tomwrightdreamer

So, where to start? Obviously, I’ve always wanted to be a Jedi. Who wouldn’t? Obviously not in the prequel (where suddenly they are not allowed to experience any emotions [bad Anarkin – don’t love your mum] and can’t even get jiggy) but in the original trilogy where they have great power and insight. And glowing swords.

I found this one lying in the mud one day while out for a run. I looked around to see if there were any wailing and bereft children nearby. As there weren’t, I pulled it out of the ground. I’d love to say I did this using The Force, but instead I had to bend over and pick it up, which when you’re my size is quite a significant investment of energy. But I did it, because this wasn’t just any lightsaber. This is a green lightsaber.

Luke starts off his quest into Jedidom with his dad’s sabre; which glows blue. But then he goes on his journey of self-mastery, in which he has to grapple with and overcome his own anger and fear. He learns that ‘there is no try, only do,’ and that there is a field which surrounds and pervades all living beings (stop me if the Buddhistness is too obvious). Anyway, having learnt all this brilliant stuff, he takes the final step. He makes his own saber. And then as he is being really tested by the Emperor, he snaps and uses it to attack his father. The Emperor goads him on. And then Luke wins and changes not just the course of his life, but that of the whole galaxy.

And he wins not by using the sword, but by turning it off.

Yes, the green one is the one he puts away. And that’s the sort of weapon I like to have lying around; the one which achieves its purpose by being resisted at all costs, something which teaches us to always search for the other way. Because as long as we allow violence to be a potential solution to anything, we will never give 100% to exhausting the other options. Maybe there are some situations which can only be resolved through violence. Maybe there is such a thing as a justified war, a righteous fight. But for me, if it ever comes down to it, I hope that I would die fighting with my heart, not weapons, to find another way.

And this lightsaber reminds me of that.

Plus it lights up.