To moon or not to moon???

At some shalas, it is a moonday today. Not so at Shala X. And so, despite that I feel pretty good today, I am wondering: should I take it as a moonday and continue on with the pattern of six day week/five day week?

In any event, it would be a home practice. I suppose I will end up doing SOMETHING here after watching a few more Lost reruns on iTunes. I am really interested in going back now to the episodes I have already seen and picking out the "Easter eggs", as the producers and fans like to call the little suprises you can sometimes find hidden within the frames. It becomes easier to pick them out when you know what you're looking for, of courses. What I have picked up mainly through my re-watching is that

(1) in the first few episodes, the Lostaways use the words, "the others" a LOT when referring to each other ("What will we tell 'the others'?" "I have gathered up some of 'the others'..."), which is interesting to me because later on "the others" becomes the phrase the Lostaways use in referring to the inhabitants of the island who did not arrive on Flight 815...

(2) Walt clearly has the power to summon animals out of his imagination (a bird, a polar bear, perhaps the boar that gored his dad?); so then why is it that only John Locke is able to summon Walt's dog, Vincent, out of the jungle...

(3) It is clear immediately, once you know that you're looking for it, that Locke is not in the slightest bit interested in getting off the island; in fact, he seems quite enamoured with the island, opening his arms wide to welcome the rain, speaking of the island as if it is god-like, saying that he has "stared into the eye of the island, and it is beautiful." Locke helps only with matters that involve survival ON the island.

(4) The violence that befell the pilot in the first episode (The Pilot!) was unlike anything that happens later on in the series. The pilot's is pulled out of the cockpit by a supernatural force and his body is later found mangled in the branches of a tree. Any violence that happens later in the series is purely human-wrought. As the series goes on, the level of supernatural appears to dwindle, and the bad things that happen to people happen at the hands of other people. I wonder if this points towards a reason that "the others" need to have in their "possession" children with special powers, such as Walt. Perhaps their powers are dwindling as they "age out", and they need to replenish their supernatural powers?

(5) Over the course of the series, it begins to look more and more as if the "others" are members of the Hanso Foundation and the Dharma Initiative, and that they came to the island to conduct experiments, but that something went awry that led them to abandon their pursuits. Now they are engaged in different pursuits. It is not clear what those pursuits are. But clearly, these people have no interest in leaving the island and are in the midst of something they believe to be important.

(6) From the looks of the plane crash, it seems as if the plane was broken into three pieces by some force that came from below. The crash does not in any way appear to be any sort of explosion or equipment malfunction.

(7) Dr. Candle/Wickman lost his arm and then gained it back, or had an arm and then lost it. In anyplace other than Lostaway Island, it would have to be the latter. But I wonder if the island healed him, the way the island healed Rose (of her cancer) and Locke (of his paralysis) (and Charlie - of his heroin addiction? and Jack of his alcoholism? and Ana Lucia of her homicidal rage? and Shannon of her uselessness? and Michael of his absentee fatherism? okay, the last few may be kind of stretching it, but it does seem that the island becomes a place where lives can turn around, which seems obvious, of course, but still, it's kind of interesting to see how it plays out)

(8) Speaking of lost arms, the Australian farmer who took Kate in (thinking that her name was "Annie"), and who ultimately turned her in to the US Marshall, was missing an arm, himself. It was the right arm though. Dr. Candle/Wickman was missing his left arm. Until he wasn't!

(9) I wonder why all the tailies are now dead other than Bernard and Mr. Eko.

(10) I wonder what who Jack's dad's daughter is - is it Claire? Is it the daughter of the psychic - the girl who drowned and came back to life? Is the psychic (to whom Claire went, and who sent Claire to LA, which caused her to be on Flight 815) the same guy as the healer to whom Rose went? Will we ever find out why Libby was in a mental hospital, and how she kept her hair blonde on the island when she was clearly a brunette (as evidenced by her hair in the mental hospital)?

(11) Why is "You All Very Butty" still winding its way through my brain?

(12) Sun should NOT have been on Flight 815. Jin, maybe. But definitely not Sun. Sun was supposed to have fled the airport and her old life. Jin probably would not have gotten on the plane had Sun not gotten on, so perhaps Jin should not have been on the plane. I find this curious because it turns out that Sun is pregnant, so it would seem logical that she would be "wanted" by the "others", since the "others" are interested in children. As for Jin, I find it curious that he was not necessarily supposed to have been on that plane because many of the Lostaways seem to "need" to be on the island in order to make a new start. If anyone needed a new start, it was certainly Jin. On the OTHER hand, I hear rumblings amongst the even-more-obsessed-than-me folks who post on the Lost message boards over at abc.com, that the Sun's father's shady business, of which Jin played a role, may have been in some way connected with the Hanso and/or Dharma folks. So, perhaps whatever happened between Sun and Jin that led, against numerous odds, to them being on that plane, was entirely predictable or even engineered by the "others".

(13) The first book we see newly minted bookworm, Sawyer, is reading "Watership Down", a story "about bunnies", as Sawyer says. I find it an interesting parallel with what's going on with the Lostaways. In Watership Down, the bunnies leave what was once their home and basically create a whole new civilization for themselves. I don't think this is particularly earth-shattering. Just kind of a clever "Easter Egg".

(14) I just have to say that the episode called "The Moth" was absolutely brilliant. The "moth" theme is explained by Locke to Charlie: you could help a moth out of its cocoon, but then, it would be to weak to survive in the world; instead, you have to let it struggle to make its way out, the struggle being what makes it strong. This theme is echoed in Charlie's struggle to detox from his heroin addiction and to stay clean (Locke helps him, but ultimately, Charlie rejects the help and makes the final decision to stay clean on his own) and in Jack's escape from the cave, which has collapsed around him, like a cocoon (only through the struggle to get out of the cave does Jack realize that he can be a leader; on a more literal note, it is through the collapse of the cave that the Lostaways are able to determine that with the exception of the portion that collapsed, the cave is structurally sound).

(15) Jack's last name is "Shepherd" - as in leading the flocks.

(16) I think it's strange that the body of Jack's father is not in the coffin that Jack finds amid the wreckage. Where would it go? The coffin was in decent shape when Jack found it. Can a body just fly out of a coffin while the coffin stays intact, in a plane crash scenario, I mean? I don't think it is pure coincidence that Jack's father is named, "Christian Shepherd" either. There is definitely a whole religious faith theme being developed on Lost, although I can't really figure out what it is yet.

(17) Claire wears a large Asian character (letter?) around her neck on a string. It may be the same as one of the characters (letters?) Jack has tatooed on his arm. I am not sure if it is the same as the Chinese characters (the producers confirmed that the characters are Chinese in a recent podcast) that are part of the Dharma Initiative logo.

I see a few people have commented on yesterday's blog entry on the definitions that bind us. Seems like there is a bit of dissent. Nothing to compare with the dissent of the days of yore on this blog. But still some fun debate!

And update: yes, I did practice. It was the best of practices and the worst of practices, a veritable practice "stew" of sorts. And it went on and on and on and on. A long-cooking stew. And I can't WAIT for it to be tomorrow when I can NOT practice and feel totally fine about it!

YC