Film: Flow (Best Animated Feature Film, Oscars 2025)
Director: Gintz Zilbalodis
Writers: Matiss Kaza, Ron Dyens, and that guy above (I am not going to try to spell that again)
Starring: a cat, some dogs, birds and more
Darlings,
I made a mistake in my Substack blog yesterday! I just spotted it this morning.
I said the song “Burning” was sung by Tori Amos, but really it is sung by Maggie Rogers.
So I had to fix it.
I just don’t like errors like that being so out there, accessible to anyone!
And also, since I was at it, I added a Sunday song because if I am going to write to you again and fix my errors, I may as well give you a new sweet treat.
(You can kind of see my slippers in that above photo. Eek! Too vulnerable? This was like, the first thing I did this morning when I noted that crazy Tori Amos/Maggie Rogers snafu.)
Additionally, this past week, I saw the animated movie Flow which caused a whole internal joggling of my emotions. I almost walked out but I decided to be brave and courageous and let myself feel all the feelings.
Flow, directed by Gints Zilbalodis (from Latvia), is about a cat who keeps getting swept up in crazy natural events. She (or he) is just minding her own butthole when a pack of dogs comes to attack her, and then this crazy flood starts, and there is so much power in nature that I felt the tidal waves inside me move. Memories, moments—events were being flushed in and out and through my energy field!
The greatest thing a filmmaker can be, I think, is a kind of shaman—holding a light up to us, clearing us out from sticky yucky residue—so we can be inspired to create anew and believe anew in the possibilities in our own life and on this planet. Flow does this in a way that is unique, by allowing us to focus on animal nature that reflects human nature.
The Wild is not an easy place, ay? The jungle…the forest…. There is the dog-eat-dog land and there is the purity of birds who nestle. Even birds eat other living things. The difference in being human is that we have the ability to attain enlightenment, and to consciously choose our destinies. We have brains that allow us to think ahead, to strategize and plan, to work together and collaborate, and we do not need to be reduced to our baser energies the way animals must.
At the same time, what animals teach us is the simplicity of being alive and being who we innately are. A cat cannot be anything other than a cat. A dog is a dog. And so on and so be it.
The mantra said by many yogis and meditation practitioners is often translated—in all languages—as “I am that I am.” In this, one is a being, and there is an experience of presence that is not reduced to labels and compartments and limitations.
However, put these ideas in the hands of men who want more and more and more, and you see pretty much all of Judeo-Christian history.
Remember that line from the cutest gorgeous-est Jesus in his greatest hits? “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24).
(*Eh hem, he didn’t say woman.)
Sadghuru, a modern yogi and Jesus-bro, has said the same thing about money. Wishing for a billion dollars is a stupid thing to do, he asserts. It doesn’t bring much that is beneficial to the higher self.
And then there is the story of that cutie Zacchaeus (who is clearly a moviestar in Hollywood in the concentric time of shamanic journeying), who is so inspired by Jesus that he declares he will give half of his possessions to the poor and repay the people he cheated.
What is my point? We all have the potential to act in our lower, animalistic natures. We all have the potential to act in our higher natures. We can only control ourselves, so we must make choices each day.
And each day is new.
Nature is way bigger than any of us can design or plan, and Flow shows the power of nature as a force one cannot contain or control. The animals are the beings who must adapt, adapt, adapt and—hopefully—become friends with one another in the managing of it all.
Let me ask you this. Let me ask you, let me ask you, let me ask you.
In our nature is this desire to find the “bad guy” or “girl” who we love to hate because that prop gives us something to rail against.
But outside of government requirements, if you have a bunch of extra money, and a poor person shows up to request a bus ticket, or a meal, or an act of kindness from you, what do you do?
Jesus—that Yeshua Beauty of Beholdenness—walked around without a home, without a bank account, and he taught. (This was common of Indian yogis, too, btw.) He relied on others to feed him, even though he had the power to manifest ways to feed himself and thousands of others. Still, he chose not a big house, not a wad of cash. He chose simplicity and barrenness of finances.
Therefore, you may see him in the eyes of strangers who live similarly.
The animal kingdom is just as it is—not harsh or kind, but true to its nature.
Which kingdom will you choose, when a moment of testing arrives?
Cheer up, Buttercup,
Ms. Wonderful
