When I first saw the previews for the movie Moana, I was not at all interested. It was another Disney “princess movie”, with a new storyline and characters I didn’t know.
No thank you.
But of course, they fed us a preview during another flick we saw and the boys were determined to see it. Not for Moana nearly as much as for Maui, the demigod “who saves her”. He is a huge guy with an even bigger attitude ~ played by The Rock and honestly, he’s pretty funny. But save her?
He does not.
It’s a surprisingly beautiful story of a girl who feels overwhelmingly compelled to be different from her family and the people of her village. She wants to push the borders of what they understand. She’s determined to sail past the only thing they know that keeps them safe.
It’s about her struggle to find her own way.
It’s not a selfish journey to self-fulfillment. It’s a calling she feels was put inside her to serve her village in the very best possible way she can. She knows she has to listen to and explore the call, to do her part to save them all.
And no one seems to understand her, except her grandma Tala, who is the village crazy lady.
Nonetheless, Moana listens to Tala as she sings to her on the beach:
I like to dance with the water
The undertow and the waves
The water is mischievous, ha!
I like how it misbehaves
The village may think I’m crazy
Or say that I drift too far
But once you know what you like well there you are
You are your father’s daughter
Stubbornness and pride
Mind what he says but remember
You may hear a voice inside
And if the voice starts to whisper
To follow the farthest star
Moana that voice inside is who you are
Moana listens to that voice inside and it sends her on an incredibly difficult journey.
She faces hardship after hardship. It’s absolutely not fair. She feels totally defeated and wishes she’d never believed. She curses her boat and wishes she would have stayed on the shore of her safe little island to live in peace.
But in her darkest moments, her Grandma Tala’s spirit reappears to remind her who she is.
Moana’s journey makes her ready for her calling. It’s only on that painful, difficult journey she becomes the person her village needed her to be all along. Of course, they didn’t know it. They couldn’t see it. Even she couldn’t understand it.
Until the very end.
So today, I want to encourage you in one of two ways . . . or maybe both.
- Listen: If you hear a voice inside you or feel a call, listen. Pay attention. Don’t let what other people can’t possibly understand keep you from taking a journey that will make you exactly who you are meant to be.
- Hold on: If you’re on a journey that began full of hope, optimism, dreams, and visions for a better future, but it hasn’t turned out that way, hold on. Don’t quit now. You’ve come too far. The journey is making you.
You are made for more than you will ever be if you give up now. Listen for that quiet voice. You may be the only one close enough to hear it.
It’s who you are.
There is nothing more beautiful than a woman who knows who she is.
We need you.
to more love,
Crystal
