The Gods of Princess Mononoke

The Gods of Princess Mononoke are somewhat difficult to get a grip on at first for the Western viewer, though maybe for the Eastern viewer too? I don't know...

I think one safe thing to say about them though is that when the Western viewer watches it, they need to take their spirituality out of the sky, away from an anthropomorphic white male who created humans in his image and into the hands of nature - and its wisdom or lack thereof. Even for the non-religious westerner this is a little bit of an undertaking, I think, because Abrahamic thought is in the atmosphere of our culture and philosophy.. it informs us and centers our world view in subtle and interesting ways.

This spiritual shift towards the Deer god is a really beneficial exercise, I think. I vaguely recall a hilariously dumb quote from Jerry Falwell or a similar idiot about how we can continue to exploit the earth's natural resources as much as we want and not worry about the consequences because God put them there for us and wants us to use them and wont punish us for using them. What a disastrous Lady-Eboshi-esque arrogant position to take!

Compare that to the Deer God of Princess Mononoke. God is Nature, life and death.... this more pantheistic,  holistic balance of the ecosystem. It becomes a logical fallacy to exploit nature and bend it to your whim and will...  Nature, after all, still has the power of life and death - including not just every plant and animal, but every human as well.  Technology and civilization has dramatically altered human's relationship with nature - switched who played by whose rules..  but there's still something nature has on us, and probably always will - and it's a zinger - our own mortality. Even if we don't complicate matters by trying to destroy the Deer God, he he still walks the night taking life... according to its own whim or lack of whim, design or  lack of design.

But to intervene is futile. To try and kill the Deer God makes no sense.. death cannot be destroyed unless life too is destroyed, human lives not exempt. I think that's what the climactic moments of Princess Mononoke tell us. We take the Deer God's head from him and put it in a cylinder and run around with it for too long and the forrest dies, then eventually us too. It dramatically shifts death from its natural course into an unknown and chaotic one. One can't help but think of global warming as a blinded and confused Deer God looking for its head. Miyazaki is asking us to give the head back - even if it is too late. Or, perhaps, it's never too late. Things will change and be different.. The natural Deer God might die but something else will bloom in its place - we don't have to die along with him.  The little kodama at the end assures us that the Deer God is still there - somewhere.

Death is a big thing to wrap our head around. It makes otherwise rational people completely crazy. It is the unknown. It is the last thing nature has on us. I think it's comforting that Miyazaki depicts the death of Okkoto as a loving kiss of release by the Deer God. The Deer God reminds me of Totoro in that sense.. the spiritual king of the forrest.. the comforting wisdom of nature. I can't help but picture a tired and withered Mei with cataracts lying on her death bed after 90 short years of life - when it's her time to go - that moment of release comes as a kiss from Totoro.