Searching for the Ivory Tower

For some inexplicable reason, I've been on a bit of a Neverending Story kick lately. I think it started when I got it into my head to look for the theme song...but what inspired that I don't know. (In case you were wondering, I found it...on iTunes. I also found a funky techno version that I couldn't resist buying :P). But it got me thinking about the book, and the movie (not the rather pathetic sequels -- the first was always a masterpiece to me)...when I was little, not only did I have the inevitable neverending crush on Atreyu, I wanted to be the Childlike Empress. I wanted to be her in the worst way. I wanted to live in the Ivory Tower -- I admit with absolutely no shame that the scene when the Ivory Tower appears, as Falkor and Atreyu fly through the shattered remnants of Fantasia, still brings tears to my eyes. I'm not entirely sure why, but I still get that old desire to see the Ivory Tower. In my childhood it was the most breathtakingly beautiful structure imaginable.

So as I was thinking about my childish flights of fantasy (no pun intended), and I realized that maybe I should have been listening to those inclinations all along. After all, what is the Ivory Tower? It has three meanings that I know well -- it represents academia and the imagination, and is also a common title of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Tower of Ivory, for Mary's common connection with Wisdom). And what is it that gives me greater delight to this day than academia and the exercise of the imagination? Who has been my strength and inspiration, my succour and my protectress but Our Lady? It is no childish thing to desire to dwell still in the Ivory Tower.

But thinking of the Ivory Tower as academia, it would certainly have saved me a lot of heartache lately if I had paid attention to that desire, had considered it in its deeper meaning. But, you might ask, did my seven year old mind understand this symbolism? To which I might reply, does it really matter? Some part of me did grasp that the Ivory Tower meant something, and meant something important. And whatever that was, it was desirable. I've always been captivated with the life of the mind, with the exercise of imagination...and in that way I've always felt a connection to Bastien: rather a misfit, curious, an avid reader, isolated.

What does all this mean, though? It means the Ivory Tower still exists. And Fantastica does exist. And to dwell in the Ivory Tower means also dwelling in Fantastica...and dwelling in Fantastica means living in the shadow (or the light?) of the tower. It can be reached, and it is no shameful thing to remain there.