The Owl Cave Ring - thematic significance

[Jasper]

I think Lynch reimagines MIKE in the film, just as he reimagines Leland and some aspects of the BOB/Leland relationship. I don't think MIKE and the LMFAP were the same entity in the show, or that the LMFAP was the arm, but that seems to be the case in the film. MIKE may well have been a reformed evil spirit on the show, but I don't think Lynch sticks with that in the film. I think MIKE's behavior on the show, in light of the film, can be explained as manipulation, whether or not that was the original intent.

I see film MIKE as lawful evil, and from MIKE's perspective he is probably beyond good or evil, and is a powerful entity who is simply living off of lowly and inconsequential beings. After all, most human carnivores probably don't consider themselves evil, or even give much thought to their food source (though most do not actively hope for the suffering of this food source, and of course it's psychic food, not flesh, that is the food of the lodge entities). I think MIKE is a force of order and stability, but that order and stability is of no/little benefit to humans. In the final analysis, MIKE's actions in the film are to stop BOB (chaotic evil) from gaining even more power (by inhabiting Laura and also stealing more Garmonbozia for himself, when it is really meant for all of the lodge under their above-the-convenience-store contract). BOB is intended to be a sort of underling to MIKE, but has gone renegade, and the more corn he steals, the more powerful and out-of-control he becomes, which threatens MIKE's power, the Garmonbozia supply intended for all lodge entities, and order in general. Any actions by film MIKE/LMFAP appear to be to the benefit of MIKE and the rest of the non-renegade lodge entities. I see the (relative) benefit to Laura of her taking of the ring as being borne of her own bravery and sacrifice.

I see the ring as definitively evil, though in the larger cosmic sense it may be no more evil than a fisherman's baited hook.

[LostInTheMovies]

I see the (relative) benefit to Laura of her taking of the ring as being borne of her own bravery and sacrifice.

Fair enough, but I hope she ends up being more than a fish! Although that does does give the opening line of Twin Peaks a new spin...

[LostInTheMovies]

So...if you're correct about a link between the ring and the appearance of the angels, are we to assume the ring will bring that nurse who stole the Ring from Annie her angel as well?

There's also some deduction involved about where Lynch is going with all this based on his own stated belief in "the unified field" and devotion to a Hindu tradition emphasizing "the all" (Brahman) behind the facade of division and chaos (Maya). The Log Lady's intros also suggest several times an underlying unity and order which is stronger than evil (I'll try to dig up the exact ones) and Laura in Between Two Worlds talks about seeing "what it really was" and that it was beautiful. Will all this in mind, moving with the logic of the film - in which Mike leads Laura out of her delusions, away from Bob, into the larger possibilities of the spirit world, and finally into the Red Room with her angel I have to conclude that Mike represents a larger cosmic order and higher truth than Bob (or at least the potential for such; perhaps when the arm is separated his power is reduced).

Hmm...well when you put it like that, I have to admit it's a compelling interpretation. I certainly love Lynch's style and most of his body of work, but I also am definitely a fan of other genre fiction, so I think perhaps I project some of that into my attempts to make "sense" of Twin Peaks mythological lore, perhaps where such conventions are not really meant to apply.

Mike actually being a genuinely positive force, despite appearing quite aloof and suspicious in the film, would at least take away some of the frustration in reconciling his portrayal in the series to that of the film and not call total bullshit on his claims during his first appearance in Cooper's dream or his seemingly heartfelt speech to him in Episode 16.

Here's another idea - just to go even more nuts with it! What if the Mike of the series is only a "partial" Mike who thinks he's the whole Mike. By severing his arm to rid himself of evil, he may actually have incapacitated rather than purified himself (this would go along with Lynch's idea that division is bad). This would explain why "the Arm" in the film isn't evil, and why Mike on the show can't seem to get an actual bead on Bob. Although it begs the question of why he's still separated from the arm on the series, which ostensibly takes place after the movie? We could fall back on the Red Room's time/space-defying logic to explain it, although there are also all kinds of crazy alternate realities/time travel theories out there which may not seem as crazy when the new series airs. Those "selphie" videos operate on the assumption that FWWM is a parallel universe in which Bob, thanks to the events of the series finale, gets another chance to possess Laura but ultimately fails - can't say I quite buy it, though.

I think the Lodge creatures can still be spirits in a more conventional genre sense while still operating on a cosmic/spiritual plane as well: Mike being good would, if anything, make the supernatural struggle more clear-cut (as it initially seemed to be on the series before Lynch presented it more ambiguously). In fact I think we'll see something like this in 2016, since Frost is more fond of genre conventions than Lynch (not to say that Frost isn't interested in spiritual concepts as well, since he clearly is).

[LostInTheMovies]

So...if you're correct about a link between the ring and the appearance of the angels, are we to assume the ring will bring that nurse who stole the Ring from Annie her angel as well?

Whoops...missed this part. The nurse thing is interesting. Obviously on one level, it was already something that Lynch disposed of in 1992 when he changed Fire Walk With Me to emphasize the ring's role in Laura's victory over Bob. Even aside from the question of whether he incorporated the ring in post-production (as John Thorne suggests), the train car sequence was apparently shot way later than the hospital footage according to the production diary dugpa has posted elsewhere. So as was originally intended, it may come from a different interpretation of the ring than Lynch eventually embraced.

BUT by presenting the Missing Pieces as canonical, obviously he believes it can be reconciled with FWWM so that re-opens the question.

My take is that the nurse gets the ring for the same reason (or at least one of several reasons) Laura received it in her dream: she's heard her statement about the good Dale being the Lodge, which probably comes from Mike (obviously on a mundane level this is paralleled/"explained" by her desire to steal the pretty object). You raise an interesting point, which is that the scene implies Annie loses the ring when the nurse takes it, something that isn't a problem in the train car or Laura's dream sequences given their more supernatural aura. This could be because if/when Annie awakens she won't remember Mike's message.

As for the angels, just to clarify, I think the angel allows Laura to receive the ring but I don't think it's necessarily linked to the ring in all cases. Just in that case, the angel's appearance is what allows the door to be opened and the ring to roll in. My point is that the fact that they angels enable Laura to receive the ring suggests it's a good thing, and that Mike - who bestows it - is at the very least on her side. (Although this can be inferred anyway by the fact that Bob doesn't get her, and that she ends up in the Red Room with her angel).

Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about the ring and have been discovering some interesting connections. One of the most compelling is the link between Cooper's ring in the series and the Owl Cave Ring in FWWM.

On the show, Cooper's ring is used to indicate his knowledge (or lack thereof) of what happened to Laura, and arguably the same could be said of the Owl Cave Ring in FWWM, in regard to both Teresa's and Laura's knowledge of Leland. Teresa wears it when she suspects Leland is Laura's father (notice how she plays with it on her finger when calling him up in the Missing Pieces, as if to call attention to the fact that she's wearing it when Lynch goes out of his way to hide her left hand in earlier flashbacks). Mike waves it at Laura and Leland while shouting, "It's your father!" and its recollection leads Laura to growl, "Who are you?" and for Leland to flash back to the murder himself.

My Life, My Tapes also informs us that Cooper's mother gave him the ring we see on the series - and that she did so in a dream, after she had died! He initially didn't want it, but once it appeared to him again he took it. Most interestingly, Cooper finds out that his mother received the ring from her own father and gave it up when she was married. It's a stretch, but that does suggest that perhaps Coop's mom was a victim of incest as well (we know that she was attacked, most likely by Bob, in her dreams and that this led to her death; Bob usually has a human correspondent). In that sense, his sensitivity to - but failure to understand - his own mother's trauma paves the way for later experiences with Caroline, Laura, maybe Annie too (we never do find out about her dark past).

Probably a coincidence, as I doubt Lynch had anything to do with Coop's backstory and probably never even read the book but still pretty fascinating.

At the very least, I think the Owl Cave Ring (or, borrowing an observation from Fernanda higher up in this thread, the Garmonbozia Cob Ring!) is significant on many different levels.

[LostInTheMovies]

Something I didn't get to mention in my videos but noticed when I was looking for clips. Lynch almost never shows Cooper's left hand in the film (particularly avoiding showing the pinky finger, where he would be wearing the ring). The only time that he doesn't seem to be hiding it is when Cooper stands in front of the surveillance camera in a full-body shot and later when he opens the curtain to the Red Room for the first time (in fact, the pinky finger is highlighted there, in the way he parts them, even though it could easily have been masked).

This could just be coincidence of course, but I wonder if it's more, given that Cooper's left hand (and the ring) are featured frequently in the series, plus Teresa's left hand is usually hidden from view in a way that almost certainly ISN'T coincidental.

[harmolodic]

Something I didn't get to mention in my videos but noticed when I was looking for clips. Lynch almost never shows Cooper's left hand in the film (particularly avoiding showing the pinky finger, where he would be wearing the ring). The only time that he doesn't seem to be hiding it is when Cooper stands in front of the surveillance camera in a full-body shot and later when he opens the curtain to the Red Room for the first time (in fact, the pinky finger is highlighted there, in the way he parts them, even though it could easily have been masked).

This could just be coincidence of course, but I wonder if it's more, given that Cooper's left hand (and the ring) are featured frequently in the series, plus Teresa's left hand is usually hidden from view in a way that almost certainly ISN'T coincidental.

Fascinating!

Not sure what that's about but it is part of Lynch's symbology--hands and arms, often doing things the rest of the body isn't aware of. Arms going numb, Bob's arm late in Twin Peaks appearing out of the shadows, arms shaking, Frank in BV doing that weird hand thing like he's trying to exorcise a demon from it, Leland doing something VERY similar in front of the record player in TP...

It could well be that Lynch decided (on some subconscious level?) that the ring was part of this whole trope, and developed it further.

[OK,Bob]

The ring/cave symbols strongly evoke those of "Jumis, the Baltic Pagan God who personified the harvest. The symbol of Jumis is two stylized, crossed grain stalks, a glyph which may be related to the sanskrit word for ‘twin.’ The two tied stalks are reminiscent of offerings left after the gathering in of the grain; they represent the two faces of the God, who is also related to the Roman Janus."

"If Jupiter and Saturn meet, Oh what a crop of mummy wheat!" -W.B. Yeats

[OK,Bob]

The image on the ring, which I believe LostAtTheMovies had pointed out, also resembles an ear of corn

[LostInTheMovies]

The image on the ring, which I believe LostAtTheMovies had pointed out, also resembles an ear of corn

Yeah, full credit to Fernanda for that observation. What's interesting is that they elongated the symbol and added a tail, which is precisely what makes it look like corn in FWWM (and corn is a symbol that only comes back after 22 hours, and only really comes to prominence in the first place, in FWWM). Not to sound like a broken record, but I wonder to what extent it's coincidental and to what extent it isn't.

[Jasper]

"If Jupiter and Saturn meet, Oh what a crop of mummy wheat!" -W.B. Yeats

Great quote. Can you shed any more light upon it?

This image you posted looks pretty much exactly like an odal rune with serifs:


Interestingly, the earliest odal rune or proto-odal-rune is from the Old European (pre-Aryan-expansion) Vinca culture. I don't know how back you're reaching, but this relates to the culture of Europe going back an incredible amount of time.

"The Vinca culture occupied a region of Southeastern Europe (i.e. the Balkans) corresponding mainly to modern-day Serbia and Kosovo, but also parts of Romania, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Greece."

The symbols below are from the 7500-year-old(!) Tartaria tablets found in Romania. These constitute "the oldest excavated example of 'proto-writing' in the world". You'll notice an odal or proto-odal on the bottom row, seventh from the left. You'll also notice the crossed stalk symbol you've mentioned appearing in the fifth row down (next to what later became known as the svastika in Sanskrit). There are some other symbols which became well-known Germanic runes, like the Agiz rune in the top row:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin%C4%8Da_symbols

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C4%83rt ... ia_tablets

So, I guess one question is whether the Old Europeans came up with these things, or if they were adopted from pre-expansion Aryan (AKA proto-Indo-European) civilization through trade or something like that. In any case, we know that at least some of this stuff was later carried into Northern India by the Indo-Iranian subgroup of the Indo-European language family, which of course relates to the Vedas, which in turn relates to Twin Peaks.

I don't know if you saw the odal-and-owl-cave image I made and posted much earlier in the thread, so I'll paste it here for convenience. Notice one version even features two stalks of grain:


It's funny that the winged odal — which looks so much like the Owl Cave symbol — is like a cross between a regular (non-serif) odal and the Jumis glyph, as if the symbol for "ownership, inheritance, property, possession" has been combined with one representing stalks of a plant. Almost certainly a coincidence, but delightful nonetheless.

[OK,Bob]

Stream-of-conscious reactions to those Log Lady quotes...

"What is a reflection? A chance to see two? When there are chances for reflections, there can always be two - or more. Only when we are everywhere will there be just one."

"The chrome reflects our image." - LMFAP

According to the script, the chrome here is the [electrically conductive] trim encircling the Formica table, which represents, according to the Woodsman, "Our world." Rather than see the woodsman as non-human spirits, I've always assumed they were human spirits (including, perhaps, Mr. Lanternman.) The Formica, as an insulator of "electricity", might partially represent the veil of the senses (or veil of perception), keeping the "other side" inaccessible. The hole in the tabletop, which I'd long dismissed as purely aesthetic, may indeed represent a portal - would in-fact permit electricity - into "our world".

If our world is represented by green; the "other side" appears to be represented by blue...

"A man comes out of the blue like that... what's the world coming to?"
"Questions in a world of blue"
Aside from his brief introduction in the pilot (in the elevator, "going up and down") Gerrard/Mike's first significant appearance in the series has him (dressed in red) disappearing into a shockingly blue-lit morgue...
Project Blue Book, Cole's Blue Rose cases....

"There are clues everywhere - all around us. But the puzzle maker is clever. The clues, although surrounding us, are somehow mistaken for something else. And the something else - the wrong interpretation of the clues - we call our world. Our world is a magical smoke screen."

Lynch is using the "our world" phrase again. "Fire is the devil, hiding like a coward in the smoke." The "smoke screen" here is again akin to the veil of the senses, which insulates us, perhaps, from the "final answer."

Have we seen the "puzzle-maker" personified?

"But there is still the question: why? And this question will go on and on until the final answer comes. Then the knowing is so full, there is no room for questions."

Additional questions to contemplate...

Do the "two worlds" exist on equal footing? Are there "shadow-selves" of the lodge spirits, or non-human beings, as well? The LMFAP doppelganger may suggests as much, if we assume (and I'm not necessarily suggesting) that the white-eyed doppelgangers are shadow-selves of the entities they resemble.

Questions in a world of blue, indeed...

[OK,Bob]

I've also pondered this symbol. You can draw a [golden] circle around the center diamond and isolate something very much like the symbol on the ring. I've considered the three diamonds might represent three aspects of the lodge, from top-to-bottom: the White, the "waiting room", and the Black. The wings might represent Twin Peaks (our world?) on one hand and a refection of our world on the other...

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[OK,Bob]

Recommended reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelemic_mysticism

[Jasper]

I've also pondered this symbol. You can draw a [golden] circle around the center diamond and isolate something very much like the symbol on the ring. I've considered the three diamonds might represent three aspects of the lodge, from top-to-bottom: the White, the "waiting room", and the Black. The wings might represent Twin Peaks (our world?) on one hand and a refection of our world on the other...

The complete Owl Cave symbol is absolutely there if you subtract the proper parts. I think that's a fact, because isn't that how they get to that symbol in the first place? I think the two peaks on each side are the...twin peaks. I'm pretty convinced that the three diamonds represent three worlds or states. The "as above" being one (the home world/dimension of the lodge inhabitants), "so below" being another (our world/dimension), and perhaps "between two worlds" being a third (the lodge). Then there's this, which is how the author of Subliminal-Synchro-Sphere sees it:


Incidentally, it's surely coincidental, but you can see three identical stacked diamonds (and variations) in the Easter Island Rongorongo script:


You may also notice some stuff that comes somewhat close to the Owl Cave symbol, but it does not seem like an especially compelling source. It's interesting to note that, though separated by great distance and time, there are some uncanny similarities between certain Easter Island characters and Indus Vally Civilization (proto-proto-Dravidian?) symbols, again, likely just a weird coincidence:


If you look at this Indus Valley symbols, you can again detect some similarities (again, almost certainly coincidental) with the Owl Cave symbol (top row, 5th and 8th from the right):

What you also may have noticed in the above image is that the symbol all the way to the left on the 4th row down is the exact symbol we see on Major Briggs, the Log Lady, and flying from space.

[OK,Bob]

I think the two peaks on each side are the...twin peaks.

Well, there's more that one peak on each side, an a bit less than two full peaks on each side. I feel it - along with so much else - remains open to interpretation barring any clarity that may come in "The Secret Lives..." or the 2016 season. I doubt we'll get as much clarification as we might hope for regarding many of these finer details...