Sociosomnia: Guardians of the Galaxy 3 🦝

Here’s my interpretation of Guardians of the Galaxy 3 as a collective dream: 

The villain; “The High Evolutionary” represents the Teal shadow of seeking evolutionary perfection. I don’t think he’s Teal; I think his symbol in the dream represents our attempts to transcend and exclude; to control; to be the singular one in charge. The High Evolutionary wanting to create a perfect species with no aggression reflects the energy in ourselves that wants to heal all of our wounds and show up shadow free. And we want to do it ourselves. It’s the bit in us that can’t see God in the suffering and pain and therefore is willing to do anything to “evolve” the lower rungs of our evolutionary heritage (represented by the raccoons, otters, etc), even killing “failed experiments”. The High Evolutionary also values novel mental intelligence above all else, which makes for an easy parallel to fears about runaway AI superintelligence willing to destroy what we hold dear to get it's singular goal.

By contrast, I see the story’s focus on Rocket Raccoon representing an invitation to embrace our embodied, animal selves—the bits of us that are earlier on the evolutionary ladder. The Guardians of Galaxy show us the power of joining together, trusting our love for these lower levels of development. Instead of always trying to be “more developed”, we can trust that love will lead to a better universe, without knowing how in advance. Like Lylla says, “There are the hands that make us. And there are the hands that guide the hands…”. You can see this in how the Guardians don’t go out looking to thwart the villain’s awful operation, they just want to save their friend. Yet in surrendering to that love, they end up helping a ton of people, most significantly the children—which represent our innocence. They also don’t try to control everything, and rely on each other even through frustrations and hilarious incompetence. 

As usual there’s far more to explore here, especially the symbols of the various Guardians journeys, Adam Warlock (whose power comes with a lack of empathy and morality and can be extremely destructive, much like our modern economy, but can learn to be compassionate), the relationship between Peter and Gamora (we can’t be naive or reliant on our previous work when it comes to our integrating our inner assassin), and befriending the Abilisks (intimacy with our most monstrous fears). But the last bit I want to discuss is the very end…

**Spoiler Alert**

…when a few of the Guardians move on to more personal journeys. I think this speaks to the value of natural evolution (healthy Teal), in contrast to the High Evolutionary’s forced evolution. Marvel movies are bringing to the forefront a beautiful theme about healthfully letting go of the existential need for importance—eg “save the universe” or “save the world” when it’s actually about our own need to be valuable (more Teal shadow). What makes it healthy is that (1) they pass on the mantle (eg the new Guardians roster), and (2) they embrace bits of their personal lives that have been long neglected (eg Peter’s grandpa). (Another example: Captain America at the end of Endgame passing on the shield and pursuing love).

WIth love, Jordan