Skip to main content

Home is Where the Dog Is

For the past ten years, I have been using The Wizard of Oz to teach mythology, fairy tales, and Eastern philosophies to my college Literature students, sometimes three classes per semester, three semesters per year. In recent years, rather than paying attention to the plot and effects, I have been taking greater note of my students' responses to the Oz journey. Once Dorothy hooks up with her companions and skips along the yellow brick road (surely a symbol of the third chakra, the "I am" of individual existence), we see how each character mistakenly seeks an object like a heart or a brain, thinking it will render him complete. Actually it is not the object but a chakra, an integral part of the whole that the character thinks he's missing. Of course we know that no parts are missing; the chakras are there but the characters have not been fully awakened to them. This pretty much parallels the way so many of us live our lives in the mundane world which dulls the senses with extraneous noise and frivolous concerns. Sadly, it often takes a tragedy -- in this case, Dorothy's isolation from home and desperate need for familiarity -- to awaken us to what is truly important in our short lives. Enter the four-legged angel.

In this film, who leads us to and through that awakening? TOTO, the dog. The dog, the same creature that unites us in this blogosphere. Toto is the emissary of the Divine who propels us into higher consciousness . What prompts Dorothy's escape from home in the first place? It was Toto's mischievous exploration of Elmira Gulch's garden. When Dorothy is captured and imprisoned by the Wicked Witch of the West, who leads the trio of her companions fearlessly to the tower of her confinement (a symbol of her subconscious self)? Who ultimately unmasks the Wizard as a shameful fraud? And who prevents Dorothy from taking the slacker's way home in a hot air balloon? Toto, who leaps out as the balloon ascends, forcing Dorothy out after him, so she must use her third eye (brow chakra) and visualization skills to will herself home, learning the lesson that there are no fields greener than our own and no wizards greater than ourselves. Toto as the animal guide transports her to higher planes, her spiritual teacher in every regard.

Over the years, I've been monitoring students' responses to the characters and notice that they differ markedly from mine. Overwhelmingly, they identify the Cowardly Lion as their favorite character, relating, perhaps, to his humorous expression of anxiety. I, however, get drippy as a toilet every time Dorothy bids a sad farewell to the Scarecrow, her first and completely unselfish, loyal protector (and I've seen this film over a hundred times). OK, go ahead, point out how this translates into my own life, or more accurately, my deepest wishes for such devotion in my own life.

This is exactly what I invite you to do for yourself at the Crystal Garden in Boynton Beach on October 22. I will be conducting a Wizard of Oz workshop to explore mythology, symbolism, and the archetypes that teach us where we most need to heal. We will discuss the chakra system, Joseph Campbell, then watch the film and analyze why we resonate with particular characters and scenes. This will be a fun and enlightening way to spend an afternoon.
I hope to see you there. Feel free to call me at 954-680-5759 or the Crystal Garden at 561-369-2836 for more information.

Comments

Pam N said…
Oh Lisa, I wish I lived in Fl! I never once thought about any symbolism in that movie! I want to watch it with you!

Popular posts from this blog

Why I Chose Animals

I suppose my mother had something to do with me loving animals. From the time I was five, she was bringing home creatures small enough to go undetected in our Brooklyn apartment: turtles, tortoises, and a half-moon parrot with whom I bonded so deeply that the memories of having to give him up (I had severe allergies) still fly at me like unwelcome shards of glass. I remember crying in the back seat of the car, my father double-parked with the engine running while my mother returned the bird to the pet shop. When she came back outside, she was holding a large tortoise, waving it at us, a permission seeking gesture for my father, who banged his hand on the steering wheel and yelled, "Goddamn it, Rhoda!" But we won. The tortoise came home with us. The parrot story goes deeper than simple loss of an amusing companion (which is never simple, anyway). At the time, I was five and silently enduring molestation at the hands of my paternal grandfather. I won't delve into the psyche

God's Covenant with Animals in the Old Testament

What is our human responsibility to the earth and its non-human inhabitants? Traditional Biblical scholars would say one of master-servant and ecologists would say one of caretaker. However, using either frame, neither movement has responded in full view of the evidence presented throughout the Bible that God clearly included animals in covenantal relationships with Biblical scholars neglecting the sanctity of animals and secular environmentalists neglecting God. A closer look at the Old Testament reveals that God designed humankind’s role in relation to the animals as one of stewardship rather than domination. Traditionally religious people often cite Scripure justify a master/servant relationship between humans and animals rather than one of partnership, but deeper investigation invites us to see texts rich with references, both literal and figurative, to the partnership between humankind and the animal world. From Genesis through Prophets and Wisdom Literature, the writers of the Ol

Animals, Divorce, Picador: Living in the Moment

I once heard George Carlin say dogs can't tell time; they don't differentiate between one minute and one day, so when we leave them, upon our return we get the same exuberant greeting whether we were gone for three hours or three seconds. This merits some thought. Is it that animals don't recognize time or that they don't worship time the way we do? We obsess over time lost and time coming; we struggle to retrieve the past, seeking some previously missed key to consequences we endure in our ongoing life sagas. Or we project and fantasize about the future, what will be, what could be, what we want. Doing so, we miss the present moment, the essence of a happy life. The Buddhists teach us that by living in the moment, we have no expectations and feel neither sorrow nor disappointment. So sensible. So difficult. Do our animals experience disappointment and resentment? If they do, such states are momentary. I am still winding through my fresh divorce, which I know in my hea