheistic humanist worldview.
I really liked the noise part, because my life is so full of noise. You should really hear it at my house. I know that's not the kind of noise they meant, but I'd argue it is. I really liked the letting go stones and the hurts drawing thing. I took them very seriously, and spent a good deal of time on those pages. For number 10., others, I really felt limited by how few candles you could use. I know that was merely a limitation of the medium, but still, there were more people I would have liked to remember. The good news is, I am obviously not limited by the number of candles in some flash-applet.
Like many of the people that have responded already, the religious aspect of the Labyrinth really put me off. At first I was not seeing the message in the Labyrinth because I was harping on the religious aspects that it held. But then at stage three, letting go, I changed my mind. When I dropped that rock into the bowl of water I felt different. As I saw the things I was worrying about fall away with the ripples in the water. From this point on I took a different outlook on the Labyrinth. I took it to just mean something spiritual. I took the presence of god out of it and that really helped. I really thought about the impact we will leave on the world. I would love to be someone whose imprint will last more than one generation, but I am not sure what to do in order to go about achieving that goal. I do not want my footprints to simply be blown away by the winds, I want it to last until the powerful tide comes along at long last and finally washes it away. I think that if we can all do our best to leave a good impression on this earth, the world will be a better place. People will focus on both the present and the final destination. And that is the secret to true happiness.
whoops, I meant to refresh and accidentally posted.
One thing that bothered me:
Part 6, Holy Space, was about the sort of internal communication with god; the low key, "church of the living room" (to borrow a phrase from the great prophet Ian Wright) style of worship. god eats, god drinks, god is us, etc. etc.
Here's my issue; if this is all true, and my interpretation is more or less correct, why the hell was the original version of Labyrinth held in Saint Paul's Cathedral in London? If the idea is to promote a sort of purposeful, western-style zen, isn't this the complete wrong idea? Is a cathedral anything other than "noise," to use their own phrase? Frankly, while I can handle a group that grows out of Christian tradition, this whole Labyrinth project is held back by it. If they were truly on board with their own message, "letting go" of Christian "distraction" would be the obvious next step.
I am really not sure if this little rant made any sense at all.
The labyrinth made me realize that it is easy to be close-minded when you make the assumption that you're not. I opened it up and I was angry that I was being asked to listen. I think the greatest roadblock I found, as it seems with many other people, is the religious element of the site. I had already decided that I may believe in a god, but definitely not a God. And so every time I heard the reference, I shut my door a little more. Then I reached the part where I was supposed to drop my rocks, my worries and fears, away into a pool... And I wondered why I was so worried about letting something in. We have all defined our own ideologies as has been requested of us... But we are so preoccupied with defending them that we stop letting new ideas in. Even if it is something I have already pondered in great depth, such as the role of a God in my life, it doesn't mean I must shut it out completely... Or grow angry with its presence. The labyrinth taught me that tolerance is the step after self-discovery.
I, unlike most, didn't really have a problem with the aspect of the myth that dealt with God. I though it did a really great job of not defining God as pertaining to one religion. Most religious beliefs are based around the concept of a higher power, and I think the labyrinth did a pretty good job of leaving him as just the ambiguous "God".
Even for the atheists/agnostics in the room the labyrinth provided a meaningful insight into our lives and the shortcomings we may not realize we have. If you don't believe in God, its not so hard to substitute in "the light" or "all encompassing spirit" or whatever. You can look at it from a humanitarian perspective; that we are all connected by this common spirit and should be worshipping the goodness in mankind.
I am a very impatient person. I never knew this to this extent.
I can handle the God references and statements, but as we discovered in class it seems like we are being told to do something. This bothered many of us including me. In number five- distractions, I feel like I am being told to get my life back on track or some statement like that. It feels less peaceful when north is God. What if God wanted to be represented as West?
“Let God love you!” It seems so passive when written. I felt it needed an exclamation point because it is a command. Not quite a statement. If it was like you can accept God if you want. I feel like many if not all of us would be less bothered by it.
6. I feel like God. I have complete control, or so I think I do. I cannot control the appearance. I can only control my view. Its all about perspective….
“you can choose a lifestyle or you can choose a life.”? I disagree. You can choose both and you don’t have to bring God into it at all.
I feel a lot like an anti religion activist over here. As well as wishing that I could finish the face in eight. We are all unique, but not really because we all look the same in outline form.
I really do want to know why 11 is the feet walking, and the graveyard. Why does it end so dismally? I don’t personally think it should. If I had the choice I would have number 3 with the rocks in the water be the end. Swap out treading in the sand.
The Labyrinth was way over the top religiously, focusing god rather delivering the intent of the message. When I knocked on the door, and it opened i walked in not knowing what was about occur in front of me, and by the time of the fifth part, titled "distractions," I was back on the other side of the door. I too was distracted, by the influence of the religious piece. The fifth part stated that you must identify anything that is obstructing you from being with God. The magnets, or distractions will pull the compass not true north, but force north. It is saying that anything that is different from believing in God is a distraction, and you must move them off the map, or out of your mind. In my mind this is very radical, because I realize that not everyone believes in God. Is part five saying that you are wrong if you do not remove the distractions that may keep you from focusing on God, or to go even further, if you do not believe in God are you too wrong? I don't think this is a good way to look at it, and even someone who does believe in God may not live up to the standards of the Labyrinth. I just think that this is too radical for me, and the "focus on God" takes away from their presentation.
-Millerick
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