Sovereignty | Felix Salten
The beauty of children's stories is the way literature can, in a relatively simple way, sum up an important lesson. Often people venture into adulthood and have not fully understood or developed a relationship with the natural world. In Bambi, it hardly seems consequential that they narration comes from the voices of animals. I was completely immersed then I the stumbled across a the moral message that pieced everything together. Subtle yet powerful.
Carkeek Park, Seattle, Washington. 2025
“Everything that lives and grows doesn’t come from Him. He isn’t above us. He’s just the same as we are. He has the same fears, the same needs, and suffers in the same way.”
When in fear for his life, Bambi is directed by the Old Prince (his father) toward the body of a slain man. The power of Man is reduced in the Young Prince and he realizes that He who torments him bleeds and dies just like any other living being. His reign is an illusion. Even further, He (Man) is not the Creator of the world. Man cannot control creation no more than he can avoid death.
Carkeek Park, Seattle, Washington. 2025
“There is Another who is over all, over us and over Him.”
The peak of the story is when the Old Prince explains to Bambi that over Him is Another. The subtle hint at the power spiritual force behind the creation of all things. The message of sovereignty is clear without preachiness or over zealous fervor. One line in a children’s book puts everything in alignment and humbles Man who has overstepped his supremacy.
Carkeek Park, Seattle, Washington. 2025
“If you wanted to preserve yourself, if you understood existence, if you wanted to attain wisdom, you had to live alone.”
Time alone offers a well of restoration and wisdom. Space to collect thoughts, wrestle with struggles and determine goals. To live on ones own forces a person to come to terms with themselves. Without solitude we sink deeper into Huxley’s Brave New World where constant stimulation and conformity leave us empty, lost and afraid.