Talking Animals as a Return
Thanksgiving weekend we went to see Wicked: For Good. It was ok. Didn't live up to the hype for me, and I got a little bored. I did love the messaging though. My favorite scene is where the Wizard says the quiet part out loud. That the truth isn't necessarily the truth at all. It is just what we collectively make up and decide to go along with because it is easier than thinking for ourselves. Authority isn’t earned. It’s granted by consensus. Because people love to give their power away and need someone to tell them what to do. How to be.
My second favorite thing is Elphaba's sex cardigan. It is a whole thing. Google it. During that scene, I was making a mental note to find out where I could buy it. Turns out I wasn't the only one. Can someone knit one for me? Please?
More than social commentary and cardigans, the part of the movie that speaks to me is the animal plot line. Specifically the speaking animals. I know that it was mainly meant to spotlight the way we treat marginalized groups and the atrocities currently happening around the world, and very much so in the United States. But it goes deeper for me. I see it as also being actually about talking animals. I feel the truth in it.
It is a theme that is represented throughout literature and mythology and many works of art. One of my all-time favorite books, The Chronicles of Narnia, carries it deeply throughout. And touches on some of the same pulses as Wicked. Animals that used to be wild and sovereign and intelligent being tamed and silenced.
I really do believe there is a thread here that is true. I don't know exactly where it leads, but I believe in my heart that it leads somewhere. And that animals used to speak. Be sovereign. Be our guides and teachers and equals. In Narnia, we get a glimpse of an origin story when Aslan sings the animals into being and gives many a voice. Consecrates them.
And before you laugh or call me crazy, there are talking animals in the Bible. Yes, the actual Christian Bible. If you believe in the Bible, then you may also believe in talking animals. In Genesis a talking snake kicks off the whole story of the fall of mankind. It isn't implied. The serpent has a voice and there are quotation marks around its speech and everything. lol!
There is another, lesser known instance of a talking animal in scripture. In the book of Numbers Balaam is abusing his poor donkey. The donkey finally speaks up and basically says… I thought we were friends. Do I ever hit you? No? Then chill, man. It is kind of funny.
This all ties perfectly into my recent obsession with the word feral. Wild animals. Animals that were deemed to need to be tamed. Their voices taken away. A parallel to how we, as humans, have subscribed to these “false” truths and co-signed a reality that is not in our best interest.
We are all experiencing the aftermath of the fall. Just like the animals, we have lost our voices. Willingly giving them away, along with our wildness and sovereignty.
Wicked. Narnia. The Bible. All circling the same stories. Archetypes. Patterns.
Collectively, we have forgotten how alive and magical the world is. That the truth is stranger and more wonderful than we have allowed ourselves to believe. And that our wild nature is not a warning or a flaw, but a clue.
A portal back into the original story. Into a world where the animals talk and everything is more beautiful and true than we could ever imagine.
An invitation to us from Aslan. Come further up. Come further in.
I think I need to don my newly knitted sex cardigan, pull out my copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and cozy up and cozy in until Spring springs. With my perfectly feral, beautiful luck dragon, Gus the Great, of course.
