Chalk Paintings

When I was younger, my family often watched Mary Poppins (1964) as a holiday tradition. And honestly, I dreaded this tradition. I didn’t (and still don’t) enjoy most movies (or tv series) where people constantly interrupt the story by breaking into songs. An exception is a movie like Cabaret because the singing and dancing in Cabaret occurs on a cabaret stage with performers and is cleverly juxtaposed to reflect events taking place in the storyline. I think this was quite a genius storytelling move. Definitely not as twee as the usual musical movie fare.

In addition to the annoying onslaught of songs in Mary Poppins, even as a youngster I couldn’t relate to what I felt to be a completely saccharine story. Our family life sure didn’t resemble anything so uplifting and dreamy, and I resented being required to watch something that didn’t provide comforting escapism but instead reminded me of the actual dysfunctional dynamics going on in my home life. This family movie viewing experience felt artificial, manipulative, and forced.

While overall I didn’t enjoy Mary Poppins, one section of the movie absolutely captivated me, and became a sort of obsession with me for a long time: the story arc of the movie where Dick Van Dyke’s character points to the bright and beautiful chalk paintings on a sidewalk and urges everyone to jump into them to experience a completely different world. When they do jump, everything they experience, from the landscapes and people to the clothing they wear, is transformed to match the vivid, uniquely different chalk paintings they’ve hopped into.

Once I became familiar with the concept of timeline jumping and multidimensionality, my childhood fixation on this portion of the movie finally made sense. Was my fascination with this part of the movie a breadcrumb from my future self? A hint about parallel worlds and timeline jumping?

I’m going with, yes, absolutely, this was an initiatory breadcrumb from my future self or my guides. An intriguing spark that lit me up inside and from there took me on a serpentine journey of “remembering.”

The chalk paintings portion of that movie was the first time I’d come across the fantastical idea of jumping into and exploring alternate worlds. An amuse-bouche of an idea that eventually led me to the vast conceptual framework of multidimensionality.

From that moment in the movie and onward, any movies, series, artwork, books and stories, even music - (a pause to say “hello and thank you” to David Bowie, that talented luminous Being who fell to earth for a time) - any creative offering that alluded to or described any kind of timeline jumping or visiting parallel worlds served to fan the flames and nudge me to explore deeper.

In my previous post, Octaves, I express my current understanding of the evolution of consciousness as it relates to the shifts going on in the world. The bifurcation or split that’s occurring is the old world wobbling, with many of the familiar systems and societal constructs falling apart or needing to be rebuilt into something different. (A dreary and arduous timeline in which to remain, in my opinion, but to each their own). The new world is anchoring more strongly into place and still resembles a leap into the unknown. These worlds exist side-by-side and each individual is responsible for determining where they land.

There’s a polarity play happening, a divine symmetry dancing underneath all the current chaos. The dreary, dystopian, and uglier timelines are certainly there, if that’s what you or your unconscious chooses to experience. There are also beautiful chalk painting experiences, beckoning everywhere. They might not be quite fully formed, yet they’re shimmering on the edges of your awareness, waiting for you to jump in.