Introduction

Gatekeeper: In the name of God, this program is the fourth program of the third chapter. I am glad to be at your service and we will spend another program together. The film we have selected is an anime titled "Howl's Moving Castle," and we have made it a pretext to attend the lesson of a teacher. I hope you will follow the introductory points you will hear at the beginning of the class with more precision to be able to benefit appropriately. Now I leave the opportunity in the hands of our master.

The Teacher's Discourse

Greetings to all of you, I am at your service to present my opinion about this anime; but before that, I will say an introduction. In the previous articles, you became acquainted with the "Time-Space Window"; if you wish, you can refer to those basic definitions. There you saw that every human has a specific "Time-Space Window"; that definition showed that every individual in their life follows a chain of events and based on the same window, has an analysis of the events they are confronted with. We said that the wider this window, the better it recognizes the number of events and chains placed beside each other, and it also has a more suitable elevation/altitude to yield more precise analyses.

An important element you should ponder is the element of "Travel" (Safar). I know that your basic definition of travel is that we relocate from one place to another; it is elementary, and perhaps it seems to you that nothing special happens; we make a trip, go to another place, have a little recreation, and return to the first place. No, I do not mean such an understanding. If you study, you will realize that travel from a conceptual perspective defines displacement in space and time; there is also a term in literature called "Chronotope", meaning the way of understanding time and space in language, in literature, and in various types of arts; in painting, in poetry, in sculpture, and the like. I used this term so that you can do a basic research yourselves and pay attention to this program from this perspective.

A travel must be performed, and this travel is worthy of this name when that change and that displacement, that "shift" in the anatomy of space and time, occurs. Naturally, this change that is our objective first appears in the mind, but eventually shows itself in language, in behavior, and in deed. Accept this as an introduction and see in the examples I raise how you can follow this very description. Why did Jules Verne write a book named "Journey to the Center of the Earth"? Why was he in pursuit of "Around the World in Eighty Days"? Why does Cervantes send Don Quixote on a travel? Why does Virginia Woolf want to go "To the Lighthouse"? Why does Jonathan Swift write "Gulliver's Travels"? Why does Joseph Conrad displace in "Heart of Darkness"?

Let us also come to Persian examples: the travelogue of Nasir Khusraw, the story of the birds' travel in "The Conference of the Birds" by Attar, or this famous book "Seven Beauties" (*Haft Peykar* in Persian) by Nezami, and other examples that you yourselves can enumerate. Why is the element of travel always raised? Why must Sophie go on a travel in this anime too? Why does she not continue her usual life beside her friends and acquaintances? Its meaning is that whoever possesses a mind must go on a travel; and this travel has two manifestations: one real and the other virtual, or one objective and the other metaphorical. These two occur together. In this path she traverses, in pursuit of what element is Sophie? What is it that enters her into this travel? Love and loving; meaning getting out of oneself and entering the mental space of another person, or another entity. Sophie goes on this travel, but she must pay a toll; what is her toll? She becomes old; she is no longer a beautiful and lively girl, she is an old woman. But a point remains in her existence and does not disappear; whether in the period when she was a little girl, whether later when she was young, and whether after she becomes an old woman, what is it that is not transformed in her?

Kindness, loving everything; she shows affection even to the witch who charms her, she shows affection to the spy who accompanies her. Sophie loves everyone. If we want to go on a travel, we must love travel itself. I said it can be looked at in two ways: you can travel in an objective form, go from one geography to another geography; but why is it sometimes of low quality? Does the physical condition not change? Why do you not benefit from it? It is true, but thought and mind—or what I call "your time"—if you do not want to change your mental chains, with the same characteristics and the same rhythm, you only displace from one geography to another geography; while the core of travel is that a mental and intellectual change occurs in you; otherwise, you go to the seaside tens of times, go to the mountains tens of times, see various flowers, meadows, and various lakes, but why does nothing remain for you when you return? Because that mental and intellectual displacement, that growth, that elevation/altitude that must occur, did not occur; you go on a travel, but when you return, your hands are empty.

Look at Saadi who created those great books from the heart of the diverse experiences he had in travel; but did others not travel? All those merchants and travelers also traveled, but it was Saadi who, because he based his travel on learning, changing attitudes, and becoming fresh, was able to benefit correctly from it. Or let me point out that your travel is not necessarily physical either; Hafez never made a long travel in his life, but in his works, he creates such a display of travel as if he traversed very diverse travels.

Ponder it a bit. Now let us also look at some scenes of this anime; which ones are interesting to me? One of the scenes is where Sophie, although in the shape of an old woman, when she wants to express that affection, meaning experience that love, suddenly becomes young again; this is very interesting to me. Or another scene that shows a past of Howl, what situation he was in and what happened that he turned into what he is now; in fact, Howl and his companions are traversing a joint travel, along with Sophie and a little boy who is there. It is interesting that receiving meanings and being subject to change and elevation is shown in a beautiful space; that starry night, how beautiful it is that he reached a reception and reached conditions where he can live in this way.

Or that scene where Howl with all those powers and characteristics, due to confronting obstacles and problems that occurred for him, tired and sad, returns once again to the castle; there too it is interesting to me that it is Sophie who comes to his rescue. Another point to which attention can be paid is the existence of a door in this castle; a door that can be opened to various times and places. Is this castle of Howl not the very mind of humans? The same that can be present in various conditions of time and place, or have such a diverse reception?

Ponder: do we not all have such a fire inside our mind? What was its name? Calcifer; it is interesting, it is the very thing that sets our mental castle into motion. Another interesting point is the role of light in this anime; in those conditions that are so hopeless, this very ray of light, from the gemstone of a ring that is a memory of love, comes to the rescue of this collection. But where do they take Sophie? To a cave; to a seemingly dark environment in which that big event occurs. This too can be an interesting point: why in various narratives do we always see a cave? What is this mysterious cave?

For example, in Nezami's "Seven Beauties" (*Haft Peykar*), the last stage where Bahram Gur appears is a cave; Bahram who traversed seven stories and seven travels along with princesses, but after seven stages, eventually finds himself before a cave; the cave of gnosis/cognition. A beautiful name, the cave of gnosis. You see travels in all these examples must make us subject to the displacement of place and time. What is the end of Sophie's story? She makes love a pretext and gives it to all those around her, gathers everyone together, recreates, and breaks the charm. We are all born of love; how much I like to go on a travel along along with you.