Recently I watched a movie that had me bawling consistently the whole time. It was gut-wrenching and heart-opening. The kind of movie you remember forever.
It was Frozen II.
Does anyone else find that the older they get, the more the simple wisdom of children's films resonates?
There is a scene after Anna sees her best friend die and loses her sister (for good, she thinks). She is in a dark cave, utterly lost as to how to continue on her quest, and she starts singing. This scene really reminds me of a quote from Women Who Run With the Wolves (my favorite book that I recommend to any woman reading this). "If we will sing the song, we can call up the psychic remains of the Wild Woman soul and sing her into a vital shape again. To sing means to use the soul-voice. It means to say on the breath the truth of one’s power and one’s need, to breathe soul over the thing that is ailing or in need of restoration. This is done by descending into the deepest mood of great love and feeling, till one’s desire for relationship with the wildish Self overflows, then to speak one’s soul from that frame of mind. … this women’s labor of finding and singing the creation hymn is a solitary work, a work carried out in the desert of the psyche."
Anna does exactly that. She sits in the desolation of her psyche, descending to her deepest mood of feeling, and then sings brokenly. After acknowledging her pain, she adds:"A tiny voice whispers in my mind/ You are lost, hope is gone/ But you must go on/ And do the next right thing."
Chills. "Do the next right thing" is one of my permanent life quotes now. Why? I think because I'm such a dreamer - I can feel the magic windings my journey, and I have huge plans for my future, but then I get overwhelmed and don't know where to start. Do the next right thing. I want to finish the fantasy book I'm working on, but get overwhelmed thinking how much I have left to do. Do the next (write) thing. When things get really, really dark, which, as a very emotional human they inevitably will, or when the world gets too overwhelming, I know I can come back to this simple wisdom - I don't have to be perfectly happy again now. I don't need to know how to fix everything. All I need is to do the next right thing.
If you want to check out the full lyrics, you can view them here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2WQkZwpRIs