“A Journey to the west” or why I chose this title…

   For most people “West” is only one of the four cardinal directions on the map. But that simple word can mean so much more – a journey one starts when he opens his eyes for the first time. In many different cultures, divided by miles and miles of water and earth, that place where the sun sets is so sacred and desired.

   In Chinese Buddhism, the West represents movement toward the Buddha or enlightenment (like in Masters Wu’s “Journey to the West”). The ancient Aztecs believed that the West was the sanctuary of the great goddess of water, mist, and maize. In Ancient Egypt, the West was considered to be the portal to the netherworld, and is the cardinal direction regarded in connection with death, though not always with a negative meaning. Ancient Egyptians believed that the Goddess Amunet was a personification of the West. The Celts believed that beyond the western sea ,off the edges of all maps, lay the Otherworld, also known as Afterlife. In “The Great Gatsby”, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, moving West has sometimes symbolized gaining freedom, as with the settling of the Old West.

   Some may not find this interesting. Others will say that this is a useless heritage of a lost and even forbidden symbolism. But this is not about religion (really!!!) – it’s about a phrase that I think gives a simple, yet true representation of life. Isn’t a child’s first breath like the sunrise in the East and isn’t a person’s death as painful as the sunset in the West? At the end of that day, all that matters is how you’ve lived, what you’ve learned, who you’ve become and most importantly – what will you leave behind when your star sets in the horizon of your own journey to the West…