Well, after much hesitation, I finally rented Twilight. I was not planning on seeing the movie, after all, in my forties; I figured I should not be watching movies about teenage vampire love. Then, I remembered 2 things.
1. That I do not believe in “shoulds”
and
2. That I have a thing for tall, pale, gangly English men so I broke down and rented it, well actually, I asked my husband to rent it.
There is so much being written about this movie right now with all the hype surrounding ticket sales and teenybopper screams, everyone seems to be forgetting that this is not an original movie. Or shall I say movie theme. This theme has been getting play in every love story ever written for hundreds of years. Sure, the faces are new and exciting to look at, but it is still the same story.
Let’s recount the themes.
Forbidden love, courtly love, co-dependent love, damsel in distress always needing a rescue from the hero, lover as father figure/protection…
Bella, the heroine, is portrayed as a strong feminine character by the media. Interesting that she is still always in need of a rescue.
This makes me ask the basic question, what in our psyche compels us as women in our world to need rescuing? From whom/ what? Why is it so satisfying on a primordial level to watch this theme being acted out over and over and over again? What, as a culture are we working through? This is what brings me to the computer tonight.
From James Dean to Edward Cullen, the bad boy that we “should” not love but we do.
Symbolically and simply we can look at this in the context of polarity. Good vs. evil or light vs. dark. Religion predictably says that light is good and dark is bad, the light is God and that the dark is the devil.
In the movie, Bella is drawn to Edward who is a dark, mysterious and brooding fella with a piercing stare. He is also drawn to her and while she is not the poster child for light and bubbly, she is a good and gentle soul. Each is drawn to the opposite of themselves, or better yet, the reflection of their shadow selves that they see in the other. Light and dark looking to join with one another for completion.
Many talk of the hero/rescuer in books and movies as being representative of “God” or having god-like qualities. The heroine weakens herself to allow for the rescue and thus reconnects with Spirit. The search for and longing for love is for many, a longing for connection to Spirit. Finding God through relationship is not a new idea but I want to take it a step further and suggest that it is not the masculine God that we are longing for, solely.
In this age, the age of patriarchy, something important has been stolen from us. Hidden away in the deep recesses of our souls, demonized by many religions lies the beauty and force of the Great Mother.
The Goddess.
She is symbolized by the dark, the profound feminine energy of creation. I think that rather than the rescuer/bad boy being the symbolic representation of God and our longing for connection to God, that he is actually the symbolic representation of the Goddess and our deep longing to reconnect with Her, our Divine Mother.
You cannot, after all, be fully connected to only half of a thing, even if that “thing” is God.
If God is the light, where/who is the dark? The devil? The devil as an entity/being was created by religion to scare people into submission and to “demonize” the Goddess. The energy of the devil is just that, energy that lives within all of us. It is interesting to note that the devils actual name is Lucifer, which means light; we can talk about that another time. Let’s get back to the Goddess.
It is fear of the unknown that makes us doubt and question Her existence, but the dark need not be a scary place. In the darkness, we rest, we heal, we create, we gestate. The dark is intuition and the lesson is letting go and trust. The Great Mother calls on us to crawl into her Divine womb and recreate our lives, to nurse at her Divine breast and receive Love and Nurturing. She reminds us that there is no death, just energy and light. Bella, if she were to merge with Edward (Light and Dark, God and Goddess) would “die” and become “immortal “(a vampire). The Great Mother reminds us that it is only our conscious minds that die when Spirit achieves wholeness.
A soul reunited lives forever.
As we move into this new age, with the return to a matriarchal society, I look forward to the return of strong women and men who look to relationship for love, companionship and joy rather than needing a rescue or to feel complete. When we can fully embody all of Spirit, both God and Goddess, we are already complete/whole, there is no battle between good and evil/ light and dark. Rather it is all One and it is all good. Let us all plant this seed of Love in our hearts.
To bring this back around to food, as this is technically a food and healing blog I wish to share a recipe that I am calling Twilight Sangria. Sangria gets its name from sangre or blood, It is made with red wine but the vino and brandy can be omitted entirely, leaving the juice with the fruit as a great party drink for those who are either too young to consume or choose not to. Here’s to a drink that even Edward Cullen would appreciate. Salute!
Twilight Sangria
1/2 cup brandy (I used chambord, no, it's not organic...)
1/4 to 1/2 cup organic syrup (try raw agave nectar or raw honey and adjust amount to the sweetness that you like, I used 1/4 cup and it was a tad too sweet)
Organic Fruit:
1 apple, cored and thinly sliced
1 orange, in wedges or slices
1 lemon, in slices
1 cup grapes
1/4 cup pomegranate seed
5 limequats (I saw these at the store and they were organic so I could not resist, very tasty!)
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