Stars of Battle

I don't even know why I'm writing this. To get a weight out of my chest probably. it's almost 2am and I feel tired. Drained even. I've spent the day (and the last few days) revising my first book which is probably the most challenging thing I've written so far.
And I've just finished watching the last three episodes of Battlestar Galactica, the reimagining of, I should say.
There isn't much to tell since it only make sense if you've spent all those hours falling in love with those people on the screen. Never underestimate the power of film, that's the big lesson that once again I've been reminded.
To tell you the truth, it really felt like a part of me died with the last few moments of that series. Even though I know I can revisit it, it doesn't feel that way. It feels as if that cycle is truly gone and lost forever. It's sad but also awakening. It's a big step away from the moment to moment insight meditation, but it carries a similar punch only one given with a slightly different kind of gloves. Much heavier, much slower, likely to stick around for a while longer.
I could tell you a lot on how brilliant I think the plot and the characters were for all this series but I'll spare you the rant.
What really is important is that, through images and sound, a deep feeling of love and compassion arose for what, ultimately, merely happened in my brain. I was being programmed, voluntarily induced to experience the full breadth of human emotions. And by sticking with the ride, by closing the cycle (and I think it particularly important that Laura Roslin is the last person to die on the series and she dies because her lungs fail her), there is something worth being gained. I guess when those lives close ours must come automatically under scrutiny. There's a void now. Perhaps to be filled with a new series. Perhaps not. Perhaps that void can just be there to make itself known. That space used for us to breath into ourselves.
I don't know.
I'm trying to commit words to describe something that I never will. So intimate, so personal, and yet something I know I will share with most humans at some point in our lives.
It's not the words. It's what they hint at.
I guess a lot of people were disappointed with the religious overtones. Especially towards the end. And I can see that and accept that. But, to be perfectly frank, that's missing the point. To me it's not really about religion. Not really. Or, rather, if it is, it's in a very different way that we tend to think about it. I think it's more about what religion does than what religion is. But, in doing so, perhaps hints at what religion would like to be.
This series is woven with such incredible force and yet so much delicacy. That final death was something that filled me so completely. Together with Kara's last scene. Those were the two most important scenes in these final episodes. Perhaps even of the whole series. Because of the simplicity. Because of the beauty. Because of the subliminal depth that they carry.
Kara was the second chance coming to an end without ever coming into full bloom in the love that finally had every possibility laid in front of it. Terribly sad and moving but, as with most of this series, incredibly poignant and appropriate.
And Laura... Laura had always been this strange creature who we'd all like to love but never really could. But she is the epitome (along the old man...) of the true leader. So much so that only with the closeness of death does she allow herself to fully come into being and allow herself to feel. Her death is well staged. We've been hearing about it since day one in the series. She dies throughout the whole scale. And we are dying with her. Perhaps in different ways, but getting closer to that moment as well.
And we all know it. Deep inside of us we do.
And, instead of a big dramatic end, we have simply the very essence of life, air, being slowly taken away from her. Her lungs not being able to cope anymore.
So beautiful and so powerful. I truly have no words to describe it. Because it's bringing us, each and every one of us to the closest thing we will most likely one day know: how it is to run out of air.
It's something I realised very deeply in this last retreat (and undoubtedly why I resonated so profoundly with this scene) how, in most death scenarios, we will run out of air and we will know it and, more than try to fight it, we'll have to learn how to ride it.
That this scene, the way it's made, with all it's back history, with all the big themes lying about, is placed precisely there, in this way, cannot be a coincidence. Which tells me that the people behind this series (and I'm thinking Ronald D. Moore more than anyone) are truly special.

I'm sure many people, more cultured and educated than myself will look at this series and see a great many shortcomings, perhaps even dangerous things, undercurrent political viewpoints, etc.
I cannot glimpse any of that so much and, what I can it really doesn't contribute very much for any belief change or strengthening.
I just feel that this series was made with great love and is an act of love and a tribute to life itself. Its about us, but it's about so much more than just us.

Anyway. Thanks for listening.

Galactica Actual out.

peace