Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Writers: Eiko Kadona, Hayao Miyazaki
English Version Stars: Kirsten Dunst, Phil Hartman (the cat!), Minami Takayama, Rei Sakuma
Dear Light-lover,
Those of us who have done our inner work know that time is largely a construct. Time is definitely not a linear thing we can put our finger on and evaluate, and yadda yadda yadda. I mean, yes, there is a calendar our material world lives by, and there are dates on that calendar, and certain dates mean things to various members of society, but in the grand scheme of True Reality, all events are happening at once, concentrically. If you are magical enough, you could close your eyes and zap into any decade of history and visit some chumps and give them a talking-to.
Therefore 1989 is also 2024, or may as well be. Because when you go down deep into the well of creation and story and myth, all of life is regenerating and removing and cleaning and starting again. It is as though we live in a giant car wash, ya know? And we just keep going through that little garage-y box, and the thick drapes and fan-filled machines of the ether clean us up real nice, and we wiggle and shake for a while, and then we come out on the other side looking spiffy, only to go through it all again.
The reason I am telling you this information, is that the Japanese animated movie, Kiki’s Delivery Service, was made in 1989, but its animated beauty makes it feel like it could have been made last week. That’s special isn’t it?
In this cute little movie, which you will find streaming on HBO Max (and elsewhere), a witch is not some threatening figure, but simply a magical person with special powers, who needs to undergo her particularly unique path to come into her own knowing and self-belief. In order to know what her powers are, Kiki has to go out on her own for a while and struggle in an isolated way, and that is how her power can come into its ripening. For Kiki and her line of witches, this venture begins at age 13, and she must depart on the full moon. Her mom and dad know how this works—they are really not worried about her because it is part of the tradition, but they will definitely miss her. Kiki’s mom even gives Kiki her personal broomstick to fly on for the journey, because it is more reliable, sturdy, and weighted with many years of magic tricks. Imagine this broomstick is akin to a meditation pillow, filled with a certain essence of spiritual energy accumulated over time. Things just have a stronger vibration when they are viewed as sacred and helpful, you see, and moms know the art of letting go of items when those items will help their kids.
Kiki knows her training must be a full year, and she knows she is drawn to the ocean, so that’s where she ends up. Only it isn’t so easy landing in a new town and being unique. Most people don’t walk around with broomsticks and black cats at their sides. Fortunately, there are a select few folks who immediately take a liking to Kiki, despite her dark clothing and strange approach to crossing the street. Isn’t it heartening that there are people on earth who are not afraid of unconventional women—or unconventional teenage girls? These people see with their hearts, and not from a place of fear or anxiety. It is an inside-out way of living, rather than living outside-in. So, despite feeling a bit forsaken, Kiki is still able to manifest a free and decent place to live (because magical occurrences materialize for witches pretty quickly), and a business idea to deliver goods all across town on her broomstick. Gosh, she even attracts a bike-riding Where’s-Waldo-looking boyfriend who won’t give up on her—perhaps because he is eccentric, too? Add to that, her hilarious cat, Jiji, who speaks with a man’s voice, always knows the truth, and doesn’t die—and Kiki’s life is pretty delightfully interesting and abundant. She doesn’t even miss home.
The reason I adore this movie is because we are in this weird modern culture that often discounts women’s magical gifts, and Kiki’s Delivery Service, in a loving and shameless way, celebrates a young woman’s awakening by showing her power is on the inside of her, through her belief in herself and her hard work, and not in her outward appearance or following traditional pathways. She has a spark inside her, what we can call her magic.
You may be wondering—what is a witch? The cliché is that a witch is a female who rides on a flying broomstick and zaps people and uses words to cast spells. (I really don’t know the origin of this broomstick thing.) This movie obviously represents the “fun” version of the witch, but in the land of the United States, and in western Europe and other Christo-centric cultures, the word “witch” can elicit a great deal of fear. Instead of being afraid of the people in stuffy clothing who said the word “Christ” and pointed fingers and hung and burned women alive, most of us somehow adopted this implicit bias to be afraid of women who were a little kooky. Ha ha ha.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
I mean, there are good and bad of all things, right? Malpractice insurance was invented for a reason, for doctors and other people like that! If something goes wrong, or you don’t get the result you want from someone’s skills, it doesn’t mean the practitioner was trying to kill or torture you, bro! I suspect an average day for a full-fledged witch, whose title would have had a nicer ring to it when she was allowed to just be for goodness sake, was to midwife a baby or two in the early morning, make a stew and some tea with vegetables and herbs from her garden in the afternoon, cuddle with her cat and dance under the moon for a while, and then get in bed and transport to a star where she makes love in an alternate universe with a Martian. I’m sure it was (and is) a sweet little life until those Puritans and mean kings and queens messed it all up.
Anyway, this movie is so cute and delightful, and who doesn’t need a sarcastic black cat in an animated film to brighten your day? I personally love black cats. And Calico cats, like mine, who lies on my yoga mat and curls up on my meditation pillow and purrs. These cats know what is uuuuppp—purrrrr.
Kiki’s Delivery Service is a pleasing, “take-me-away,” non-political, heartwarming film, where we can all pretend it is 1989…or an era where things were simpler.
Listen to the director talk about time and place in Kiki’s Delivery Service:
https://www.imdb.com/video/vi302974745/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk
So take me away, take me away, Kiki! Any day of the week. Just show me your business plan and look both ways before crossing the street.
Toodle-dee-doo,
Ms. Wonderful