Half Elf

The Astra Film Festival, screening documentaries from all over the world, is the one event I am waiting for, the whole year. This year, due to the pandemic, they have also an online event where you can watch at your leisure whatever chatches your attention. The festival ends this Sunday so you still have time.

And since I want to push myself to write more, I have decided that I will not watch another movie until I have finished writing about the previous one. And believe me, I really want to take advantage of what is left from the festival. It is the same with the books I read, I cannot start reading a new one until I have written a review.

The first movie I saw was my lovers’ choice and it is called „Half Elf” directed by Jón Bjarki Magnússon, from Iceland, released in 2020. In the movie, we can witness the last few months from a lighthouse keepers’ life, before his 100^th birthday, a story about life and our own mortality, about old age and finding meaning in life.

What I discovered is that Iceland has a really rich culture of songs, depicting life and all it has to offer. They sing when they have a family gathering, or meeting with friends, and I guess that these songs are passed on from generation to generation. They actually sound like viking folklore songs.

I was curious enough that I searched one such song that I really loved, I did not find that one exactly but I am leaving you with a similar one, so that you get a feeling of what I am talking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwfI6nvCShI

And I think these songs contributed to the protagonists’ long life but also for his mental health. Remembering all those lyrics, memorising words is a good way to ensure you will still enjoy your mental capacity even at an old age.

I think singing gives us a state of wellbeing! At the beginning of the year, for the two months I was in quarantine, I moved with my parents and I had the fields to myself, with no other person in sight. And I would take my speaker with me and have a walk with my favourite music. And sometime, when there was a song that I really loved, I would sing along, from the bottom of my heart, as loud as I wished, since there was nobody to hear me.

And I had such an intense feeling of freedom, of self expression, of pure joy. It was definitely because of the nature, the green grass, the clouds, but also because there are few times when I found the context to let myself sing, with no barrier.

And I think that when we sing, we are in a relaxed state, and it contributes to our well being. And if you take the opportunity to sing with your family or your friends, like they do in the movie, it is such a good way to connect.

On one of the hiking trips, I was with my friends in the car, and each of us would choose a song, it was a marvellous time we spent, instead of being bored. And we enjoyed singing together too! I watched a documentary about music and how humans perceive it and connect with it. I think we all have music inside of us, it is a source of great pleasure for me.

The second aspect which caught my attention was the fact that Trausti, the main character, would often visit a place offering coffins, so that he would pick the best one.

For me, this activity is a way to accept the ending of our life and a way to process our own mortality. Like talking about death has the same effect. I think people try to push this topic so much, because of being afraid of it.

But I think that true freedom comes when we view death as a natural stage of life, and we are changing our fear into complete acceptance. Not ignoring death, but being mindful of it, releases us and makes us live more fully. There is nothing sure in life, except the fact that we will all die, sooner or later.

What still scares me though is actually old age. The pain of walking, the trembling hands, losing the hearing and not being able to see that much, especially to read. All the pains, the pills.

But I think I have this image because in Romania, we are only now putting the effort into leading a healthy lifestyle. So my take out of this is that I will be mindful about my choices and how I take care of my body so that I continue to enjoy good health even at an old age, if I am blessed with more days.

Lastly, I think Trausti, or Elf, as he tried to change his name before dying, actually lived so much because he had a strong purpose. He kept on saying that he wanted to reach 100 years, and he did.

Finding the will to live, having strong reasons to continue living are the key to a long life. I used to say that I want to die young so that I do not go through all the negative aspects of old age. Now, I want to live 100 years old, because I love life, and I want to enjoy from all it has to offer, as much as I can.

Heal

Due to some problems I have with my lungs and a long history with asthma, in the context of coronavirus, I started to do a treatment with aerosol machine. I have been postponing it a lot.

Firstly, I was not decided whether this will be a one time use of the machine, and then I will just have it the house and secondly, when I did buy it shortly after, I was overwhelmed by the thought that I need to operate it myself, and then my doctor was on holiday and then after reading the instructions for 3 times it just seemed daunting to me that I honestly postponed it for almost two months now, today was my first day of the treatment.

I received basic instructions from my doctor the first time I went there, and I really thought to myself that I am holding trainings and basically managing a lot of situations where I don’t know how to do things, but I guess when it comes to medicine, treatments, and hospitals, I give away my power and consider I am absolutely clueless.

On one hand, It was really useful to have the 2 extra visits and 2 phone calls, because I still learned new things and there are still things to clarify but the good news is that I am on the good track.

The treatment implies that I would breathe particles of the soluble medicine that is vaporised through a tube in my mouth. And I need to do this for 7-10 minute. And while waiting, and sitting straight, I decided that I am going to watch a documentary which is called „Heal” so that I can also understand more how I can support my body to heal faster.

I have known of this documentary for a while now, one of my best friends recommended it when she moved to Austria with her baby boy to get him treated of leukemia. I knew it was good for me to see it, but like anything else in life, I think there comes a moment when we are prepared for a type of information, realisation or confrontation.

While my 3 rounds of aerosol, and in between drops during the day, I managed to see it all. The reason why I am writing this article is that I would like to give you enough reasons to see this documentary, without waiting so much as I did.

No matter if you are going through an illness right now, or you know somebody else or you simply have nothing, I really do think this is an important message we should all hear.

First if all, I was really impressed by the different specialists which were interviewed during the documentary, like Deepak Chopra, Joe Vitale, Gregg Braden, Michael B Beckwith, Jeffrey Thompson, Joan Borysenko and Marianne Williamson and others.

I have not heard of all of them but the fact that some of them which are leading figures in a specific field, and they were all together in the same place stating the same thing brings a lot of weight to the following message:

Our body has the capacity to heal whatever we might be suffering from! The way to support it to do so is to eliminate stress in our lives or the flight or fight mode in which the body cannot heal and basically reap the benefits of positive thinking and faith, and manage to free ourselves from the negativity in our thoughts, our minds.

I am not trying to explain in as much detail because the documentary takes you into a beautiful journey to actually explore this. But what I would like to do is to write down 10 of the learning points I got from watching it:

1. Modern or western medicine only takes into account the symptoms and rarely works with the root cause so that we can address illnesses definitively. And for this we need a holistic approach: take care of what and how we think, what we eat, the air we breathe, the quality of our water, time spend in nature, having faith and building harmonious relationships and have a strong purpose in life
2. Most of the affections we have are related to stress or have an emotional root, the more we learn to manage with the stress in our lives, the more we take care of our emotional hygiene, the more we view emotions as messenger, neither good nor bad just carrying the lessons we need, we will be able to heal anything might come our way.
3. Interesting to realise, have you ever considered the fact that when testing medicine, how there is sometimes a percentage of people 30%-40%-60%- or sometimes even 70% percent, in order to validate the testing, they receive a placebo pill, injection or treatment but still manage to get well only by the thought that they received what they needed in order to heal?
4. If you eat healthy, exercise, sleep well, lead a balanced life but your thoughts are toxic, then you bring all that toxicity into your body and unfortunately this ultimately will lead to disease.
5. Want to admit it or not, we all traumas from our childhood which in turn makes us run programs which are no longer serving us, some have started emotional release therapies, reiki, emotional freedom techniques or managed somehow to be at peace, accept and find a new reactions which serves better, for the rest, I only encourage you to treat your emotional wounds as seriously as you would do with a bleeding, open wound. Maybe you do not see the effects, but you cannot go living with such a emotional injury and expect to be healthy.
6. If you have no resources for investing in such emotional cleansing experiences, then meditation and forgiving are the free, these are 2 of the most available tools to us to create a supportive mindset and emotional state, you don’t have to be a buddhist monk to meditate all day long, but take a break from time to time, try to focus your attention on your breathing, and choose to release yourself from the the state of a victim and take your power back and forgive where forgiveness needs to be given. Forgiveness does not equal endorsing certain behaviours but rather setting yourself free from a negative emotional state. There is a saying that I resonate with: „We we choose not to forgive, it is like taking poison and expect the other person to die”.
7. What I would add from personal experience to meditation and forgiveness would be journaling, pour onto pages whatever is on your soul, talk to yourself, get to know yourself and where you are coming from, where you want to go, because you and only you are the persona which can listen to you any time of the day r night, understanding you completely and what is inside of you, and there is a relief and freedom when we discharge the negative thoughts and intensity of the day but also take the lesson and reframe it in order to have a more constructive reaction the next time, the next day.
8. We are all one, we are all connected and if we understand that we are the same energy vibrating since the big bang then we will understand the power of collective prayers, the power we have to contribute to other people’s health and well being and dismiss the thoughts of loneliness, isolation, unworthiness or maybe start to harness the collective consciousness to evolve, I know we have the potential to stop hunger, stop wars, take care of our planet, be enlightened, healthy and fulfilled, we just need to go towards this direction one by one, and support the ones who want to join us along the way.
9. We all die, that is a fact, but it does not be because of a disease, or it does not need to be in excruciating pain and our last days filled with dread, suffering, deep loss and regrets. Death is what is happening to an experience, not to us.

These are my thoughts on the documentary, but again, I encourage you deeply to see it. I have set a mission to let as many people see it, so if you have decided to do so, leave me a comment, I have a target of 29 people to start with 🙂

You can find the documentary on Netflix. Please let me know if you you do not have an account, and cannot afford one, I am also considering of paying for a month trial and give people access to it, in order to be able to see this documentary. Let me know in the comments if you have seen it and what are your impressions!

Also, if you want to read more on how to start a journaling practice, please read my previous articles „Journaling: how to start your practice today?” followed by „Journaling for personal fulfilment”.

As Wim Hof says, I wish you „All the love, all the power!” 🙂

P.S.: While writing this whole article, I was listening with my headphones some healing beautiful music. Listen to it, even try to hum with it, it creates amazing vibrations in you. I discovered this music during an emotional release retreat called the Journey by Brandon Bays. I have an entire playlist, subscribe to my youtube channel @minadocinski to listen to them all.