The Blackberry Walk

"Your drill is the drill that will pierce the Heavens". An iconic line which mulls in the mind of any Gurren Lagaan fan. And as with any piercing statement that punctures into and cements itself into our psyche, has plenty of meaning wrapped inside. Let's start with the drill and more specifically the spiral and its relationship to evolution. Jung talks about the 'circambulation of the self' which essentially means that you never walk linearly to the goal or destination in your life and instead spiral around the final goal, with an ever-changing velocity, slowly inching your way to the centre, the destination. Part of the moral is that in life one often rolls the dice and lands on a snake but upon the next roll you land on a ladder which takes you beyond where you fell from. Evolution is much the same. Each generation learns from the past generation's mistake and forges a greater world than their ancestors. The drill, therefore, is the perfecting of evolution across generations of heroes. In many religions, such as Christianity with God, Greek Mythology with either Zeus or Uranus, etc, Heaven is depicted to be ruled by a male god. Heaven is also where the dead who are past heroes, ascend to. When we access the knowledge of our ancestors, we look to the 'father who art in heaven' for advice; the father/god who is representative of our ancestors experience. Let's return to Gurren Lagaan with our new knowledge in tow. What does it mean to pierce the heavens with your drill? Why is that Simone, the hero's, calling? Simone must become the hero to which others look to by utilising the knowledge of his ancestors. He must enter heaven, by becoming a hero, by wielding the power of his ancestors, the power of the drill, the evolution of man, as his weapon. The power exists in heaven but the key to the power, which Simone finds, is found in a cavern, born in the Earth. Traditionally in many religions like Greek Mythology, the Earth is depicted as feminine in the form of Gaia. Even today we talk about mother Earth and mother nature. The hero is born of mother but often not of father such as in Christianity with the virgn birth of Jesus. The flesh of the hero is born from the Earth, from the mother, but that is the physical vessel to access the metaphysical power derived from Heaven, from one's ancestors. The Hero must leave the cavern, the womb, just as Simone did, and use the physical body nurtured in that womb in combination with the transcendental powers from the heaven, their ancestors, to complete their hero's journey. To pierce the heavens and join your ancestors to drive the next generation of heroes to come and join you.