INDIGO—the Movie: An Extraordinary Experience

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The weekend of January 29 and 30, 2005 turned out to become a major event for many people around the globe because of the premier showing of the movie INDIGO. Let me begin with a brief synopsis of the movie. The story revolves about Grace and her grandfather Ray, a man whose family life fell apart due to several fateful decisions he made. While on the run to protect the ten-year-old girl, Ray encounters the many gifts this Indigo child has to offer, which affect the lives of the many people they encounter, most significantly those of the members of her own family.

“ Take a vital role, an active part in bringing your extraordinary experiences forward…You are it. You are the message and the messenger.” These words by Neale Donald Walsch, co-writer and convincing actor in the role of Ray in INDIGO-the Movie, are indeed crucial to understanding the wider implications of what this film might represent.

I am writing this article from Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, where the movie attracted a crowd of about 550 people at two venues. Each venue offered the viewers a post-movie panel discussion, hosted by educators, social workers and energy workers, all of whom were experienced in the field of spiritual healing or working with Indigo and Crystal children. I was very fortunate to co-host with Dr. Karin Cremasco (a gifted energy practitioner and teacher) a post-movie session where the audiences felt that the opportunity to exchange comments, questions, answers, and concerns in the hour following the film greatly enhanced their viewing experience and understanding of Indigo children. Perhaps many attendees realized that this movie is truly about each one of us. As the director Stephen Simon reiterated, “We’re the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

Standing on its own, the movie presents a few challenges. If it is intended to inform the average citizen about who Indigo children are, then the story line does not offer insights into the broad spectrum of who these children actually are. Grace, the principal character and an Indigo child, is such an extremely gifted child that few people are able to relate to her gifts as relevant to most other children. Even in addressing those who are already genuinely interested in the topic, the movie was lacking information that would be helpful to parents or educators in a practical sense. Some parents even felt that their children might be perceived as second- or third-rate children because they do not compare to Grace. With regards to appealing to Indigos themselves, the apparent mission of the film would have been better served if more attention had been given to the spectrum of sensitivities these children display. One frequent comment from young attendees at the viewings was that “the movie was too violent”, most often in the form of a threat of violence rather then visible violence. Jan Yordy (Energy Connection Therapies) points out: “With enhanced awareness, their (the Indigo children’s) highly tuned system picks up the negative emotional and environmental energy from their surroundings like a sponge. This causes Indigos or Crystals to become ungrounded, scrambled and often energetically reversed leading them to make poor choices and to self-sabotage.”

Perhaps a further word of caution is needed, Grace, the Indigo child, plays the role of the rescuer of the adults around her. Parenting the parents should never be the recommended role of children, no matter who they are. She is also the only character in the movie that remains unchanged and demonstrates no feelings. Several viewers remarked, “she was unreal in the sense that we could not empathize with her at all.” Her detachment removed her from the playful world of children that was only accessible to the audience through the remarkable pictures shown to us in the opening scene of the movie and later, very briefly, in the orphanage.

Most importantly, though, the production team, headed by James Twyman, Stephen Simon and Neale Donald Walsch, really did accomplish a number of feats. First, INDIGO ignited enormous excitement around the world on the topic of intuitively gifted children. Very often these days, we are inundated with negative press about youth. Rarely do we take time to celebrate children, and even less their spirit. INDIGO invites all of us to realize that all of us are children and all children possess gifts, even though those may be very subtle, as James Twyman highlights in the preamble to the movie. Indeed, we are all special. The movie certainly transmitted this message very clearly, and hope remains that it never is too late to make changes.

Second, INDIGO highlights the spiritual aspects of these children, their strong intuitive skills, and their reliance on inner knowing and wisdom. Grace feels she has a lot to say and communicates telepathically with her friends, which works, according to her, because “we’re all connected with each other.” This message resonated with many audience members who voiced their concerns about compartmentalization and separation. We also tend to place responsibilities on others rather than search for our own imaginative way to deal with challenges that arise and to accept them as an invitation to growth so we can relate better to each other.

The title of the movie, and of course labelling certain groups of children as Indigos, presents a paradox in itself: “I don’t like being put in boxes,” states Nicholas, the second Indigo child portrayed in the movie. As one grandfather remarked to me after the movie, “I’m convinced now that I am ‘dimensionally challenged’ to some degree (Grace’s description of Ray) even though I thought of myself as rather open-minded. But now I think that I’ll keep in mind that most likely it’s me who tends to put others and myself in a box rather than stay open to what surrounds me. Maybe I’ll be able to listen differently to my grandson now when he doesn’t seem to pay attention to me and notice what he’s actually talking about.” What a wonderful realization that may open many doors for both grandchild and grandfather, and most likely all others involved in their lives.

The third major message the movie was able to transmit to its audience is to LISTEN and BELIEVE. This movie “invited us to listen to our children and to ourselves and to believe that there is motivation for our children’s behaviour that is absolutely real to them even if, and perhaps, particularly when, this motivation remains invisible and incomprehensible to us”—in the words of a couple in the audience, both of whom are educators and parents of teenagers.

Another parent was struck by Grace’s quotation of Einstein: “What makes you think imagination isn’t real? After all, something has to be imagined before it can be created!” We are invited to ponder the question how much room contemporary society at large reserves for imagination and thus nurtures the soul. Educational institutions, from junior kindergarten, to high school and university, have become more of a training ground that emphasizes factual knowledge and career training rather than education that nurtures the whole person. Little room is given to quiet contemplation and the inner voice. Grace asks us to believe, to give ourselves permission to accept the invisible, that which is different, inconceivable and impalpable. Then “parenting becomes an intentional spiritual discipline when we practice the art of understanding,” as Tobin Hart argues in The Secret Spiritual World of Children (2003). It then facilitates the differentiation between wants and needs of each individual, including the adults’—often unconscious—projection of their needs onto their children and other people in their environment. Ray reaches this conclusion after his precognitive vision towards the end of the film, when he apologizes to his son, admitting his errors and wrong choices, realizing he had not allowed his son to accept responsibility for himself: “Sometimes the things you want are not the things you need.” How many of us remain caught up in wants and do not listen to the inner voices of the heart that sing the songs of our needs?

The fourth important message of this movie resounds in the word “mystery”. Grace emphasizes that mystery is sometimes better than exact knowing. Children display a natural curiosity that often is squelched because the rational adults run out of patience trying to explain and perhaps feel put on the spot for not knowing the answers. INDIGO challenges us to “try to love the questions themselves” (Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet). It would be fascinating to show this film to a group of children and adolescents and partake in their discussions afterwards.

I am convinced that all those of you who had a chance to see the movie feel enriched even if it is in the form of more questions and mysteries. Perhaps that will bring us closer to the wondrous world of our children. To all those of you who have not yet had a chance to watch INDIGO, count on a heart-warming experience!

Indigo Movie review by Martina Steiger, ThD, IJHC Assistant Editor

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