Physical Conversations and the Mythic Mind.

This is not a fanciful suggestion by a bunch of New Age bookstore employees. Smart people in a laboratory figured this out.

This, to me, is pretty fascinating. I encourage you to click on the link to read the brief encapsulation of the discoveries. It appears that schizophrenic individuals have the ability/propensity to transfer or expand their sense of physical self beyond the bounds of their own body. My extrapolation: The literal displacement of chi (life energy) suggested in the minute drop in temperature of the subject's hand (the hands being exit points for energy) is consistent with a mytho-energetic understanding of schizophrenia-related disorders--which I had first read about in Joseph Campbell's Myths To Live By (cf. Hands of Light - Barbara Ann Brennan).

When I teach juggling, I approach it from a standpoint of having a 'physical conversation' with the objects--conversation being both 'talking' (exerting one's will/yang energy) and 'listening' (receiving information/yin energy). The best jugglers work their props in such a way that they appear to be extensions of their own limbs, deftly manipulating the objects in the air and around their own bodies. My students make their own juggling balls, which they keep with them for practice outside of class. This is not only a practical solution to the "how do you assign homework in juggling class", but also sets up the ability for these objects to be 'imprinted' into the practitioner's energy field.  This in turn, makes the object more a part of their sense of 'self'.  'Practice makes perfect' takes on a whole 'nother level of meaning here.

It's a reasonable, logical extension of the assertion in physics that all matter is simply energy, condensed.  Frontier physics (quantum and string theory) is where Western empiricism meets Eastern mysticism.  The fact of a subject in the above research having a repeatable out-of-body experience in the laboratory suggests that the bridge between the two is there for the crossing. So, don't call it 'chi'...call it our electromagnetic field.  There's no conflict in premise, only in approach.  East=chi. West=EMF. To me, it's a kind of unifying theory of consciousness, physical existence, and consciousness and its related disorders--you know: Life, the Universe, and Everything.

So, the question is: what if the treatment of schizophrenia included modalities that are not only based on brain chemistry, but also on consciousness alteration centered on energetic awareness? If this research can be integrated into a mythic/energetic mode of treatment for consciousness disorders?

Further:  based on the above picture, how far of a leap is it, really, to suggest that the Universe is the mind of God, and that we living creatures are literal microcosms of that God-ness?

Allowance

Being concerned about another's comfort and happiness is a very different thing than being responsible for another's comfort and happiness.

I just butted up against this distinction in the last 24 hours.  Realizing it's time to make a change in the habitual way I handle my relationship with my son has been a lightning-fast, hard lesson. This is a very difficult identification to face.  If I'm not constantly concerned with and responsible for ensuring the smooth sailing of his life, then what kind of parent am I, really? Don't I care about him at all?  This is what goes through my head as I face this change. In looking at how to move past this old pattern of being, then, I'm faced with this fear that I'm sending the message that I don't care about him at all.  It's a dynamic that is based in the history of my experiences with and regarding him and his care.  It's tried, and true...and now it's truly trying.  

The way I show my care and love for him is by taking responsibility for his moment-to-moment emotional state. Yeah, that doesn't sound at all pathological when I type it out like that. Feels strange to be downgrading my attention on him...that really, my only concerns need be his health and well-being and safety...but that the minutiae are up to him.

So. Okay. time to move into a more mature phase of our relationship. Time to allow him to be responsible for himself more, his own sense of happiness and comfort. So what if a particular thing isn't his first choice, or if he's resistant to it. Is his basic safety assured? Then get over it. Or don't.  But it's not my problem.  As he is about to turn 13, moving into something closer to manhood, it is time. I've been holding him back, without realizing it. He's coming of age, and I'm realizing that it's time for our relationship to do the same.  So, this is the allowance I can give him. To allow him to be responsible for himself.  My desire is for his happiness and fulfillment. My job is to let him seek it himself.

UPDATE:  If I'm releasing all this misplaced energy and attention...what am I freed up to do now?  Where could that attention go? To what projects/thoughts/creations?  The possibilities feel expansive.

Stopping to Listen, Moving to Follow.

I seem to be always profoundly affected when I walk into a bookstore (or when watching a particularly evocative movie trailer). Usually it's an unnameable emotion/energy rush that brings me close to tears. (Inspiration? Yearning?) I tend to refrain from trying to put a name on it, recognizing that tears and crying are often simply energetic releases, and don't need to be labeled or associated with a specific causation.

What's strange, though, is that today, I was walking among the stacks with a clenched fist, amid visions of tumbling paperbacks and crashing shelves.  Interesting development, and a little unsettling, honestly. I really do feel like something wants to get outta my brain (it's pretty crowded in there at this point), but I'm having a hard time stopping enough to listen, and moving enough to follow it. In many cases, I've been holding my ideas for so long, I have lost sight of the doing of them, and they only live in fragments in my mind. 

Mercury's going retrograde soon, meaning it'll be a time to tie up loose ends, revisit old, open cycles to conclude them.  I think I had better get to work on some/anything. 

Lots of excuses not to:  can't do it alone, but should know what I'm doing at this point; I'd imagine it's well nigh impossible to bring allies/collaborators together for a sustained effort with no resources...so many ideas I can't focus on one long enough to see it through to completion... and the list goes on.

But, if this visceral reaction continues when I'm surrounded by creativity and ideas, something is going to need to happen in my life as a creator of art.  Looking around...where to start?

Sinclair Lewis, American Prophet

When I read Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel about the rise of fascism in America, I was riding a train from Atlanta to New York...inadvertently maintaining continuity with the period in the story. I was by turns aghast, despairing, awe-struck, and incredulous at Lewis's writing--there's no other word for it but, "prophetic."

I immediately saw that It Can't Happen Here would work very well as a theater piece, and the way I see it, by using a strict adherence to the story and period it would allow the audience to make the disquieting connections to current events and climate.  In my work with my solo show,Il  Teatro Machiavelli, (wherein I present a period- and dramaturgically airtight Punch-and-Judy-show adaptation of Machiavelli's The Prince) I generally find that the othertimeliness of the setting heightens the timelessness and contemporaneity (yes, that's a word) of the show's themes in the audience's experience.

All that to say, I'm becoming more convinced that the time is ripe for this show.  I saw the attached video starting to make the rounds from the YouTubes, and I dove straight back into the book for the prequel.  Read this, from It Can't Happen Here, then (try to) watch the video.  Is there any other word, but "Prophetic"?

Background:  Buzz Windrip is the candidate for President, who is campaigning on a platform of smoke-and-mirrors populism.  The groundswell of support in the nation is being led by a WCTU type (Yes, the organization still exists in operation) named Mrs. Adelaide Tarr Gimmitch. (I insert here a picture of the founder of the WCTU, just because Miss Annie Turner Wittenmyer looks like just the type of gal to start a Women's Christian Temperance Union):  

In the first song, the League of Forgotten Men is a loose ad hoc confederation of disgruntled Depression-unemployed men. In the second, more ominous, song, M.M. is abbreviation for the paramilitary arm of the Windrip movement, the Minute Men (a festishistic patriotic throwback to the Nation's Founding mythos...Tea Party, anyone?). Doremus Jessup is the New England Newspaperman who serves as the primary protagonist of the story. (Lewis could really craft a name, that's for sure.)

Before the cheering, as the Windrip parade neared the platform, they were greeted by Mrs. Adelaide Tarr Gimmitch, the celebrated author, lecturer, and composer, who--suddenly conjured onto the platform as if whisked out of the air--sang to the tune of "Yankee Doodle" words which she herself had written:

Berzelius Windrip went to Wash.,
Riding on a hobby--
To throw Big Business out, by Gosh,
And be the People's Lobby!

Chorus:
Buzz and buzz and keep it up,
Our cares and needs he's toting,
You are a most ungrateful pup,
Unless for Buzz you're voting!

The League of the Forgotten Men
Don't like to be forgotten,
They went to Washington and then
They sang, "There's something rotten!"

And later, just after Windrip is elected:

Past [Doremus Jessup's] house after midnight, through muddy snow tramped a triumphant and reasonably drunken parade, carrying torches and bellowing to the air of "Yankee Doodle" new words revealed just that week by Mrs. Adelaide Tarr Gimmitch:

The snakes disloyal to our Buzz
We're riding on a rail,
They'll wish to God they never was,
When we get them in jail!

Chorus:
Buzz and buzz and keep it up
To victory he's floated.
You were a most ungrateful pup,
Unless for Buzz you voted.

Every M.M. gets their whip
To use upon some traitor,
And every Antibuzz we skip
Today, we'll tend to later.

Then, when I saw this, I was gobsmacked:

So.  Any one of my Lefty artist friends wanna get a copy of the book and start a conversation?

2011 - Year of Completions (?)

On 1/11/11, at 11:11 and such like, there was all manner of numerology being slung around to show how meaningful the date and time was.  While I got pretty good at adding in my head in two-bit increments when I was working the concession stand at the Lefont Tara movie theater back in college, I never really put a lot of stock in numbers as powerful, or as numinous tools.

But I've noticed something in my own impulses, this drive to start handling the incomplete projects and unfinished work of my life and career--that I'm seeing echoed elsewhere.  For instance, my friend Audrey in NY, a great and brilliant Clown, is teaching a workshop here. This is a great opportunity, as I've got probably about a dozen ideas, concepts, shows and production designs in my head and in various states of incompletion. Sadly, I can't attend. It's in NY, and I'll be in Paris that day.  So, everything's a trade-off, I guess.  Anyway, it got me thinking even more about what is incomplete in my own life, in the lives of those I love and know, and in the world at large. 

So, in my own stab at dubious numerological punditry, I'll add this:  2011 = 2+0+1+1 = 4.  Four is the number of completion.  The square.  The Holy Quaternity (as Jung has observed, Who would the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost be, without Satan?)...this may very well be the year to 'get complete' in our lives. Even if it's a bunch of math-ey bunk, it feels like what there is to do now.

Work, Relationships--what if we had nothing to lose? Would we let the moment pass without following that still, small voice inside that calls us to our best impulses and intentions?  What if we had everything to lose if we did let the moment pass?  

Letting no business go unfinished. Letting go of grief withheld.  Opening the most guarded corners of the heart. Opening the channel of creativity. The bottom line is always the same: it's about choosing love over fear (but jeez, even that sounds to my ear new-agey and hackneyed)...

Where are you incomplete, and what could you do now, in this very moment, towards being complete in some aspect of your Life?

Why a blog? (Why a duck?)

I've been toying with the idea of actually maintaining a blog for a while now, and since we've been snowed in here in Atlanta for four days now, and I've cleaned my home to within an inch of its life, I guess there's nothing else to do while waiting for the ice to melt outside my door, but to start making good on all these idle "shoulds" I've had cluttering up my life.

I used to think I knew a lot of the answers to my questions. But now, thankfully, I know I don't. My goal here will be to collect and share various Experiential Life Learnings, Inspirations, Questions, Passionately Held Opinions--touching on all the major hot-button topics:  politics, religion, spirituality, morality, artistry. It's all part of the mix.  My hope is to engage in a living conversation, a passionately curious dialogue--I'd like to invite you to join in, if you're so inclined. Or, I could just keep typing into the empty echoing ether, and that would be okay too.

So, thanks for joining me, so far.