THE AVATAR/MONONOKE/RÖYKSOPP CONNECTION

Ever since watching Avatar I have been drawn back to Mononoke, the classic Miyazaki film about human greed versus the full force of nature. In Avatar, the Atokirina represent the planet’s life force; in Princess Mononoke, we have the Kodama (こだま 、反響音: echo). Both kinds of wood-sprites act as the eyes and ears of the forest, and sometimes as its messengers, as we see here with Jake Sully:

"We love Jake Sully! Don't kill him!" — Woodsprites

As you may have figured by following this site, I am a huge fan of Röyksopp. So when I found this little number below I was clickin’ like a kodama, just stoked, you know. What could be better than seeing the little gangsta sprites dashing through the forest to uber-chill electronica? Really. It was just *so easy*.

SUPPLEMENTAL WU-WEI LESSON FOR THE DAY

When beauty is abstracted
Then ugliness has been implied;
When good is abstracted
Then evil has been implied.

So alive and dead are abstracted from nature,
Difficult and easy abstracted from progress,
Long and short abstracted from contrast,
High and low abstracted from depth,
Song and speech abstracted from melody,
After and before abstracted from sequence.

The sage experiences without abstraction,
And accomplishes without action;
He accepts the ebb and flow of things,
Nurtures them, but does not own them,
And lives, but does not dwell.

http://www.taoteching.org/chapters/2.htm

Kodama of Gaia

Atokirina of Eywa

From the movies Princess Mononoke and Avatar.