round and around we go

So, there was an experiment some years back on damage to the hippocampus. Scientists lesioned this area of rats' brains, and placed them into a Morris water maze, a round pool full of opaque water that can only be escaped via a hidden platform. Before the rats' ablations, they were taught how to escape the maze.

Post-surgery, the rats were put into the maze. They swam around and around, trying to find the platform. But the part of the brain that controls spatial memory was gone. They couldn't remember where the platform was, and they couldn't remember where they'd swum before. All they could do was search, and swim.

The rats swam until they died.

Depression is like this. You're above your head in murky water with no landmarks, searching for a way out. People will say, "There's a way out! It's just over there!" That's all good and well. But I can't find it.

IMPORTANT THUNDERHEART THINGS

hollyslowly I need you come immediately

OMG, so this is a thing I just noticed. In the movie, there are a couple instances of these little quill work talismans, the circle with the cross inside that for some reason I don't have a picture of just now when I need one. Walter has one tucked into the band of his hat, and Maggie's grandmother gives one to Ray.

These are representations of the Sioux medicine/prayer wheel. The wheel is broken into four quadrants; each represents different elements and attributes, and each is related to a color and a direction.

Ray's wheel is red and white. Walter's is blue and yellow. Neither has the entire wheel represented, but together they do. (At this point, please note that I am dead of feels.)

It's also interesting which attributes are ascribed to which character. Walter's wheel represents the physical and the spiritual, earth and fire, autumn and spring, the healer and the visionary. Ray's represents the emotional and the intellectual, water and air, summer and winter, the teacher and the warrior. Ray is at war; he is neck deep in cognitive dissonance, trying to resolve what he has been taught to think with the feelings he can't control. His elements, water and air, are constantly in flux. Walter, meanwhile, is earth--tangible and steady, literally "grounded." He acts as Ray's anchor, his tether, and--the visionary--shows Ray what to see.

You must go as two.