I was listening to Raiders of the Lost Podcast, their episode on Lord of the Rings, and was astounded at this story's continued relevance to our World today. I found LOTR as a kid. I don't recall now how I discovered the books, but once I had, it was all over. I was hooked. It was the 80's and I devoured the books. Around that time, we were doing book reports in English class, and I couldn't wait for it to be my turn to give my report on the Lord of the Rings. The other kids loved it when it was my turn because I would easily take up the entire class giving my report, meaning they would not have to get up in front of the class that day to give theirs. I lived in the books. They were more real to me than the world in which my physical body dwelt. And there was more. It was almost as if I were remembering such times as I read rather than discovering them for the first time. Middle Earth. Could Tolkien have been recording memories of his own? Of the world within our world that many now call Agartha? I believe so. Only Tolkien really knows. I had begun to write in earnest in this decade of the 80's and I wrote from visions, dreams, and memories. I didn't think I was writer, and I never made up a story; they came to me. I'd hear languages in my head, see people and places. As I began to write, the story would begin to unfold. It seems I remember some story of Tolkien, how he saw a Hobbit in a hole in the ground. This, to me, speaks of the same process of remembering or accessing other lives and worlds through the grand cosmic computer better known as the Akashic Records, ever present in the Ether. This manner of channeling often sets with it, a rather universal tome. Lord of the Rings is profound and eternal because its theme is universal and profound. Because it speaks of a higher and a deeper truth that is too often dismissed as Fantasy. The chord continues to sound across the decades because it continues to send out the same message: The Eye of Sauron is real, and whomever comes into contact with the Ring of Power is corrupted. I look at what the ring did to Smeagol and I see what it does to each of us, individually and collectively. I see that the world has a ring. Every nation has a ring. Every race. Every country. Every city. And every individual; we each have a private ring. Within each ring lies a seductive force, an addiction, a dark mover. And then I flash ahead to the end of the great LOTR trilogy by Peter Jackson, I see the Kingdoms of Men gathered together, as one, before the Black Gates of Mordor. I see Aragorn, their true King, riding before them, giving the biggest speech of his life. And I see us now, roiling as a nation and a world beneath the Eye of Sauron and I wonder: Can we join together at the Black Gates?
Flash over to Frodo and Samwise Gamgee. What would have befallen our hero if not for his faithful friend, Samwise? Surely, he would have been lost. As they struggle over the forbidding, spirit and body-breaking landscape below Mount Doom, I wonder how far we would we go to destroy the rings of the world? This time around, it may not be one True King, or one Great Wizard, or one Bold Hobbit that saves the Kingdoms of Men. This time around it may take all of us, each of us, crawling our own way to Mount Doom or standing strong, together, at the Black Gates. This has happened before, in Middle Earth. It will happen again. But what if it doesn't have to happen here again? If we each join as one in the Kingdom of Men, if we disallow the Eye to separate and divide us and join together, the Black Gates will fall, every ring thrown into the otherworldly fire of Mount Doom, and there will be such a cry of freedom as has never been heard!
Could be there will be stories written about this time that others may not believe. That may be taken as allegorical. And allegorical all stories are, I suppose. Especially those which touch on both temporal and high spiritual truths. We are here, humanity, with our Rings of Power. We are here, humanity, at the Black Gates.
In years from now, when the Eye has closed, when the Rings of Power have been destroyed, only then will we see what we did now. What each small step meant. We will see how allegory is the greatest teacher of truth we've ever been given, and how the smallest acts of friendship and forgiveness made all the difference.
