Life of Pi: the Art of Reconciliation

Seeing the magnificent Life of Pi movie this weekend, I was reminded of Robert A. Johnson's insightful book, Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche (1991). 

Robert A. Johnson

In it he discusses an image from medieval Christianity that has largely been forgotten: the mandorla.  Though similar in meaning to the holistic circle of the Hindu/Buddhist mandala, the mandorla is actually the almond-shaped intersection of two overlapping circles, symbolizing the overlap of opposites. 

In medieval Christianity it was used to describe the overlap of heaven and earth, and often surrounded images of Christ, the Divine Incarnation.

For Johnson the image gives insight into the healing ways of both religion and art.  It is the duty of true poets, he says, "to take the fragmented world that we find ourselves in and to make a unity of it."  The same holds true for the storyteller:

Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi

"All good stories are mandorlas.  They speak of this and that and gradually, through the miracle of story, demonstrate that the opposites overlap and are finally the same."

Director Ang Lee

Johnson brings up the story of Moses and the burning bush, a metaphor of the impossible situation where two orders of reality have been superimposed.




"Whenever you have a clash of opposites in your being and neither will give way to the other (the bush will not be consumed and the fire will not stop), you can be certain that God is present. We dislike this experience intensely and avoid it at any cost; but if we can endure it, the conflict-without-resolution is a direct experience of God."

Next time you're caught between a rock and hard place (or stuck on a lifeboat with a tiger), in the midst of your suffering try to remember: "The religious experience lies exactly at that point of insolubility where we feel we can proceed no further." The struggle becomes an act of heroic endurance, what Johnson calls highly conscious waiting. "The ego can do no more; it must wait for that which is greater than itself."