BEACH CAMP

Just above everybody loves the beach. Approximately 70 percent of the world's population lives on or next to a body of water like an ocean. There is something hypnotic about sitting on the sand and watching the waves slowly roll in from the horizon.

In LOST, the beach camp was the center of the survivor's island life. However, we rarely saw it. It was merely snippets of time, events, gatherings or cutaways from larger, grander stories of jungle missions or other locales. So most people have vague memories of the camp. But in some stills, it shows that like in life, it was a messy place.

The first beach camp was abandoned (that is where the airplane wreckage washed ashore). Death and the boars made the campers flee to a new beach location. But for no rational explanation the aircraft debris vanished or washed out to sea.

So the castaways were left with what they could carry on their backs or forage from the jungle palm tree line. The ragamuffin look of the camp site tended to bring a sense of reality to the show. It was not a sporting goods show sales booth.

But since the beach camp was the center of the castaways lives, why did it not factor as the main set for the series?

Part may have been production values. The lighting of a show can be affected by the glare off the water. Also the wind, surf and sand can wreck havoc with electronic equipment.

Part may have been to focus away from large scenes with extras to more personal, up close relationship shots of the main characters.

If LOST would be adapted into a stage play, the beach camp would be the main set. It is the only logical place where every characters; stories would intersect.

COMPASS POINTS

A compass is a tool to guide someone to a destination.

A candidate is a person who wants to be a leader to guide others.

A guardian is a person who is a leader who protects others.

A light is symbolic of knowledge, direction, energy and life.

A person who has both the compass and the light is truly powerful.

When we review which LOST characters had the most traits of a compass and a light (which apparently were the embodiment of the heart of the island), the top four people are Locke, Jack, Sawyer and Kate.

Locke had the compass. He knew how to use it. He was aware of the island's special powers. He wanted it to guide him to his destination (destiny). Just as magnetic north is a constant direction, the island pushed Locke towards his fateful demise.

Kate was a natural runaway, a wanderer with a keen sense of direction and tracking skills. She was a survivor throughout her troubled life. She used her internal compass not to find a destination but to flee from one. Just as our forefathers took chances and headed west into the wild unknown, Kate embraced that wild west spirit.

Sawyer also had a focal bearing in his life: to find the person who killed his family. His life's direction was formed by his own promise for revenge. He honed his own tracking skills with the southern charm of a con artist to find the man who ruined his life.

Jack was following a trail for most of his life. The trail that his father had made through the jungles of childhood. Jack was always trying to find a way to get ahead of his father's accomplishments so his father would respect his achievements. He would symbolically look to the East, where the dawn would rise on each new day, to find some hope that the light would empower him to reach his goal.

Locke's direction was north, toward the magnetism of the island's mysterious power to give his life meaning.
Kate's direction was west, to the open opportunities and freedom to run away her past.
Sawyer's direction was south, toward the slow, simmering pace of the long, cruel road of honor and revenge to release his personal demon.
Jack's direction was east, toward the dawn of a new day where he could release himself from the shadow of his own father.

Each character had their own direction. They were set to their own paths. As a result, they did not work well together because their compass points would never align. And perhaps, that was the governor that protected the light cave - - - the candidates needed each other in order to obtain both the full compass points and the light. For in the end, none of these four candidates took the place of Jacob, the island guardian, to put their own rules upon the universe.

SS6: Number 4: Adam and Eve

In 2004, Jack, Kate and Locke were chased into the caves by a swarm of bees. Inside, they found the remains of two bodies. Locke called them Adam and Eve. Jack, being a doctor, stated the bodies must have been dead 40-50 years based upon the deterioration of their clothing. Jack found black and white stones, but failed to tell Locke of his discovery.

In 2007, when Jack and Hurley went to the caves, Hurley thought that the skeletons might belong to two of the Flight 815 survivors as a result of time travel.

In the Jacob-MIB centric episode, "Across the Sea," we learn the identities of Adam and Eve: Jacob's brother and their crazy, adoptive mother. Jacob placed them in the cave after his brother killed Mother in a rage, and after Jacob threw his brother's body into the light cave, killing his mortal soul. From that point forward, Jacob used black and white stones to represent him and MIB.

For some, the revelation of the names of Adam and Eve was a non-event. It also showed that Jack's assessment of decomposition was off by thousands of years.

The cave of Adam and Eve was one of four burial rituals shown during LOST. The concept of laying out bodies in caves as a funeral rite goes back thousands of years in the Middle East. But it begs the question, how did Jacob know of that custom if he was born on the Island and separated from the Others?

The other known grave was the pit where Ben had the Others toss the purged Dharma members.
This mass grave is representative of warfare.

For the Others, we saw Colleen's ritual to be a Viking-style funeral pyre. It was apparently done to avoid that person's body being taken by MIB. The crash survivors used cremation of the deceased passengers from the plane in a beach funeral pyre.

Afterward, the 815ers buried their dead in a graveyard. The Tailies also did the same during their separation from the 815ers.

Who were Adam and Eve? Jacob's brother and his adoptive crazy Mother.
Why were they buried in the cave? Jacob did it out of respect and/or grief.
What role did Adam and Eve play in the resolution of the LOST story? A footnote in Jacob's back story.

XIBALBA

When cable diving last week, I came across a "double take" image on the History Channel. The illuminated green water at a cave entrance sure looked like the Light Source cave in Lost. The narrators were describing a global network of six ancient openings or gates that old civilizations believed were passageways into the underworld or Hell. The cave image above is from a Mayan location in Belize. Once the investigative team entered the cave, they found it a dangerous place, littered with human bones. They said the Mayans used this place to go to the underworld, and to make human sacrifices to their gods. By appeasing their gods, they could sustain life on the surface world. The Light Source cave was also littered with human skulls and bones.

The concept of gates to a different dimension were part of the Lost mythology. The FDW room had hieroglyphs that made mention of Earth gates. The countdown timer in the Swan could have been used to maintain closure of a gate (a place of death). And the Light Source cave contained a hieroglyphed plug that when removed, caused the light to vanish and the island quake. That mechanism caused the "immortal" Flocke to turn into mortal form (from death, to life, to death).

S6E17 LIGHT CAVE LESSON

What were the series creators trying to tell us in their story? What were the lessons we were supposed to glean from their tale?

The light cave where Desmond pulled out the stone stopper, and where Jack replaced it was the heart of the island. This cave is the center of the LOST mythology and end game.

When the stopper was pulled out, the light source was turned off; evil was released (island began to have earthquakes); and the supernatural turned natural (Flocke into human form).

Likewise, when the stopper plugged the hole, the light source was turned back on; evil was trapped; so did the natural turn into supernatural(?)

The light was explained as being in everyone (is is "life, death, and rebirth.") The writers are referring to a universal soul concept, where everyone is connected by one giant life force.

However, we know from experience that darkness, evil is also in everyone. So why was there a need for a stone stopper on the island to keep evil at bay?

Once the evil was released, it appears to "consume" all the light (soul). It would turn everyone evil. As Flocke complained, it would take away "humanity."

So the lesson is that humanity is the balance between light and dark.

S6E17 WHAT IS THE LIGHT CAVE?

If the island is a cork that keeps evil inside the bottle called the universe, then we saw Jack lift and replace the stopper in the Light Cave. This cave looked like a ancient chamber. And upon closer examination of the stone stopper, there were hieroglyphs on it!

When the stone stopper in the chamber was removed, the water was absorbed (the light vanished) and we saw a fire and brimstone glow from the opening, with massive island wide earthquakes. Once the stopper was removed, Flocke was suddenly human again as if the magic spell of being an immortal smoke monster had been lifted. The light was the supernatural magic? The evil red fire actually consumes the light when released from the cave stopper?

During this earthquake period, Jack defeated Flocke with the help of Kate, thereby ending the saga of Jacob and his brother, who was created by his body floating into the cave of light after Jacob beat (killed?) him. The smoke monster was called the evil incarnate. If the light was the symbol for life, then the red lava fire must have been the symbol for death. If not bottled up, evil would consume all that is good, including life itself.

But this light cave chamber opens up another very hidden mystery. Besides the fact that TPTB put hieroglyphs on the actual stopper when there was no reason to, the translation really adds more questions:

BURY MY ENEMY

(Alternatively: Bury My Criminal, Traitor, or Prisoner)

Who or what is buried under the stopper?
Who or what put that person/thing underground?
Did the burial of the evil enemy create the Light Source, which is a part of everyone? If so, then the island light predates CrazyMom who raised Jacob and MIB.

S6E15 LIGHT POOL

There are some viewers who are miffed by the concept of a magical light pool being the center piece of the island. It resorts to some sort of extraterrestrial location.

I have always thought that the best explanation for the unexplained would be the premise that the island was in a different realm like the underworld. TPTB were outspoken in Season 1 against the concept that the island was purgatory, but it could be a purgatory type setting without the religious connotations.

Maybe part of the viewer confusion is that the initial expectations of the show was presented in a style of a shipwreck-survival-adventure story which morphed into a science fiction now fantasy story line. The creators claim that all of these key elements were contained within the pilot episode, but besides the smoke monster, this is not accurate. The idea of "Jacob" did not get mentioned until late in Season 2, or any context until after Season 3.

People had hoped Season 6 was the light at the end of the tunnel, but they were not expecting the light to be a glowing pool of Life. The circumstances show that the special property of the island is not just strange electromagnetic energy, but the substance of Life itself. As stated in earlier posts, the Life force appears to be finite matter which can be "consumed" but not replaced. When MIB's body floated into the cave, the light diminished and the dark smoke monster appeared. If that is the case, then how is the Life force delivered to human beings?

When CrazyMom said the light was "life, death and re-birth," it could mean that the island is that nexus point between realms of life and death (after life). Not quite purgatory, but the light pool could a human soul recycling station. Except, the fact is that not very many people ever found the place; that its guardian's sole purpose was to guard the light pool from everyone.

S6E15 FORMULA PART TWO

CrazyMom also noted that the life source was finite. She had each person has some in them, but others want more. And this light can go out.

After MIB was drifted into the light cave, the light did dim. And if one believes the cave is where Adam and Eve was found was the same, then the light did go out.

It does put into play the notion that the universe is not infinite but finite. Life as its own element is not replaceable. It can be depleted. Like a light, be extinguished. And maybe that is the warning that people will "cease to exist" if the EM energy, life source or the island is compromised by Smokey.

A gnawing question arises to why, if there is such grave danger of allowing the life force to escape or be compromised, did Jacob allow visitors to play with it?

Claudia's people were smart enough, according to MIB, to start digging for the substance, and theorized that using a wheel and water, they could use the energy to return to their home. How they figured that out is a mystery. These visitors were killed off before attempting the Turn.

Unless Jacob was really hands off, in total isolation, the other people brought to the island continued the work of Claudia's people. They continued to dig wells, and in one deep one (under the Orchid station) completed the FDW room. Based on the construction, it looked ancient, pre-Industrial revolution. That puts the inventors in the realm of the Greeks, Romans or Egyptians, whose advanced, ancient mechanical knowledge is just being understood by modern scientists.

So, some distant past group completed the FDW, and turned it. It had to work because Ben knew about it, how to operate it, and what the consequences of the turn was to the island and to the turner. (He originally said that turning the FDW would move the island and the turner would never be allowed to come back. We saw evidence of the island disappearing, and Hawking's station trying to re-locate it. However, Ben did return to the island.)

So the physics of the light in conjunction with the FDW were known by previous inhabitants. So why did not Smokey leave with the first or second turner? Apparently he cannot leave the island by that means. Maybe, because Smokey appears to be created from the soul of man and the life source radiated waters, it cancels itself out. MIB's memories, soul, essence is trapped in the smoke monster form, which is "worse than death."

But what is really strange is that Jacob and/or MIB allowed more people to come to the island and tinker with the EM light source. The Egyptians probably used a pool for some healing religion properties. The military may have come in order to compare it to hydrogen bombs. Dharma may have come to test its properties on animals, humans, and as a power source.

If you are supposed to protect the island (and the finite life source contained thereon), there is little reason to bring more and more destructive people to the island to mess with its equilibrium.

S6E15 FORMULA

CrazyMom told Jacob that the lighted cave contained "life, death, and rebirth," that is in every living creature. This life force is a secular divinity. If one can postulate that the Big Bang created the ever expanding universe, it also created the basic building blocks for all life as we know it. Life depends on death, death depends on life; the circle of life is a closed system.

When MIB joined his mother's castaways, he found the people inventive and smart. They had ideas about how to use the EM energy to try to get home. MIB found the EM energy underground, so they dug wells and caves to find it. What was interesting in his final discussion with CrazyMom was that they were going to dig out a space in the wall, and use a wheel and water.

Now this space was not the frozen donkey wheel that Ben and Locke used to time travel. The cave which CrazyMom showed Jacob contained the green light energy and water.

I doubt if the writers thought this through as an explanation of the light, but the island could be the well spring for life, using the principles of photosynthesis as the scientific basis. Electromagnetic radiation (such as sunlight) interacts with carbon and water in plants to create chemical reactions for which fuels the plants and omits oxygen as a byproduct.

Taking this one step further, if this "light" is part of each person, it could be conceptually be considered a person's "soul." For each person's soul to be in balance with nature, a spiritual guardian would need to protect the source of the life force from imbalance. Therefore, the island guardian is like a tech operator at a nuclear generator - - - making sure that the life reactor is safely in balance with the universe. What is certain is that this pocket of energy and life force is probably not in the same dimension as Earth. It is more probable that the island is like a cell nucleus, transmitting the vital information the cell (universe). Messing with the nucleus could lead to problems, such as cell division (multiverses), clones, or the death of the universe itself.

After MIB's death, it is apparent that Jacob and/or Smokey continued to bring the intelligent individuals to the island in order to harness the power of the life force energy: Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, the military in the 1950s who developed the hydrogen bomb, to Dharma which was a diverse scientific research community. Apparently, each of these great intellectual civilizations failed to fathom or harness the power of the life force, as MIB refrained that they all fail in the end. Jacob called it progress to the end. So maybe Jacob and Smokey were on the same page for thousands of years, using human intellect to find a way to harness the power of the life force, to change their untenable lives.

ADAM AND EVE CAVE

If we ever get back to the Adam and Eve cave, I expect something like the above on the cave walls. What is really strange is that I am starting to think in hieroglyphs, like an ancient scribe.

BIRDS, BEES & ADAM AND EVE

One of the mysterious current under blog posting re-examination is the mystery of Adam and Eve, found in the caves during Season 1. Kate found the first skeleton on a ledge inside the cave. Jack said they had to be there for at least 50 years. One was a man and one was a woman. Inside a pocket, he found two stones, one black one white.

If you look at Adam and Eve it looks like they have been mummified. And we know the Egyptians were the world's mummy burial rites advocates. This scene predates our view of the island underworld and the Temple, with the Egyptian references.

Recall, that Kate and Jack found the cave dwellers as a result of a bee attack. Which lead to the following research:

According to one Egyptian myth, honey bees were the tears of the sun god Ra. Their religious significance extended to an association with the goddess Neith, whose temple was known as "the house of the bee." Honey was regarded as a symbol of resurrection and also thought to give protection against evil spirits.

Ancient Egyptians also thought the bee a symbol of wisdom, regeneration, and obedience.

The Egyptians kept bees for their honey and wax. They were kept in woven wicker hives that had been covered in clay. Not only was the honey used for food and as offerings to the gods, but it was also used by the Egyptians to create makeup, medicine (it has an antibacterial effect), boat building, mummification and as a binding agent in some paints.

The ancient priests used to chisel out shelves in caves to bury the dead. Ledges were used to bury them. Based on the circumstantial evidence, one could easily state that the cave was the burial chamber for an ancient Egyptian couple.