Have You Hugged Your Avatar Today?

My Lady and I went to see the movie Avatar in 3-D at an I Max theatre yesterday. The movies ability to portray and use digital technology as a vehicle for self reflection, was masterful and portrayed an inter-dimensional quality between the humans, their Avatars, the Alien world, all it's inhabitants AND the audience.

One of the many striking scenes from the movie was when the Scientist was describing the inhabitants belief that their forest was somehow alive in it's ability to connect with the rest of life on the planet and the natives were an intricate part of this also. While most moviegoers probably didn't realize this interconnectedness is a basic tenet of the natural laws upon which ALL life exists.

This might be a good time to interject the origins of the word Avatar, in Hinduism, Avatar or Avatāra (Devanagari अवतार, Sanskrit for "descent" [viz., from heaven to earth]) refers to a deliberate descent of a deity from heaven to earth, and is mostly translated into English as "incarnation", but more accurately as "appearance" or "manifestation".

Perhaps beings from a society such as ours which has removed sentient appreciation of Nature and the connectedness of all life deeming it foreign and alien must have a religious transformative experience in order to make it real, perhaps for their first time.

The movie at first only slightly removes from the viewer the responsibility of the way the earth is being plundered as though life itself were only some inert resources here for the commercial taking. However few could imagine being self directed learners of just how wondrous life's connections can be given the nurturing it commands to build life.

This very notion of becoming connected to the harmonics of life in the forest were one of the original notions of use for marrying digital tools to place based learning communities such as at camp Gordonwood. Knowing one could make movies of such things is only a plus.

Avatar masterfully showed that One could always better utilize these digital tools to encourage consciousness amongst humans. This writer stresses encourage, for this conciousness comes from internalizing what it is you have viewed through digital assists and perceived through the inner voice that brought you here. The mastery of these digital tools now is truly required for the realization of any measurable success in turning this ship around before it is far too late.

Creating a nurturing learning environment where each learner believes they can play a significant part in creating change comes from human interaction, these are Natural laws which cannot be ignored or sidestepped.

It does make for one hellofa dance though...