The ongoing process of Evolution upon Earth and how to participate consciously in it.
Anything related to that... including of course 'The Lord of the Rings' and everything Tolkien!...
PJ & Co's LOTR films, and Howard Shore's incredible music for them... plus the same now regarding 'The Hobbit'
First Lord of the Rings reading experience:
I975, in French (my mother tongue) at first, but some years later I got my first *real* experience of it, straight in Tolkien's wonderful English text!... What a treat...
But the 1975 first reading was, although just yet through the French translation, a totally wonderful and unforgettable experience as well:
In Auroville since three years, and going through intense spiritual new developments in my being, the arrival of 'The Lord of the Rings' into my life was a pure blessing, coming at exactly the right time to echo what was happening in me and accompany my own inner adventure.
I immediately recognized in JRRT an incredibly close 'soul-brother' - for no one could have written such a book, without the corresponding very varied and deep inner experience of what he was talking about.
On top of it, what an incredible writer!... At the time I was living (purposely) in a an extremely simple tree-house of my own invention, alone in a whole vast cashew-grove, and my work for Auroville as a school-teacher was fortunately giving me some holidays; I read day and night, I couldn't put down the book; and being alone there, I didn't have to care about any neighbours, so I could cry my heart off, or get loudly indignant, it didn't matter. When I came to 'The Return of the King', and to the glorious moment when Aragorn steps down from the ships with his banner unfurled, and marches out to victory, you should have seen me - and heard me!... - dancing around on my platform between the branches and screaming with joy!!!
I still laugh simply thinking of it...
Favorite Tolkien character:
- Galadriel: embodies something of the Feminine aspect of the divine, what you could call the Divine Mother, straight in Middle-earth. Inner as well as outer refuge and support whenever needed, for all those sincerely trying to serve the Divine Will. Feminine Beauty that calls to the soul more than to the senses... My own Ideal in many ways!
- Aragorn would be a very close second, for totally different reasons, but related also to a sense of identity with him and his particular inner challenges...