Love Makes the World New

I recently saw Malik's new film, The New World and was, still am, deeply moved. I've been thinking a lot about the difference between story and drama. Most Holywood films focus on creating a tightly plotted script. A good example of this is a film I recently saw on a plane, The Perfect Man. The story was so well plotted, the drama got squeezed out of it. But in The New World, the drama is given room to breathe. Malik uses long sequences of images and sound to create emotional spaces. He uses film as an expressive and poetic medium that opens up space in the soul of the audience. The film communicates, experientially, a sense of presence.

For me, The New World of the film's title is not America (or England for Pocahontas), but a metaphor for continually seeing the world a new. This desire is why we enjoy travel or new jobs or even having children. They break us out of our routines and restore a fresh perspective. This freshness also engenders a sense of freedom, of new opportunity - the spirit of the pioneer.

Often, when we lose touch with that experience, we rediscover it in love, as does Captain John Smith in the film. This also has it's pitfalls, for we then mistake our lovers as beings the source of that joy, instead of something deeper, we lose it, as does Pocohonatas. But we can never lose such deep love and joy - it is always there, we just fail to see it. The lover only helps us find it again.

The world is the same as it always has been - constantly changing. Our contact with the constant presence of love inside our deepest Self, is eternal freedom from being attached to the way things are or afraid of changing it. This experience of eternal presence allows us to find joy in the changes of the world and ourselves. Love makes the World New.