If I’m lacking inspiration, the best thing to do is to see a Miyazaki film. The new release, Ponyo, makes use of one of his favorite narrative and visual techniques: blurring boundaries. In Ponyo, a relationship between a magical goldfish/girl and a boy leads to a storm, which causes the boy’s familiar seaside village to become flooded. In one scene the boy and goldfish (now transformed into a girl) are in a boat, floating above the surface of the road. They peer through the water to see the road and street signs below, while prehistoric fish swim past.
In an earlier film, Spirited Away, there is a similar flooding that happens after days of heavy rain. The heroine must embark on a journey. She boards a train whose tracks are submerged. Along with the heroine, we watch as the train rides across a vast body of water, the towns glide past, resting quietly on the water’s horizon line. In both films, the blurring of the boundary between land and water and ordinary life and the magical, spiritual world occurs when the hero or heroine is facing a significant heroic moment. As his characters embark on a heroic quest, seeking resolution, Miyazaki is seeking the liminal state, the in-between world. For me, this blurring of the boundary between the ordinary and the spiritual makes me see life differently, just as Miyazaki’s characters see the world through changed eyes. The in-between state is the place of potential transformation, the place where the heart opens as in physical and spiritual ecstasy. The boundary of the self dissolves.
I have a similar response to abstract expressionist painting. I see a liminal world in the blurring of the boundaries between the subject and ground. As the forms flatten against the ground and the negative space comes alive, a potential space emerges. And, in the best paintings, a rhythm emerges as well. There is an opportunity to see more, to see differently, to seek that liminal state, where the boundaries of the self dissolve, where we feel a sense of oneness with the natural world and the ecstasy of an open heart.
I have a similar response to abstract expressionist painting. I see a liminal world in the blurring of the boundaries between the subject and ground. As the forms flatten against the ground and the negative space comes alive, a potential space emerges. And, in the best paintings, a rhythm emerges as well. There is an opportunity to see more, to see differently, to seek that liminal state, where the boundaries of the self dissolve, where we feel a sense of oneness with the natural world and the ecstasy of an open heart.
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