Rabbit Holes

Most books can be rabbit holes. Gateway portals to higher consciousness and transformation. Teaching us from the characters' experiences, giving us pause to consider our own actions and reactions. Books have a habit of looking into us, rather than the other way around. I think they are the true looking glass. In Wonderland, our Alice is made to look inside for her truths. That crying about things never changes them. That trial and error are often the best teachers. And the greatest tyrants are usually much smaller in heart and intellect than those they exploit.

Alice is a great political allegory, and the fact that we understand it as such today only proves that politics really doesn't change. But we must in relationship to it. Judging by the comments of other readers, it is our hope to be like Alice, still childlike in our love of the world overall at the end of our real life civics lesson. Perhaps loving life a little more not in spite of its imperfections and corruption, but because of them. Encompassing the whole and taking our part in it by not becoming directionless caucus racers, but honest in our disgust and confusion of useless bureauocracy as Alice. (And what about poor Bill? I love little lizards.)

I knew Alice was polital allegory going in. But what astounds me is that Alice Liddle would have been the audience. Much of the story is pretty solemn stuff. C.S. Lewis felt that faery tales were best read when you were adult enough to understand them. I whole heartedly agree.