Metaphors

Metaphors help create ‘a holy curiosity’ by capturing our attention. They catch us up, we pause instead of racing past words. Like Moses we turn to see why the burning bush is not consumed. We allow the concepts to soak slowly into our emotions.

In the movie, The Seventh Stream, grief-laden widower Quinn is a man of logic. He believes in only what he can see and feel and “sometimes not even that.”

When a mysterious woman appears in their fishing village he cannot accept that she is walking off the pages of a legend.

However, he recognizes her inner turmoil instantly and her emotional pain strikes his heart. With her pure heart insight as a selkie, (a seal in human form) she discerns his loneliness and uses it to build a bridge of communication, a bridge of possibility. Gradually both Quinn and the audience begin to accept the truth of what she is.

Actor Scott Glenn who portrays Owen Quinn says, “I hope the audience will feel the possibility of magic—if not real magic, then the metaphor of magic—touching their lives, and making them better for it.”

Journal Prompt:

For yourself, or for one of your characters, choose a painful emotion. Then write a short scene where another person bridges that pain with healing by use of metaphor. How does that touch make the pain better, or at least bearable?