2020/07/27 The Cat return's Mandalic Imagery
The Cat Returns is one of the less popular Ghibli films, based on the fact it was directed by neither Miyazaki nor Takahata, yet remains a solid film. The premise is that the protagonist, Haru, is very lost in life. Haru is a dojikko who feels hopeless at love and adrift in society's currents. In time, she becomes wrapped up in an adventure in order to sort out the misunderstanding that she wants to marry the prince of the Cat Kingdom and in doing so she finds herself. The mandala is the perfect imagistic conduit for this self-overcoming.
The mandala is an ancient symbol which is an organic manifestation of the self. Found across the world, in Celtic illuminations, in Persian rugs, in Dervish monasteries, in native American sand art and most prominently in south Asian religious imagery. They frequently appear in dreams too: I've had many a vivid mandala appear without context. The mandala represents wholeness and, in Jung's terms, the self, which could be understood as the totality of the potential of being. When the world feels like a total mystery, a mandala helps situate you in the world since the four cardinal directions, which are often a defining feature of the Mandala, represent where you are in the world. Jung also talks about the circambulation of the self, the maze like process in which you orbit your self, reaching ever closer but never near enough. Sometimes there are wrong paths in this journey, but the journey will in time lead you to the centre. Talking of mazes:
Here, Haru, in a metaphorical journey to overcome her life's adrift-ness, has to traverse a maze, or rather a mandala, to find her location in the world. The evil tyrant-king, an important motif seen everywhere most notably in the Bible with King Herod and in the myth of Perseus with King Acrisius, blocks off many paths inside the maze with his goons, as he is the force inside of her which prevents her from seeing who she really is - the self-deceptive ego. Tyrants are often representations of ego since they are the entity which attempts to dominate their kingdom (the psyche) with force to no avail. With the help of her comrades, the wise old man and the fat cat, who could be seen as an archetype of her unintegrated confidence, knock over all of the false walls together in a domino-like effect. In the end, the path to the self wasn't as complex as it first seemed. With the false walls, there was no ability to get to the self, however by integrating her wisdom and her confidence through cooperation, the path was clear. Upon reaching her self, a new hurdle arises - a great tower.
The great tower is a common motif. Think of the tower of Babel etc. I think I wrote a post about Kino's Journey on this topic some time ago. The general premise is an attempt to reach god. The axis mundi or world axis. Mountains were often axis mundis - many native American tribes believed that their local mountain was the centre of the world and most notably the ancient Greeks believed the gods lived upon Mt Olympus. So, what's the symbolism of the axis mundi emanating from the self? In Vedanta, a branch of Hindu philosophy, the self, or 'Atman', was believed to be identical with Brahman which was the god-head. Not necessarily the way we interpret god as a ruler, but moreso in the pantheistic sense of a god which inhabits all living things. The 'holiness' of the self is a common mythological motif seen even in Christianity wherein man was made in God's image, etc. Haru must climb this great tower. The act of climbing a great tower to meet the gods is a theme seen even in folk tales like Jack and the Beanstalk. It's akin to the idea in Kundalini Yoga of the snake which coils around the spine wherein, by eventually reaching each chakra point, you achieve the final one, the third eye which is pure consciousness - reaching the god-head. Unfortunately this motif is out of the picture shows but at the top of the tower is a gold cap, gold symbolising the sun and the gods. Interestingly as well between the top of the tower and the gold cap is a dark, wooden, spiked section which cannot be traversed. This theme is present in Dante's Inferno wherein hell must first be traversed in order to reach the heaven and the gods. The gang race up the tower to the top.
Once they finally reach the top the King presses a big red button collapsing the tower beneath them. The whole axis mundi falls to the ground, the crew thankfully intact. In a Gnostic sense, the King is like a demiurge, which is a false god who has entrapped us in this world of suffering. The Gnostics believed in the bible but that the god talked of was evil trying to prevent us from achieving our own divinity. Here, we see the King knocking down the tower, just like god did to the tower of Babel in the bible. The king/demiurge doesn't want Haru to achieve divinity. In Haru's Orphic descent into the Cat World, the king doesn't want her to leave enlightened.
The king's men race in but so too do the prince's; the prince not knowing about the betrothal or the wedding. In this scene, we see the main cast and the king sitting in a magic circle:
Magic circles are alchemical symbols of transformation. Lead, the metal of dirt, of Saturn, can be turned into gold, the metal of gods. The magic circle is mandala which is believed to have transformational powers. Jung talks about a psychotic woman who spent a year dedicated to weaving a mandala rug since when she sat inside it, she felt calmed and re-situated in the world. I am not suggesting a mandalic pattern has power in of itself, but rather it connects with symbols deep in our psyche inspiring a magic-like effect in the user. This mandala is a symbol of transformation which beams you up from the cat world to the human world. The mandala itself is a very introverted one. The outer layer of fishes pointing outwards are spikes preventing attack from outside. Yet within the circle, representing the self, all of the fishes point towards the centre, prompting an inward looking journey towards the self. The four symbols which are slightly offset are as follows starting from the north clockwise: an eye, the sun, some kind of fish swimming away, and a rising/setting sun. Within the mandala, opposing symbols are seen as opposites. The sun and the rising/setting sun make sense since one is in a constant state and the other is in flux. The interesting part is the eye and the fish running away. The eye is a confrontation - to look someone dead in the eye is to stand your ground and not look back whereas to look away once eyes look is to shy away and show weakness. The opposite to confrontation is to run away like the opposing symbol shows. The opposing symbol also appears to have a small crown. Notably our protagonists are standing by the eye, since they are confronting the demiurge.
Upon their dash, the Baron, the wise old man, confronts the tyrannical king in a duel. Naturally the wise old man wins, crushing the king's glass third eye, a fake eye, a fake symbol of godliness, of the demiurge and shaves off the fur of his lower half, showing he is just flesh underneath his thick bushy cloak of fur.
Haru escape to the top and suddenly finds she's high in the sky. Upon her discovery of her own holiness, she is disoriented upon her return to the world of the material and absolutes. The elevation of spirit to higher states of consciousness achieved by guru's and Buddhist monks are named so because you feel as if you are floating above the ground. In this state, the world of Maya, or illusion, is shown to you and the monk or guru is one with the world wherein the world operates in tandem with the mind since, in the Vedantic conception, the Brahman, or god-head, runs through everything. As a result nature operates to the mind's will and Haru descended on a staircase of crows back to her school. A similar idea of being in tandem with nature due to a pure, open heart is in Disney's Cinderella.
The final scenes show Haru a changed person. In true Japanese fashion, she cuts her hair short (hopefully it'll grow back) to show how she cuts away the necrosed self to allow fresh growth. Up early in the morning, making breakfast, and gotten over her crush. Reborn anew.
Here, Haru, in a metaphorical journey to overcome her life's adrift-ness, has to traverse a maze, or rather a mandala, to find her location in the world. The evil tyrant-king, an important motif seen everywhere most notably in the Bible with King Herod and in the myth of Perseus with King Acrisius, blocks off many paths inside the maze with his goons, as he is the force inside of her which prevents her from seeing who she really is - the self-deceptive ego. Tyrants are often representations of ego since they are the entity which attempts to dominate their kingdom (the psyche) with force to no avail. With the help of her comrades, the wise old man and the fat cat, who could be seen as an archetype of her unintegrated confidence, knock over all of the false walls together in a domino-like effect. In the end, the path to the self wasn't as complex as it first seemed. With the false walls, there was no ability to get to the self, however by integrating her wisdom and her confidence through cooperation, the path was clear. Upon reaching her self, a new hurdle arises - a great tower.
The great tower is a common motif. Think of the tower of Babel etc. I think I wrote a post about Kino's Journey on this topic some time ago. The general premise is an attempt to reach god. The axis mundi or world axis. Mountains were often axis mundis - many native American tribes believed that their local mountain was the centre of the world and most notably the ancient Greeks believed the gods lived upon Mt Olympus. So, what's the symbolism of the axis mundi emanating from the self? In Vedanta, a branch of Hindu philosophy, the self, or 'Atman', was believed to be identical with Brahman which was the god-head. Not necessarily the way we interpret god as a ruler, but moreso in the pantheistic sense of a god which inhabits all living things. The 'holiness' of the self is a common mythological motif seen even in Christianity wherein man was made in God's image, etc. Haru must climb this great tower. The act of climbing a great tower to meet the gods is a theme seen even in folk tales like Jack and the Beanstalk. It's akin to the idea in Kundalini Yoga of the snake which coils around the spine wherein, by eventually reaching each chakra point, you achieve the final one, the third eye which is pure consciousness - reaching the god-head. Unfortunately this motif is out of the picture shows but at the top of the tower is a gold cap, gold symbolising the sun and the gods. Interestingly as well between the top of the tower and the gold cap is a dark, wooden, spiked section which cannot be traversed. This theme is present in Dante's Inferno wherein hell must first be traversed in order to reach the heaven and the gods. The gang race up the tower to the top.
Once they finally reach the top the King presses a big red button collapsing the tower beneath them. The whole axis mundi falls to the ground, the crew thankfully intact. In a Gnostic sense, the King is like a demiurge, which is a false god who has entrapped us in this world of suffering. The Gnostics believed in the bible but that the god talked of was evil trying to prevent us from achieving our own divinity. Here, we see the King knocking down the tower, just like god did to the tower of Babel in the bible. The king/demiurge doesn't want Haru to achieve divinity. In Haru's Orphic descent into the Cat World, the king doesn't want her to leave enlightened.
The king's men race in but so too do the prince's; the prince not knowing about the betrothal or the wedding. In this scene, we see the main cast and the king sitting in a magic circle:
Magic circles are alchemical symbols of transformation. Lead, the metal of dirt, of Saturn, can be turned into gold, the metal of gods. The magic circle is mandala which is believed to have transformational powers. Jung talks about a psychotic woman who spent a year dedicated to weaving a mandala rug since when she sat inside it, she felt calmed and re-situated in the world. I am not suggesting a mandalic pattern has power in of itself, but rather it connects with symbols deep in our psyche inspiring a magic-like effect in the user. This mandala is a symbol of transformation which beams you up from the cat world to the human world. The mandala itself is a very introverted one. The outer layer of fishes pointing outwards are spikes preventing attack from outside. Yet within the circle, representing the self, all of the fishes point towards the centre, prompting an inward looking journey towards the self. The four symbols which are slightly offset are as follows starting from the north clockwise: an eye, the sun, some kind of fish swimming away, and a rising/setting sun. Within the mandala, opposing symbols are seen as opposites. The sun and the rising/setting sun make sense since one is in a constant state and the other is in flux. The interesting part is the eye and the fish running away. The eye is a confrontation - to look someone dead in the eye is to stand your ground and not look back whereas to look away once eyes look is to shy away and show weakness. The opposite to confrontation is to run away like the opposing symbol shows. The opposing symbol also appears to have a small crown. Notably our protagonists are standing by the eye, since they are confronting the demiurge.
Upon their dash, the Baron, the wise old man, confronts the tyrannical king in a duel. Naturally the wise old man wins, crushing the king's glass third eye, a fake eye, a fake symbol of godliness, of the demiurge and shaves off the fur of his lower half, showing he is just flesh underneath his thick bushy cloak of fur.
Haru escape to the top and suddenly finds she's high in the sky. Upon her discovery of her own holiness, she is disoriented upon her return to the world of the material and absolutes. The elevation of spirit to higher states of consciousness achieved by guru's and Buddhist monks are named so because you feel as if you are floating above the ground. In this state, the world of Maya, or illusion, is shown to you and the monk or guru is one with the world wherein the world operates in tandem with the mind since, in the Vedantic conception, the Brahman, or god-head, runs through everything. As a result nature operates to the mind's will and Haru descended on a staircase of crows back to her school. A similar idea of being in tandem with nature due to a pure, open heart is in Disney's Cinderella.
The final scenes show Haru a changed person. In true Japanese fashion, she cuts her hair short (hopefully it'll grow back) to show how she cuts away the necrosed self to allow fresh growth. Up early in the morning, making breakfast, and gotten over her crush. Reborn anew.