365 Inspirations—277: Gravity, The Movie

"Looking outward to the blackness of space, sprinkled with the glory of a universe of lights, I saw majesty—but no welcome." —Loren Acton 

The Seattle Times gave Gravity 4 stars and even put it on the front page of the paper today. The review said to see it on the biggest screen possible and preferably in 3-D. They called it a 'beautiful, deeply moving' movie.

My husband and I love to go to the movies, so that was our plan after his yoga class. We headed to our favorite movie theater that happens to have our favorite sushi restaurant in the same complex. After cooking at home for a week straight, I was ready for a meal out and a movie.

The sushi restaurant, Tengu Sushi at Thorton Place near Northgate Mall, gives discounted movie tickets if you eat in their restaurant. Eating there saved us almost $5 on our 3-D tickets. My husband also has a Regal Cinema card and often gets free tickets and popcorn for points he's acquired.

Not many people at the theater on a beautiful sunny day in Seattle at 12:40pm on a Friday and that was just fine by us. We planned to go for a three-mile walk around Greenlake after the movie anyway. We also knew that the theater would be packed on a Friday or Saturday evening and we wanted to avoid the crowds.

So now for my review:

The entire movie takes place in space where three astronaunts are working on a space shuttle. It's business as usual up in space and they even joke around with Mission Control in Houston. They listen to country music, do space walks, crack jokes, until they are informed that they are about to be hit with debris that is coming straight for them.

Unprepared, one of men dies on the spot. Ed Harris, played by George Clooney, tries to tether himself to Dr. Ryan Stone, played by Sandra Bullock, but is unsuccessful the first time.

Ryan spins and twirls in desperation as she realizes she is untethered and floating in space with a limited supply of oxygen. In 3-D and with the interesting use of speakers and sound, we feel we are Dr. Ryan and we are also floating in space and feeling her every emotion and mood.

We later learn that there's a deeper reason why she is out there in space. A very sad event in her life is revealed and she struggles with it as she is faced with losing her life.

This is not a loud action film. This is a very silent, quiet, beautiful film and it is really about the main character, Dr. Ryan who is struggling with staying alive and with loneliness out in space. We can feel it and we sense what it must be like to be stripped of everything life-giving—where we are to face only ourselves and our impending mortality.

I didn't find this movie depressing or somber, I found it awe-inspiring. Ryan teeters at the edge of life and death and that edge out in space is so beautiful. It is the space between heaven and earth or this world and another.

I won't tell you how the movie ends...but I enjoyed this movie and the fact that I very much felt like I was there living every moment the characters on the screen were living. This is definitely a new way of seeing things on screen and the director and screenplay writer, Alfonso Cuaron, did a wonderful job.

I give this movie four stars and recommend it!

Have you seen any good movies lately?

365 Inspirations—86: Beauty in Nothingness

"I want to live in communion with nature. I want to hear her calls and her messages. I want to listen deeply. For there, I believe, all the answers lie."—Katherine Jenkins

Beauty can be found everywhere in Hawaii. Everywhere you look there are palm trees and flowering trees like hibiscus and plumeria. Where we stayed in Kapoho, the trees and leaves towered over us on many roads. It felt like we were in the jungle. Nature out there is vibrating and pulsating.

But in the Volcano National Park, you can see the starkness of nature. You can see how the lava flow took everything with it and how it took millions of years for just one plant or insect to make its appearance again. Still, on many parts of The Big Island, that nothingness is there.

I think this is the beauty of the island. It has primordial feel. You start to understand how the world began. There's wind, earth, fire and water. All the natural elements mingling together to give new life.

On the Big Island, I understood so much more. I realized that humans, with all there gadgets and technology, have perhaps lost touch with where we came from and how we came here. That perhaps we aren't the most intelligent beings.

On the Big Island, I saw locals communicate with dolphins and swim with them. I saw that they had a connection to the wildlife and the emptiness there. They were all interconnected.

Have we lost this?

I've never felt more alive than I have on this island. Even though I live in Washington State, which is known for its nature, mountains and trees, it also has an urban sprawl like all other cities.

In most cities, everything is created for the comfort of humans with not much thought about how nature plays a part in it all.

Seeing this red flower blooming brightly in the blackness of the crater in Hawaii brought me back to a time before humans. A time when the earth lived in harmony with all that was around it.

There was a time when humans communicated with this nature, when life was centered around it.

I want to live in communion with nature. I want to hear her calls and her messages. I want to listen deeply. For there, I believe, all the answers lie.

Do you commune with nature often? Where do you do this and how do you feel?