The Neverending Story

I just finished reading The Davinci Code. An interesting novel, but not something I would expound upon as highly factual. It did put a thought process in my mind that I might not have jumped to before, though.

The protagonist references Pagan references in a number of stories and movies of modern times. He goes to great lengths on Disney, including references to Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. I am not sure I would completely agree with these ties, particularly sleeping beauty. In that one, a woman bites of an apple and thus invokes a curse that can only be lifted by the love of one man. Match some mythology? Yes, but not Pagan. However, when I came home from work today, I sat back to watch a movie that my parents were watching and spend a few minutes with my daughter before I went to sleep. (This was ten o'clock this morning, I worked overnight.)

The movie was The Neverending Story. Watching this and reflecting on the portions I remembered that were past or not yet showing, I found myself surprised. Particularly that some of these people out there who denounce virtually every movie and book that comes out as un-christian missed this one. Perhaps they didn't, it is an old movie. Perhaps they hadn't gotten their wind yet.

Here we witness a tale in a land of magic. A land that is being eaten up by the nothing, which is later explained as people's unwillingness to believe. A young man goes on the hunt, where a sacred symbol. Two serpents, one of gold and one of silver, entwined with each other in an elaborate knot. As he consults various oracles on his quest it eventually becomes clear. To save the childlike empress (a mystical female, forever young) he must find her a new name. He is of Fantasia though, so he can't. It has to be done by a human. In the end, the world is flying apart and she cries out in frustration to Bastian that he must give her a name. That he has known it all along and he needs to cry it out. In doing so, he finds her with the speck of dust that is all that is left of her beautiful realm, but she offers him the ability, through his imagination, to remake the world she lives in and make it beautiful again.

I was shocked as this all came together with me. I must say, just about any time someone declares there is a hidden agenda, I scoff. Not so much this time. This is a story of the Goddess. It might not have been intended that way, although I suspect it must have been, but it is nonetheless. The symbols are definitely Pagan in nature, and their Goddess figure, the empress, suffers from a unique yet painful condition. People have refused to believe in her. Yet she doesn't tell people to open the old books and read the stories again. She says, "You must give me a name." She can't tell him who she is and mend the rift. He has to tell her who she is to him. The name he chooses is his mother. The symbolism here is also not likely to be coincedental.

In my essay, Lessons Unlearned, (The published version, not my post here under the same name.) I addressed a young wolf who was familiar with the Goddess. He knew what she wanted, he understood her ways. He even knew what she would have of him, but he couldn't provide it, and he didn't know why. The wolf was convinced that this pattern would repeat every month until he finally learned what was missing. It isn't the complete answer, but this name issue might hold part of the key. He can tell the world what her traits are, and generically what she is to them, but he won't declare what she is to him. This is what saddens her. This is what she waits for.

"What do you mean you don't know my name? My name is written on your heart. It is you who must tell me."

Just some reflections on the oddity of life, or something close to it.