Dreamways

This was perhaps my sixth viewing of this movie by Sherman Alexie. I've had very strong emotional responses to this film in the past. As the story of a fellow outsidered in all venues of his life, this movie has always felt particularly relevant to my own story. However, last night's viewing felt less evocative than in the past.

I was more focused on the horrid dilemma of being Native American in this country, in this stew culture. The three aspects of Indian maleness shown in the movie (poet Seymour, violinist Mouse, and traditionalist Aristotle) all are fraught with difficulties. Although Seymour no longer lives on the rez, he cannot, of course, get away from his Indianness. As he says, 90% of his poetry is about the rez, in spite of his not wanting it to be that way. Mouse becomes a druggie and dies from an overdose. Aristotle is physically the classic, beautiful and noble Indian-head-nickel male, who returns to the rez and is lost in bitterness. How can one be an Indian in the U.S. and make any sense of it?

Interesting that Seymour's white lover at one point says to him that Seymour's place is no longer with the Spokane, that gays are now his Tribe. This is an interesting appropriation of one culture's concept by another. While certainly being gay is fraught with difficulties, it is not the same experience as being native American. Of course, both tribes can be immensely intolerant of folks in their midst who belong to both groups.

Is Seymour all that much happier than Aristotle? Has his fame given him Happiness? Should it? Does it need to? He has gotten out of the dead-end of rez life, this is true. He is giving voice to his own experience as a Native as well to other Natives' experiences. But as the movie shows, the other Natives might not be pleased about this. His poetry is clearly for whites, who will take on the groovy aspects of being Indian, with the final outcome being , as one of his poems says, something to the effect that one day all Whites will become Indians and all Indians will be ghosts. A subtle way of erasing a group of people. After what Whites have done to Indians we are now turning them into icons of spiritual beauty, appropriating it too and, rather than slaughtering them, erasing the complex and all too often not beautiful physical reality of each Native individual life.

I suspect this viewing was strongly influenced by my reading of Armstrong's Book The Battle for God. This movie is through and through a depiction of the battle between Mythos and Logos in our culture. Native American Mythos has been savaged by White American Logos. The meaning that suffused Indian lives was ripped apart. Their Dreams have been savaged. Indians are basically presented with the option of leaving Indian ways behind and assimilating, or of staying with Indian ways in poverty and complete marginalization. The rape of Indian ways is a Tragedy of massive proportions. Certainly for Native cultures and individuals, but also for European culture and individuals. The tyranny of Logos brutalizes not just Indians, but all Whites in this culture too.

This film shows the Nightmare as well as the Dream. Both are emanations from human hearts and minds. The Nightmare is born out of a rejection of Heart. The White culture has danced a Heartless Dance with Native Americans, a Brain detached from body and soul that has been a Killing Machine.

A Healing Dream in the movie is the image of Dancing. In our complex world, individuals must learn to be Fancy Dancers, moving in and out of all sorts of spaces and roles, many of them hostile. Seymour dances both male and female Native dances, he being Two Spirited. Perhaps we all need to become at least Two-Spirited, if not Many-Spirited. In the end, when he takes off his Indian man's attire and is naked in the blackness, this, too, is a truth: our deepest essence is beyond all cultural roles. The dancer both is and is not the dance. Dancing is always about Motion. Balanced Motion. Not being stuck in Reservations, in all the prisons that try to contain us. The heart of the Dream is that deep place of not belonging anywhere from which we can see that we belong everywhere.

Another aspect of The Dream in the film is music. Mouse's beautiful playing of the violin, a European instrument, cannot save him from loss of soul. But for Agnes, the instrument of her voice does give her life balance and joy, it gives expression to her grief.

Dark dreams and Dancing dreams: they all seem to exhort us to examine ourselves, our lives. They show us how we are out of balance and ways we might regain equilibrium. Dreams clearly are of the World of Mythos, the place where we make meaning.