Monday 13 April 2020 / 21 Days Lock Down Reflection
Title: Into the Light / Oil on canvas 80×60 cm, 2005
A Delightful Adventure Drama
I loved the movie ‘Life of Pi’, adapted from the novel of the same name.
The relationship between the Royal Bengal tiger and Pi Patel on a solitary lifeboat bobbing around the wild blue Pacific, seemed to strike a chord inside me which resonated days after watching the film. Besides the mesmerising cinematography, the voyage of solitary isolation and survival had me thought provoked for days.
The crew on the surviving vessel after the sinking of the cargo ship, first consisted of a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra with a broken leg and of course the very hungry 450 pound tiger. As the story unfolds all who remain is Pi Patel and the tiger who develop a rather interesting alliance.
Into the Light
The story of course has much deeper context. For me personally at least. It reminded me of the wondrous journey of life even in the midst of calamity. The stupendous and desperate events that unfolded had some correlation to my own life journey; reflecting moments of wrestling angels and demons, pinnacles and dismal points of the swinging pendulum, Zen moments of yielding to God.
The fictional tale seems to be manifest somehow in the current narrative of world affairs. Isolated to my quarters, much time is spent staring out the window. There are days of jumping out of bed with such definitive purpose, only to trip over my own monkey mind somewhere down the passage. Some nights I find myself cowering under the bed hiding from the fear, then there are days that I paint my face in preparation for war, breathing deeply I drop down into my stomach and enter my enlightened self.
Am I going crazy?
Are the people on my boat real, or are they here to test me?
What is real?
What is a lie?
Will I swim out these dark waters,
Like the Tiger into the Light?