Signs Signposts and Messengers?

The screen play has become like my shadow. It goes everywhere with me, though most of the time I can't see it because the conditions aren't favorable, ie., I'm to busy focusing on something else.

"Is there a difference between happiness and inner peace? Yes. Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive... inner peace does not." ~ Eckhart Tolle

This blog is about regaining my writers inner peace, amongst other things.

So...
Back to procrastinating with my screen play , because Sasha can't be a savant.
No. She can't. Not possibly.
Much too complicated. Maybe she can just have an outstanding, unforgettable, haunting voice? And perfect pitch ?
Okay.
If she's going to be the protagonist in the movie, what's her flaw? Or, what's her special need she has to overcome?

I love how the Universes sends us the perfect messenger or sign or signpost when we come to a cross roads in life. Writing, for me, is one way of deciphering these messages.

Two significant messengers have appeared in my life these the past two days. They've come to help me find Sasha's special need, I'm sure of this, and to put the story solidly on a new track.

I never dreamt I would be able to veer away from my original film synopsis, which I found in Patagonia. But I have, and it's thrilling. It's also challenging. At the moment,it's like trying to run in thin flip flops through deep sand across a long beach. It's a slow process. The destination is unknown. No, that's not true. Destination: Cannes Film festival, 2013. I'm inching my way towards Cannes, though sand. That's where I envision my film being shown, so strong is the confidence which lies underneath this project. The objective : to touch many hearts with an inspirational story of healing unimaginable loss. Topical always, but especially today after the killings in Norway.

The first messenger this week has been a Russian film called The Island .

The second, a book called, 'If I get to five,' (What children can teach us about Courage and Character), by Fred Epstein, a neurosurgeon specializing in Children's brain and spinal tumors.
'Call me Fred' he says to his young patients. No white coats in his children's hospital.

The film is a dark believable story of a strange tormented healer monk living 'beside' a small monastery on a remote island somewhere in Russia. It left me...it left me feeling like the sea and the island landscape it portrayed. Icy. Vast. Predominantly blue gray. Uneasy. The ending, a clever twist of fate, making a lie out of the unhappy monks adult life. However bizarre his behavior became, I never doubted he was a healer. I loved this part of the film.

At the end of the movie, I reminded myself about the joy I want to invite into my film story. The monks talked about joy and peace, but none of them except the wacky artist abbot seemed to be having any joy, or much serenity.

The films setting : I was fascinated by the starkness and beauty of the small Russian monastery where most of the action takes place. Surrounded by water, reached only by rowing boat, set in the 1970's, its exotic wooden 'onion' domes, and its separate skeletal wooden bell tower, silhouette the landscape at all times. The monastery and chapel are built on top of snow covered permafrost, surrounded by calm water, a lake or is it an inland sea? A lake I think.
The snow covered island is connected by wooden walkways.

'Crazy' Father Anatoly lives in a shed near the monastery, by himself. He tends the boiler, sleeping for penance on the coals he shovels daily. He is permanently filthy. The sky is always gray. The story is set in winter. The monks, bearded, black robed, pray in their tiny wooden chapel, or , stand on huge smooth marbled rocks, swaying towards the ocean. They call to Jesus to redeem them from their sins. Father Anatoly goes to further lengths to beg for his redemption.

The Abbot is a weak man , with lessons to learn from the protagonist, the 'mad' healer Father Anatoly who has a secret which haunts him, 24/7.

The abbot is still attached to a few worldly treasures ,including his fine hand made leather boots, his gorgeous red duvet, and his painting studio with its magnificent resident hen . The hen's eggs are required for the abbot to make his own tempera paint. He is a fine and serious artist.

*****

The book. Where to start? And I haven't finished it yet. So many things are touching me profoundly. Lancing me I think is a better word. It's a book on many levels,covering many topics. But mostly it's about the healing power of love, the healing power of music, and the healing gifts of the clown/mime artist. These by chance (?), happen to be the themes of my film.

One day, the author, neurosurgeon Fred Epstein, after reaching the top of his professional tree in New York, realizes that technical skill and the excellence of newly designed apparatus to remove brain and spinal tumors from children is not enough. Love is what is needed. And comfort. He realizes this while reading a poem written by one of his young patients who died aged 17 .

'...I am struggling, O Lord, to stay alive
I am losing my sacred strength
I am living a life of confusion
And death is very near.
I ask you reader, whoever you may be,
Take my trembling hand and warm it with care and sympathy.

I believe that love is the soul purpose of man's life
And without love life is sterile and without meaning.
But with love life has wonder.
With love life has color and beauty.'

From a poem by the late Chris Lambert

Reading this poem demolished Fred, he says. The poem led him to re route his life, and he embarked on creating a brand new hospital to be family and child friendly. The hospital would be called , the Institute for Neurology and Neuro-surgery, (the Inn).

You might assume the author had had a glittering academic career. But no. He explains as a child he was probably ADHD and certainly dyslexic at school. He was extremely slow to learn to read, and born into a family of high achievers in the field of helping others. He was considered unintelligent. He describes how his learning process was not the norm.
I know many people who fit this description, myself included. It wasn't until he finally started his medical studies that his brilliance was able to shine.

He talks about his little patients with such... I cannot find the words...maybe respect and love, but there's somehting else. And he shares how he as father used to love telling fairy stories to his own children at bed time.

One of his favorites was the Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson. It gives an explanation of how evil comes into the world, Fred recalls. How it threatens to freeze our hearts, and how it ( evil) can be vanquished by love.

The fairytale tells the story of a wicked hobgoblin who creates a warped looking glass that reflects everything beautiful in the world as ugly, and distorts everything good into evil. One day the mirror falls to the ground and breaks into million pieces. The tiny fragments of glass float through the air. One sliver splinter lodges in the eye of a young boy named Kay and freezes his heart into a lump of ice. Kay turns against his lifelong playmate and devoted friend Gerda, mocking her mercilessly and tearing a rose from her garden. The first blizzard of winter arrives bringing with it the Snow Queen. The Snow Queen lashes Kay's little sled to hers and whisks him off to her distant ice palace. Early next spring, little Gerda journeys far and wide across the frozen tundra until she finds Kay imprisoned in the Snow Queen's palace. At first he stares at her coldly, without love or recognition. But Gerda's warm teardrops melt his heart frozen heart. Kay begins to cry himself and the glass splinter falls from his eye. Kay and Gerda gallop home on the back of a reindeer, their everlasting friendship redeemed and renewed.

Redeemed and renewed.

Father Anatoly ,in the Russian film, facing his own imminent death, is redeemed by a fascinating flip of fate, or is he redeemed by two messengers sent by... God... an angel... the Universe?

His redemption comes unexpectedly, as he prepares himself to die. Is he mad? Or is he just being a bit more of himself ? He has the liberation of one who cares nothing for social norms. I think he has become mad with guilt, and his savior ( a young woman), has become mad through grief. It makes sense to me.
The recognition of a a soul mate, a young demented woman possessed by an evil spirit who is rowed to the island in search of a cure, enables Father Anatoly to connect with another human being for the first time in over thirty years. The young womans father accompanies her. The father, the other messenger, is an Admiral in the Russian Navy.

The young woman speaks Anatoly's language. They screech to each other mimicking the call of wild birds. Anatoly's face lights up for the first time in the film. And as he asks Jesus to free her and heal her, he too is freed from his guilt, and a few days later dies redeemed. This last redemption scene is the one I can't share with you. It would spoil the movie. That's if this interests you enough to want to watch it!

So what is the 'message' for my screenplay in these stories ?

That's tomorrows task.
Time to walk out on the mountain now that the heat of the sun has subsided, before the full moon rises.

Thank you for sharing this journey with me. I value and delight in the fact that these stories are being read all around the world. Thank you from my heart. You help me get clear.


"Is there a difference between happiness and inner peace? Yes. Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive... inner peace does not." ~ Eckhart Tolle