The Green Knight (2021, directed by David Lowery) is one of those rare movies that I watched and then immediately watched again. I didn’t do anything in between, I didn’t stand, or eat, or even make a quick trip to the bathroom. I simply picked up the remote, restarted it, and watched it again with a sharper eye. I felt that twitching feeling in my mind as an idea was trying to ease across that line between the subconscious and conscious worlds. The words Pay Attention seemed to float in my peripheral vision.
The movie is a visual and symbolic feast. Each scene so artfully crafted, set and dressed, allowing the mythology to speak clearly and cleanly along side the actors. As I rewatched, paused, examined, and unpaused the film, two notions swirled inside my heart. Willpower and Surrender. These two ideas, like avatars, had come home with me some time ago and had set up camp, waiting for me to figure them out, to sort out the bond that threaded them together and tied them to me. And then the Green Knight came along and punched me in the face, my head reeling as some answers started to fall into place. Pieces of the puzzle clicking in from different corners of my life. “Pay Attention”, this time I said it out loud.
Last fall, my wife and I started to do a thing. A “polar bear plunge” into our wintery lake. At first I thought it was just a lark, the kind of daring thing you do once and promptly say “We did it! Now that’s enough of that”. But strangely it turned into something that we did every week, religiously. It became a kind of force, unto itself, and a vivid visualization. I reached out and paused The Green Knight again. Sat up straight, closed my eyes and pressed Play on the memory of the last time we went into the lake.
We approach the water from a distance, concrete stairs and sand and stones stand between us. The grey sky is reflected on the surface, which makes it impossible to see beneath it. It looks cold. I look up, toward the horizon and see the mountains circled on the far side, snow half way down their slopes, the pine trees breaking up the shapes and colours of stones and winter killed grasses. I pause and let this tableau sink in, let my eyes bounce from one feature to the next, but always returning to the cold expanse of the lake. It is February and we are going to walk into that water. Willingly. And submerge ourselves there for
somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes. My breath gets a little bit choppy at the thought but my eyes stay steady. Ok, lets do this.
My wife and I have been going into the lake since November. Each Saturday we make the pilgrimage to the shore, nine o’clock sharp. We wear white terrycloth robes over our suits, our feet are clad in neoprene booties (it is shocking how much of a difference those little “water socks” make for me). We smile at each other as we go down the stairs and feel the frozen sand and rocks crunch beneath our feet. It’s minus 10 Celsius (14 F) outside, so our breath steams as it escapes, forming little ghosts of thought bubbles. The crisp sound of the rocks and sand are now accompanied by the gentle lapping of water against the shoreline. The water is hovering somewhere around 3 degrees Celsius (37 F) according to the web. I always look at the temperature, although I’m not exactly sure why, just adding texture to the page I guess.
Now that we are closer, I can see the rocks and sand on the bottom, probably 4 or 5 meters out. The surface is more like the plane of a singularity, I can feel its insistent tug. The lake stretches out before us, one vast threshold. Thoughts about water rituals skitter across the surface of my mind, as the ghost of the one who prepares the way sits in my peripheral vision. Things kind of have their own inertia now. Our robes are off and we are walking toward the water, my hand finds hers as our feet hit the first inch. And then we are in, pushing against the cold turgid lake, letting ourselves get drawn in, almost but not quite against our wills. When we are up to our waists we pause. My breath is coming sharp now, pulling the air in quickly, pushing it back out in a shallow rasp. Two, three, four breaths come in rapid succession and then I take one big breath and walk the next three steps which takes me up to my shoulders. The cold
water stings as it grips me. Buoyant but also feeling like I’m teetering on the edge of the lake’s vast maw. It could swallow me whole, wrap me in its cryogenic currents and take me into the dark. My heartbeat seems to slow, my perception narrows and elongates, as time seems to tick....... And then slowly Tok.... I am at the event horizon.
I open my eyes again and refocus on the TV. Dave Patel, who is brilliant as Gawain, is frozen in mid-leap, the sword Excalibur gripped in his hand, the daunting figure of the Green Knight awaits him, axe in hand. Yes, I can feel that these two disparate parts of my life- the Lake and this movie- are connected. I realize the remote is still in my hand. I thumb the play button and the action flows. The hesitant way Gawain approaches the Green Knight is familiar. Lots of swagger, but also unsure, there is a knowing look in his eyes. Fighting this enormous knight is not going to be pleasant. It is frightening. Gawain musters his courage for the assault, but the knight lays down his axe and kneels, presenting his neck for the penultimate blow. I let the movie continue to play, however my mind is back at the lake, back in the water. Neck deep.
This part of the lake dip is delicious, and yet painful. Suddenly I am fully present. All of my worries and fears are fed into the singularity of that cold lake and they are gone. I am fully rooted in the NOW. I sense my legs are slowly going numb. The cold current washes around my armpits, stealing the last embers of heat my body is desperately trying to horde. I’m conscious of my breathing again and purposefully take long, smooth drags into my lungs. I smile at my wife and we settle into the groove of it. I notice the current tugging at my feet, pulling me out a bit where suddenly I can no longer touch the bottom. My legs spasm into action pushing me back to the edge of relative safety. Back to
level again and we meet each other’s eyes. I love doing this with you, her smile says it all. It is a pure moment. The clear water, no longer grey like the sky, stretches out to the horizon. Having punctured the surface it brought us to this place of seeing, of being. There is no room to fret here. The demands of the moment are all consuming, and the pull of the water transcends the merely physical as it washes away the mundane.
I bring myself back to the present, back to the movie. Gawain’s adventures play out and there is so much there. His knightly garb is stripped away, he faces danger, visions, and temptations as he pushes his will against the geas that has been placed on him. When he finally reaches the Green Chapel and faces his Great Challenge, in the guise of the Green Knight, he is brought to his own event horizon. He must now let the Knight give him a blow, to match the one Gawain himself dealt out a year ago. Before the Axe is raised he is shown an extraordinary vision. He sees what his life will be like if he flees this moment. Runs away from the Green Knight, back to safety, to his life of privilege. But he finds his lack of courage, his inability to surrender to the Green Knight echoes throughout his life. Nothing quite turns out the way he hopes. His ambition, his will power, everything he thinks will make him happy - a royal wife, a son, a kingship - all turn to ash. Gawain finds himself balanced on a fulcrum in his life. Does he have the ability, the raw will power, to lay down his arms and kneel before a force that is far greater than he? And it is in this moment when my own internal musing comes to bear fruit. The thought crosses from the fiery forge of my subconscious to be quenched in the cool shade of my waking world.
There are places we go to commune with our higher powers, where the constellations of our beliefs and hopes wheel above us as we seek to open that inner door and quest for our missing
pieces. The cold winter lake has become that chamber for me. Unlike most other places I go, in the lake there is a demanding solitude, a sanctum that has no wi-fi, allows no interlopers, cookies, or trackers. It welcomes me in, but also challenges me. Demands a mental fortitude and offering of will. At the same time, it is also a surrender. Here there is a vast power that my naked self will never overcome. It presses and it holds and it defies my will. It has been here long before I existed, it will be here long after I shuffle off this mortal coil. It abides. It humbles me even as it gives me the gifts of release, of peace, and presence. I flex my will, and I submit to the lake’s greater power. This is how I cross the threshold.
I look back up to the TV. Gawain has not received a killing blow, but the merciful gift of self-knowledge and self-awareness. He will return to Camelot with a boon of great significance. I feel it as well. When we walk out of the lake each week, the water streams off of our reddened skin. Watermarked, a line of demarcation is clearly drawn across our necks. A sure sign that we have emerged, chilled and goose fleshed, purged of troubles and ready to face the week ahead. We wrap robes over numbed limbs and slosh toward the car, heated seats, and hot coffee in waxed cardboard cups. Before we even ascend the steps back up, there is an incredible warmth that starts to radiate in my core, a burning fire that leaves no scorch or sooty smoke. I walk with it, notice it, and let it burn as we cross to our vehicle. My hand shakes as I fish the keys out of my pocket and I look back across the hood as the doors unlock. The slate grey expanse of the lake, now closed to me, waits. Vast, powerful, and cold.
Smoking breath wreaths our heads and we step into the car. The sounds of the lake recede, but the gifts still newly minted persist.
Jonathan Warner is a student of leadership, emotional intelligence, and the mysteries of interactive entertainment and with his wife and children he walks the path.
