The Hidden Themes of Heliofant's "I, Pet Goat II"By Dustin Darcy, July 12 2012 (online version)

Much of the nuance in Heliofant's "I, Pet Goat II" has been neglected. So I would like to express what I see as the four major themes of the video. The primary message is that the current mindset of America and much of the rest of the world is one of division. The apple splitting in half and the emergence of the two saplings that unite to create the lotus blossom is representative of enlightenment.[0] This is poetically illustrated near the end of the short, as the sleeping Christ figure emerges from the tunnel and all the water lilies unfurl into full bloom.

A House Divided...

During the introduction, in the first stanza, the two (supposedly) opposite U.S. Presidents stand before the front of the classroom and cavort between a mixture of slapstick and dance.‡ At no point do the Presidents set aside the inane masturbatory[1] act to engage in a genuine dialogue to discuss how we might begin to solve the world's problems. In effect, they are the same. Both of their actions are silly and irreverent. The nonsense of their actions is emblazoned on the chalkboard for all to see. The house is on fire and no one is doing anything about it.[2]

Trapped in the surreal Alice and Wonderland setting.[3] The snow white-esque pupil,[4] despite the misbehavior of her elders, maintains her idyllic purity—uncorrupted by society's division and hatred the ethnocentric partisan circus creates.‡ Staring down, contemplating the apple. Lily realizes the fruit is poisoned with society's divisive cultural propaganda. '"This apple is not mine," she [thinks]. It belongs to someone else."'[5] As she lets go of the doctrinal apple of knowledge, ossifying the students who surround her, it rolls to the front of the classroom.

The President, as head master of the cultural indoctrination program begins to sweat.[6] ‡ He sees for the first time the younger generation is unwilling to consume the information they are being fed. The President realizes the charade of division[7] is coming to an end and that the people recognize a world constantly at war with itself can never become whole and heal. This is visually reflected by the apple splitting in half (again alluding to division) and the two saplings merging to form the unified lotus blossom.[8]

The War that is Winter...

Here the second overture starts and the war for the soul of humanity begins. The camera exits through the window from the small confines of the theatric, comfortably understood community of the classroom to a world in chaos, where the two towers of division are crumbling and the unified flag of the nation is torn in half.‡ This much larger, complex world is nothing like what was taught in the school. It shows the world as something bigger and far more menacing. It also shows how old established symbols, while retaining their power and meaning, have begun to meld into one another becoming something altogether new.

As the blood moon rises[9] [10] far out past where the two towers lie in ruin.‡ We see Osama bin Laden standing with his armies of human bombs, under the aegis of the CIA logo tagged on his uniform. Oil bleeds from the glaciers into the black polluted ocean slick.[11] ‡ The once proud nation's self-inflicted wounds cause Lady Liberty's light to dim as the Star of David illuminates beneath it.‡ Even from birth, the young are ensnared by the snakelike media propaganda.‡ The constant hum of the TV murmuring the news of failing economies saps everyone of vigor and hope.[12] ‡ The desperation invariably crescendos in worldwide confrontation and escalations.

Air strikes target religious structures to destroy what are falsely construed as opposing cultural identities.‡ Governments extricate resoures from foreign soil to perpetuate the illusion of an ever-expanding ever-growing economy. Conflagration of bombs vaporize the lives of parents and children of all cultures. Muslim.‡ African.‡ The war heals nothing and consumes everything. The poignancy of this depravity reaches new heights when the people observe the ill-gotten barrels of crude fail to even serve any supposed purpose because the tumultuous violence engulfing the middle east only serves to hasten the bankruptcy of the swiftly diminishing middle class. In a last gasp, the blue-collar wage earner drowns disappearing into the cauldron of class warfare.‡ The Mexican calaca[13] walks onto the battlefield with Death's scythe to claim the brave who have marched into battle to oppose nuclear warfare and governmental injustice.‡

Yang seems to be losing to its Yin. The battle seems all but lost.

Unification, Yichudim, and Tikkun Olam

Yet through all the devastation, a lone figure sails quiescently on a solar barge through the underworld.[14] ‡ The apotheosis's fusion of characteristics, from the sacred flaming heart[15] to the dharmic third eye[16] cast in the image of the eye of providence,[17] hint at the Maitreya[18] come to transcend boundaries of religious orthodoxies. The perennial philosophy births a new avatar![19] The iconic Jesus-figure transmogrified into an Egyptian mold. The symbols stitched into a homogenous tapestry strips away any notion of a superior culture or a more authentic spiritual path because the singular beatific unity reveals how all of the combined belief systems compliment and enrich each other.

As the avatar sails along in an unconscious trance on the river Styx, journeying to undo the wrongs and awake in the light of day. He sees the corruption.‡ And, as if in a dream, twitches at the images of the nightmare.‡ He touches the evanescent moth, that burns at the touch of light.[20] ‡ He witnesses the deaths. He sees the propaganda, greed, and self loathing.‡ Kali, through the mind of the avatar, observes the macabre scene and Vishnu remembers to preserve.[21] [22] ‡ The fish, as lost souls of the Styx, remember the warmth and recongregate.[23] ‡ The structures of ice and darkness slowly start to melt and crumble into the background as the heat of the avatar (representing the coming Spring) warms the frozen walls in his passing.‡

Amidst the chaos, far away the divine light of the Supreme pierces a cloud from high above to illumine a lone phallically-shaped lighthouse of ice with an elderly woman trapped inside the tower's inner cloister.‡ In Kabbalistic literature the sephirot Tipheret and Yesod are seen as the male accompaniment to the female Sephirah of Malkut (the Shekinah). In the arrangement of the Sephirot, Yesod lies directly between Tipheret and Malkut.

The Shekinah plays another very important role in the story of creation, and in particular in the Great Plan of humankind. It is believed that in man's fall to a denser, less perfect state of being in the physical, the Shekinah stayed with us as we separated from God or were exiled from the ‘Garden'. Thus, the Shekinah, once again, was voluntarily removed from God/Ein Sof in order for us to have our experience. She has always stayed with us, wherever we were exiled or isolated or shut out, the Shekinah was always there in exile and isolation with us. Thus, the Shekinah is also in Malkuth, the Kingdom, the Salt of the Earth, the final step of creation where the energies funnel into the physical world that is our home. It is for this reason that Kabbalists often refer to Malkuth as the Bride. For the ultimate Plan and driving desire of the Universe is for the Bride, the Shekinah, to reunite with her Bridegroom, the Creator. So, the Shekinah, in addition to being the Soul of God

is also the Soul of the World.

www.universalkabbalah.net...

After millennia of waiting the light from above reaches below to unite with the Shekinah. As the promises and prophecies are fulfilled. The Christ-heart emerges amidst a cloud of men in copy-cat suits, performing soulless jobs.‡ In a single pulse the Christ-heart obliterates the feckless paradigm of menial work. Eliminating, all at once, and once and for all, the hegemony of darkness enforced by men unwittingly maintaining a corrupt and soulless order. The innocents oppressed by the uncaring machine of modern society are freed.‡

The misdeeds and wrongs start to upend themselves. Death itself reverts course! The calaca, as maestro, reanimates those lost in battles of yore.‡ The lily-white innocent rise in glory to dance to the beauty of their souls song. The innocent broken body of the young Muslim boy, Aali, rises in splendor twirling towards the moon with all the beauty and skill of the ancient art of the Sufi whirling Dervishes.[24] ‡

L'enfant Bleu, who at once was Kali, flashes through the masks and headdresses of all cultures of old. From the elemental to the tribal dances of the Native American bear and raven.‡ With all cultures integrated, the heat of history finally reaches the flash point and culture itself turns to steam.[25] Unmasked L'enfant, as us, unveils his true inner nature.‡ Pure radiance, shining brightly illumining all![26] [27]

Entering the East Gate, Past the Flaming Sword that Swings Every Which Way, and the End of Symbols

Uniting all the disparate shards of humanity, the avatar propels through the mouth of the underworld into the light of dawn.‡ In the wake of his passage enlightenment blossoms everywhere the heat of the heart's fire touches.‡ The lilies of wisdom spring from their frosty slumber a vibrant purple giving color where previously there was none.

The penance of the crown of thorns is removed. The icons and symbols that were previously of such great importance are no longer necessary. Where once they were used to connect with the elusive and the intangible. Now exposed to raw self-evident truth of the greater reality, the old symbols are superfluous. The frozen religions of antiquity and their provisional structures disintegrate in the light of the felt presence of spirit. The ice cathedral crumbles exposed to the direct rays of the sun.‡

As the avatar's gaze turns due east. The solar barge floats towards the Menkaure causeway following the gaze of the sphinx to participate in the coming of the spring equinox.[28] [29] ‡ Looking forward the avatar sees the sun pulse, resonating with his heart. Fireballs fly forth like streamers. A flaming meteor slams into the capstone of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Careening through the air the capstone disintegrates. The pyramids dislodged and unbalanced slowly crumble. With it, the self-evident meaning of an unjust hierarchy controlled from the top-down submerge into the ocean forever.

The long promised, golden age of plenty arrives! And that ... is but the beginning.