Lorax is Life

Movie night with my family led us to watch “The Lorax.” I’ve often spoke of how I enjoy children’s movies more than adult movies for the sole reason that I believe they speak to the soul more deeply with spiritual lessons. I’m enthralled with Dr. Seuss and convinced he was an enlightened being that graced this planet with his wisdom. He was a genius in targeting children with big messages about the world they would soon come to know.

The Lorax is a genius movie that speaks very clearly about the world that we currently live in. It speaks to human greed that overrules the harmony of the planet that we all call home. It highlights the fact that corporations extract the natural resources from this planet that were meant to serve all of humanity and hoard it away, killing the very planet that sustains us, so that they can sell it back to us. It speaks to the stupidity of the masses to stand by in ignorance allowing this to happen. It speaks to the threats that corporations make in their all-assuming power to those that threaten to awaken the many and turn the tides of this worlds against them. It highlights the charade that we are all blinded by and the demon of “more” that has insidiously destroyed us while we’ve contributed in our ignorance and our own greed.

In the movie the Lorax, the “Thneed” is all the rage, made of trees that balance the ecosystem and support many lives including humanity. Thneed, breaks down to, “The Need.” The need of humanity to consume, create, and capitalize has caused the destruction of the world in this movie, yet all of society is so consumed by their consumerism that they don’t even realize what is happening. They are occupied with all the “latest and greatest” gadgets and don’t realize that they are being sucked into the marketing schemes that brainwash them into ignoring their own mass destruction for the benefit of the few at the top.

When I watch this movie, I think of bottled water and air purifiers. I think of oil and gas companies. I think of the jewelry industry. I think about humanity’s need to innovate and find more efficient ways of producing and killing other life to feed its own, much of it going to waste due to our need to have “more than enough.” Each one of them robbing the Earth of natural resources so that they can be monetized and returned to the people all the while destroying the harmony in the environment and causing adverse effects to the life that relies on those resources. I think about the genetically engineered and modified food that is being sold within all the grocery stores that people are mindlessly consuming. I see the imbalance we’re causing in nature with all of our many selfish practices in the name of “more.”

I see the ignorance of the young pioneer who seeks approval from his family by acquisition and success, which leads me to point out that when we do not do our own inner work and heal ourselves from the inside out, our ego runs a muck seeking to fill the void within with things, money, status, etc. We see the Onceler within the movie seeking to gain the approval of his family and charting his course toward his “dream” of “success.” As he’s on his journey, the Lorax comes along and continues to warn him of the disastrous impact of his actions, but he continues to ignore. He continues to rebel in the name of success, money, and status. He chooses the wrong side. Instead of listening to his higher self, he follows his ego down the path of destruction. There is no devil outside of us. The devil exists within us.

If we put 2 and 2 together, we can see that the Lorax within the movie serves as higher consciousness or God urging humanity to reconsider their decisions time and time again. Several times throughout the movie, the Lorax states, “That’s not how it works,” when the Onceler indicates that if he is the “Guardian of the Forest” why doesn’t he just make a mighty show of power to stop everything that is transpiring. So often, people who don’t know God state this, “Well why doesn’t God just do something about all of this awful stuff that is happening in the world?” My response is that God lives within you, you just have to listen and awaken to this. For God to step in and take control without being asked would take our free will away and would not be love. Love requires allowing someone the ability to choose, even if it means allowing them to make the wrong choice.

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot nothing is going to get better. It’s not.

• Dr. Seuss

When we begin to understand this principle, that we live by the spirit of God… the spirit of life. We begin to recognize the responsibility and power we have to set the wheel in motion toward positive change. It gives us reason to have faith in ourselves and the power we have to shift the status quo. It helps us to realize the power of our voice, experience, and personal mission within this life. Personally, this movie reaffirms my mission with this site. It reaffirms the need to pass along the wisdom I’ve gained throughout my life to others. As we see within the movie, change does not happen independent of others.

In order to reverse the disastrous effects of all of the destruction that has taken place, the Onceler has to release his own ego by sharing his story with someone. He let’s the young boy into his story. The young boy takes the story and the seed (the wisdom) into the world as they know it, however, he doesn’t do it alone. He recruits his family and his neighbor to assist him with planting the seed and making the seed a reality in the world, which is a lesson to us all. Share your wisdom. Share your insight. Share your experience, even if you were the one who later realizes you were wrong. Facing your wrongs allows the opportunity to bring them full circle and make things right… to take the mess and turn it into a message.

When we dig into the boys story, we see that he becomes almost an accidental hero. His story begins with a crush on his neighbor who happens to have a thing for real natural trees (she actually may be the real hero who sets the ball in motion). He later talks with his grandmother about where to find “real trees” who tells him the tail of the Onceler, which turns out to be another example of how sharing knowledge and wisdom benefits everyone. In the selfish desire to impress his neighbor and “get the girl,” he takes off beyond the physical walls of his society (though in real life these walls are mental) and discovers that life on the other side of the wall is in dire need of repair. When he meets the Onceler, his mission expands beyond just “getting the girl.” It turns into the need to restore life and reset people’s mindsets back to God… back to the natural… back to righteousness… back to truth.

As the truth is shared with the masses at the end of the movie, you see other people slowly returning to the truth also. At first, the corporations scare tactics seem to be working, then once the wall is torn down (the veil over their minds and vision), they are able to see the disaster that has been created as a result of their ignorance and they embrace the truth. The seed is planted and over time the world is restored back to harmony. There is an order to life that allows it to regenerate and sustain itself when it is not being attacked. The message of this movie toward us is that we need to stop attacking and allow the restoration. That is God’s job… we simply just need to get on board, stop fighting, and start allowing.