Here or there? Reflections on hobbits and space travelers.
I recently picked up The Hobbit again. It’s been years since I last read it, and I was immediately struck by the lushness of description, particularly of the different natural terrains and of the characters’ physical experiences in them. Carried away by this deeply sensuous writing I thought about the enduring appeal of the book, how it remains so popular decades after its first publication. It occurred to me how different it is from the plethora of contemporary stories set in space where the cold, dark terrain of emptiness lacks description and the characters are separated from their physical experiences by pods and protective spacesuits. Do these two different settings from different decades reflect something back to us from the communal dream?
Modern society is a lot like space. We sit in apartment/house pods, we talk through the ‘spacesuits’ of our screens. Disconnected, our voices travel through the dark, silent of cyberspace (aptly named), through metal, cables, and fibers. Space travelers are separated from sensual experience, locked away in ships floating endlessly with no ground; the travelers of cyberspace are equally distant from experience, endlessly shuttling from app to app behind the protection of screen, never feeling the responses of the thousands of others who are recipients of posts, never seeing faces reacting to the ‘likes’, ‘tweets’, or other, disembodied communications.
There’s a lot lacking in the communal dream of disconnected space. In The Hobbit we journey with a troop of friends, stumbling together through mountains deep, singing songs voice to voice – not cable fiber to cable fiber – to make our way out of a dark and suffocating forest. We lazily traipse through a springtime field of blooming flowers at the successful end of the adventure, smelling an actual blossom instead of sending an emoji. Instead of cold and empty space, the natural world of The Hobbit setting is electrifying and imaginative, meeting all the senses – shivering in the cold waters of the River Running, sparkling alive with the mystery of tall, wise trees. I felt a sense of nostalgia reading it, like returning to an old, comfortable friend. Is this nostalgia born from the longing of a return to the senses, to the engagement with the friend of our natural world? Is this perhaps why The Hobbit remains so popular, ever-finding new fans even with today’s new generation of readers who discover it? Readers who are, perhaps, seeking something beyond the disembodied worlds of cyberspace, which is reflected back to us through the many films and stories set in outer space?
Dreaming comes from our bodies. The delights of our senses – all that we taste, touch, feel, smell, hear – becomes the material of our dreams and creative imagination. The more we fill our senses with the varieties of creative abundance our earth puts forth, the more we dream. From strawberry’s wild red and sweet flavors, to spider’s intricate web, sparrow’s happy chirps to oak’s rooted solidity we inform our inner Self, making us alive with fertile potential to which we add our own creative synthesizing of these experiences.
Space – ungrounded, floating, alone, separated – is an apt image for our device-mediated, Netflix-dominated times, of which I am fully a part. And yet, fortunately, that space is easily exited – closing apps and phones, we immediately touch back down to earth. Stepping outside, taking off helmets and protective suits to breathe in the smells of summer. Inhale and, faintly, one hears the call of adventure, perhaps pulling towards a mountain hike or to bend down and be amazed by the drama of a dandelion unfolding.
Summer is the perfect time to exit space and come back to earth. It’s the months of sensual experiences of sun on skin, grass growing, lazy breezes ruffling hair, waves lapping on sand. Summer is the month the hobbit began his journey – perhaps you’ll begin yours.
Happy re-entry.
