Myths and Meaning.
Today: Moana. I've now watched this over 40x in the last 2 years. Because I'm a bad parent.
It's an absolutely archetypal Hero's Journey. So super interesting.
[Alessia Cara's How Far I'll Go is also objectively the best song in Disney history.]
Moana is under pressure to be chief of her tribe. The drive to conform.
Her environment on the island starts deteriorating.
But her "heart" calls her to the ocean. "Love" as the force that moves us into exploit mode.
The call to adventure driven by increasing uncertainty.
After the refusal of the call, she is assisted by nature into the discovery of her tribe's true nature as seafarers and guided beyond the reef.
Across the threshold.
She helps the tribe move from exploit mode to explore mode.
Along the way she meets the trickster god Maui.
Together they confront the gold-encrusted crab Tamatoa in the underworld.
The dragon that guards the gold of Maui's fishhook. The power that resides inside him.
The unique traits we have that the small ego conceals and resists.
The demon Te Ka is poisoning the world. Moana repeatedly fails in conflict.
She loses hope.
Her grandmother Tala's spirit appears, inspiring Moana to find her true calling. A seafarer, the exploring hero.
At the bottom of the abyss she hands over control.
She confronts Te Ka. But after a long battle she surrenders.
Only to find that Te Ka is in fact the enraged sprit of nature.
Maui had stolen the power of creation.
In working against the flow, not with it, we caused chaos and destroyed our environment.
Moana gives her her heart back. Te Ka is transformed into Te Fiti. Harmony is returned.
Humanity integrates their "hearts" with nature; working in harmony with creation to the collective flourishing of all.
Moana resists conformity, risks adventure, confronts ego, discovers her true nature, surrenders to the guidance of "nature" and returns to save her people.
The Hero's Journey is a REAL, RELEVANT blueprint for individual and cultural renewal. Not just a children's story.
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