We tend to forget we’re, above everything else, transitional beings. Nothing is concrete within or without. We’re floating down time’s river like self-aware logs, and we’re at the mercy of the water’s whims. If the water were to stop, the grandeur of creation would fall apart before our eyes. Non-existence would trump all the cards in creation’s convoluted deck.
We’re transitional selves, liminal itinerants, ambulatory with dream-feet or physical-feet. Samsara depends upon our in-between movements. These movements are like the spaces between spokes. These spaces are paramount in the make-up of the wheel.
The self is filled with these “spaces” too. These spaces within allow for permutations. They’re pregnant with a manifold of possibilities. The observing ego may only choose one path, but that doesn’t mean the transitional spaces disappear. It just means that they will greet us later down the narrow path we have chosen. A narrow alleyway is bound to turn into a spacious grove in due time.
Gaspar Noe’s latest film, “Enter The Void,” brilliantly deals with the notion of a transitional self and the reality of the liminal. At the beginning of the mind-bending visionary romp, the camera is attached to the first-person perspective of the protagonist, Oscar. Oscar likes experimenting with drugs like DMT, and he also deals them too. After being setup by a client of his at a hangout called, “The Void,” Oscar is shot and killed by police while trying to jettison his drugs into a seedy toilet. Here the camera and Oscar become two, and the reality of the liminal unfolds.
The movie from this point forward resembles a cinematic chronicle of the “Tibetan Book of the Dead,” a book Oscar actually intended to read before he left his body at the time of his death. Oscar’s disembodied soul travels through Tokyo, enters the clear light time and time again, watches lurid sex transpiring, watches his memories unfurl, and even transitorily enters the bodies of friends and acquaintances. As this astral roaming continues, the viewer gets the distinct impression that Oscar has karma to work out on earth, and the camera has karma to work out in the film. This dual-nature behind the out-of-body experience is something Gaspar Noe probably intended, and it was a revolutionary move for film-making itself.
Oscar eventually finds a corporeal form by becoming his sister’s son. He came back to his sister and through his sister because they both made a blood pact when they were kids. Oscar promised his sister that he would always be there for her. As he is rebirthed through his sister, he fulfills his promise. He becomes the child she can nurture and respect.
Perhaps we made a pact with Nature long ago? We promised Her we would take care of Her and be with Her. We may reincarnate to fulfill all the obligations of the pact. We may reincarnate to help the earth sustain itself. We may reincarnate just for the hell of it. Who knows? Our bardo drifting is a mysterious process that involves getting lost, getting found, getting lost, getting found. Nothing matters but the sustainability of the cycle.
A life in transit is a life to be enjoyed.
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