 Star Wars 9, End of an Era, which, I guess it seems like many are pretty happy that it's over. Rotten Tomatoes, 52%. Oof. Despite that the new films lack a cohesive plot bridging them all together, Star Wars since the very beginning has been steeped in spiritual symbolism, such as, for example, the name Jedi seemingly linked to the Egyptian fictional magician named DeJedi, and the concept of the force itself based on Taoism. I mean, I'm not the only one who reads the Tao De Ching and just imagines Lao Tzu as like a little hairy green man, right? So Rise of Skywalker, let's break it down. Oh, BTDubs, spoiler warning, but you knew that already, didn't you? The movie begins with Rey meditating and gently levitating. She's asking, be with me, be with me, be with me, calling out presumably to Luke or the other Jedi to support her. But very soon she falls out and says, ah, you're not with me, with reluctance, and returns with disappointment to the ground. The lesson here is mystic surrender. Despite her connection to the Force, she is unable to truly surrender to the wisdom of the Jedi that she's trying to connect with. She is so filled with expectations and desires that she misses the real opportunity to connect on a deeper level. This is the exact same as Korra in Avatar, the legend of Korra, who cannot airbend due to her lack of ability to truly surrender to stillness. We'll come back to this at the end. Now, one of the most profound scenes in this movie actually happened in the caves of Pasana. Rey and company find themselves trapped in these underground sand caves with no apparent exit. They find the dagger they were looking for. Super easy, barely an inconvenience. And then they encounter the Vexus Snake. This big, angry puppet, ah, sorry, I mean serpent, who most certainly looks like it's going to kill them all. Recognizing that it's harmed though, Rey uses the Force to heal the serpent, which opens up a hidden passage. Now, why is this significant at all? For most people it's like, alright, they found a snake, moving on. If we look at the world's most prominent religions, all of the Abrahamic faiths, for example, we find this story in Genesis about the Garden of Eden, and how the serpent tricked Eve into, you know, harsh times. I don't want to cast this as good or bad or whatnot, but simply to say that especially within the Abrahamic traditions, the serpent has most often been a symbol of the devil and something to fear. This idea is found all over the place, even in pop culture today, from Jafar in Aladdin to Voldemort in Slytherin House. And, I mean, hey, even Indiana Jones hates them. But when we look deeper into history, the serpent wasn't always evil, and this is true even today. In the Mayan cultures we see the Ouroboros, the serpent eating its tail, describing the infinite cyclical nature of the universe and the divine sources of wisdom. The Mayans also have Quetzalcoatl, the winged serpent deity who stood for learning. In ancient Greece we have the Caduceus, the twin serpent staff of Hermes. This is also a symbol of wisdom, describing the masculine and feminine energy channels that runs up the spine, igniting with wings at the top, describing the ascension process. Often, every time that these serpents cross, we have a chakra point as well. In the tarot, we sometimes see a serpent wrapped around an egg. The serpent here represents the flow of cosmic energy, and the egg it wraps around is the ever-forming reality that is coming into being by our progressive growth through life. When we see Rey in the cave with the serpent, the party has an immediate reactionary choice, fight or flight. Rey, the divine feminine stepping into our power, makes a different choice. She heals the serpent and opens up a hidden passage as a result of this action. This very scene describes the divine feminine healing the wounded serpent, healing the fear of that which is misunderstood, and through compassion, opening up a hidden doorway into the next stage of their journey. This is practical for all of us in the sense that if we experience something in life that we immediately fear, how might showing compassion to that thing change the outcome of what we expect to happen? Think about it. Now, much of Rise of Skywalker revolved around Rey's descent into facing her inner darkness, stemming from her being the granddaughter of Palpatine. This evil energy within her DNA scares her, and twists her thoughts into believing that she could actually become evil. Rey didn't have a choice about carrying this darkness within her. It was there since she was conceived, and her shadow self had to be faced fully in order for her to embody the light and truth within her. We even got to see a little bit of this with the fight between her and her shadow self. The spiritual lesson here for all of us is that often it's not our faults that we carry darkness within us. Often there is hate, fear, shame, guilt, or more that is imposed upon us from a young age, from our environment, often coming from abusive others in the world, included but not limited to family or friends, and even though the trauma isn't our faults, we are responsible to do something about it. We have to face it, like Rey did, and come to terms with who we truly are. We can begin this transformation process for ourselves very simply by changing the language that we use. Like Caroline Casey describes, instead of using the word trauma, try my dangerous and beautiful assignment, because our greatest struggles hold the seeds of deep personal transformation within. In Rise of Skywalker, there's even a bit of redemption story here for the Emperor himself, for it's through his own bloodline that he comes to meet his end. He is the one who, quite literally, sowed the seed of his own destruction. Ugh, I'm so sorry that wasn't meant to be a pun. Let us continue with the death and resurrection of Kylo Ben, lol. You see, in the ancient mystery schools and throughout many religions and spiritualities, we find this idea of spiritual death and rebirth. The death and rebirth cycle is often believed to be a necessity to be initiated into the inner mysteries in the personal and spiritual transformation process. As one part of you dies, a higher expression of you can come to light. This is found in the threefold sequence in the tarot, the hanged man, death and resurrection. We see this happening in the last fight between Rey and Kylo Ren. Rey wins the duo with the help of Leia, who together reflect these two aspects of the divine feminine, the youthful and mature energies, and are able to bring the chaotic masculine to a stillness, the boy who needs to step into manhood. Rey healing Ben was very similar to healing the serpent, demonstrating to the masculine who is now listening by the virtue of his defeat, what love feels like. The result? He experiences not only physical, but a spiritual rebirth as well. We now come to the great battle with the Emperor himself. The Emperor is a reflection of one of the biggest challenges in society, how certain people will use and manipulate others in order to wield power in a selfish way, which has no choice but to corrupt him. In the book King Warrior Magician Lover, it describes the fundamental archetypes of the divine masculine and how each of these archetypes splits into an aggressive and passive expression. The Emperor is embodying the aggressive polarity of the king archetype, the tyrant. In the end, the only way to transmute his evil is the path of destruction. Now, at the very beginning we spoke on the subject of mystic surrender and Rey's inability to truly hear Luke. Much like Ben's defeat, which allowed him to feel compassion once again, Rey being drained of all of her energy allowed her to penetrate the barrier that blocked her from her connection to the Force. In this we find the classic Taoist passage, empty yourself and you will become filled. And so she is, receiving exactly what she needs to, to defeat the great evil. Ben's final act of reviving Rey is his atonement, which is literally his at-one-ment. It is a giving back, the sacred apology of the masculine from its evil transgressions and both him and Leia disappearing singles the completion of this cycle. Coming to a close, Rey develops a new golden lightsaber. This brings us to the rise of the goddess within, reflecting Luke who designed his own green lightsaber at the beginning of Return of the Jedi. Finally, we have the conclusion of the movie with Rey naming herself Skywalker. Personally, this scene struck a beautiful note within me because it reminded me of myself. I haven't felt like I truly had a last name since I was four years old because I too have gone through a journey of not feeling like I belonged and then finding a new name for myself. That said, Rey stepping into the name Skywalker is akin to her stepping into her power, bringing an ending to the old story and a new beginning at the same time. While we may or may not ever see Rey again in Star Wars, she will stand as an inspiration for Force users everywhere and especially women and girls around the world as a demonstration of the power within them. While Rise of Skywalker might not be a perfect movie, I think one of the things we often take for granted in Star Wars is how steeped and rich in spirituality they really are. But if we are to go deeper, we'll save that discussion for another time. Thanks for watching.