From Fear-Full to Fear-Less…

Posted on June 24, 2014 by seeandconnect

I first got on stilts in January, doing the Wise Fool NM program, ELEVATE. The very first time, I was relatively comfortable on them. The second time – a few days later, perhaps – I was terrified. I felt anxiety where I’ve been feeling it strongly in recent years, the center of my chest. It took a lot of mental something or other to get me to leave the support of the wall. I saw a video of our end of program performance and my ears were up in my shoulders and my movements halting.  Six months later, I’m stilting again in a program performance (BUST). Getting back on stilts has been the equivalent of saying “Ok. I’m going to step into the ring with fear.”

Only, this time, it hasn’t felt like a boxing match.

The first day we got on stilts, I felt wobbly and nervous, but definitely more comfortable than previously. Every saturday, for the past five weeks, we’ve been getting up on stilts. Each time, I have felt a bit more comfortable, while also being aware of the Nerves paying a visit. Sometimes a specific new move might call in the Nerves. Sometimes, they just pop up. Yet, I have been determined. During open studio evenings, I made a point of strapping on stilts. The Nerves, clingy couple that they are, tended to come along.

They persisted. I persisted.

Something that made a difference was music. One evening, Dee brought some earphones and we started dancing to music on her phone. I found that this tended to relax me – particularly when I thought about a teacher’s (Alessandra from Peñasco Theater) comment that if you can move it off stilts, you can move it on stilts. Focusing on dancing tended to push the Nerves into a dark corner where it was hard to see or hear them.

A few days ago, we were having a practice for our stilt act. Yes, I chose to be in a stilt act for our BUST performance. You know, pushing myself. Also, though, I’ve come to enjoy stilts. This isn’t to say, however, that the Nerves have totally gone away. Nope. They definitely still hang around. They popped up in this practice session the other day. The task at hand was to get down to the ground using a person as a base. The base is on hands and needs. The stilter leans over and lowers down to the ground by pressing on their upper and lower back. The first few times I did this, the Nerves were in a frenzy.

Two days later, during a rehearsal for our Act, I had to use this lowering technique.  I started out by doing the descent using mats on the other side of the room from where we were practicing our acts. The mats are higher than using a person as a base and,  thus, less scary. Eventually a teacher said “Come over here and I’ll be your base. If you keep working on the mats to get down over there, you’ll keep spending a lot of time and effort crawling on the floor to get back over here. ” I stilt walked over and to her, while she got down on all fours to base my descent. With wide eyes, I stared at her back, all laid out for me to drop down onto it. It seemed very far away.

I felt the Nerves tug on me for a second. I exhaled. The Nerves went away. I leaned over without hesitating and did my descent.

I can’t exactly tell you what is now allowing me to do that move fearlessly. I can’t be sure that the Nerves won’t come back while doing the same move.

I can tell you that the experience is liberating. One day something terrifies me. Two days later it doesn’t.

I’ve just had imprinted on me the experience of being released from the shackles of fear. Maybe this has happened before in other ways. Maybe this isn’t the first time I’ve gone from fear into security. Yet, this particular experience is resonating strongly with me right now. My mind is going “If that can happen in this instance, in what other instances might it happen? In what other spaces am I able to step out of fear, to keep the Nerves at bay?”

And from those thoughts rises the question: “What kind of possibilities might open up to me, the more I become released from the shackles of fear?”

And from those thoughts rises a smile. The kind that starts in the center of my chest – in the same place that fear normally hangs out – and moves through me, turning up the corners of my mouth, flashing my big teeth and then continues to rise until it shines through my large eyes.

BUSTing out of the shackles of fear. Experiencing the freedom of busting out of the shackles of fear.

The USA is a country with many fear-full people. This fear shackles us, doesn’t it? This taste of fearlessness makes me wonder how different our lives and ways of living together would be if we weren’t so fear-full.

What are the ways in which fear keeps you in shackles? Keeps communities in shackles? Keeps an entire nation in shackles?

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(photo of mural at Peñasco Theater, painted by Amaryllis DeJesus Moleski and Rebekah Tarín)

 

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When does self-care turn into self-indulgence?

Posted on June 23, 2014 by seeandconnect

In this last post from the BUST diaries (as I think of this series of postings), I wrote about the balancing act of self-care and serving the collective. I’ve continued to think a lot about this theme. Sometimes don’t we have to put the needs of the community over our own? Is it really such a clear this or that type choice? When does self-care turn into self-indulgence?

I have had a few conversations with different BUST participants and teachers about what it means to show up. One Monday, I wanted to pick up my housemate from the shuttle stop here in town. The timing worked out that I could go during the evening session’s break time, perhaps missing a bit of the aerial work that was after break. Due to delays, missed texts and the like, the picking up of housemate took longer than anticipated. However, I still could have ended up back at the Wise Fool studio and participate in the aerial practice session.

But I didn’t do that. I didn’t go back that evening. Why? Because I had made a choice to avoid aerial work all together. I have had a strong sense that my back isn’t up to it. Two days later, I oped out of that evening’s aerial work. With gentle nudging from fellow BUSTer, I stuck around to take pictures of people. In that way, I wasn’t doing what everyone else was doing, but I was participating and being supportive.

Another aerial practice, I stayed for a little bit and then just left. Yes, I had something to work on, but I could have stayed and pulled a late night. Instead, I chose to opt out all together. I allowed BUST  to turn into ‘choose when I want to participate and feel free to opt out’ experience.

A fellow BUSTer who is experienced with being in performances, pointed out that people coming and going according to their own needs can be demoralizing to everyone else.  A few people – as said, myself included – opted out in a few different sessions. Sometimes people didn’t turn up because they were too tired. A teacher suggested to me that when that happens, they would prefer that people turn up and flop out on the sidelines of the practice. The point is: you show up in solidarity with your community.

Another thing that has happened is  people turning up but then leaving because they felt overwhelmed by their emotions. We don’t do that in other spaces in our lives, do we? We don’t just think “I’m feeling overwhelmed, I’m leaving.” Is this a thing that has to do with people having so-called artistic temperaments? Is this because unlike other environments, in this kind of workshop no one has a role of demanding that we stay. We are all grown ups who chose to make a commitment to this particular workshop; we are being asked and expected to manage ourselves accordingly.

I’m not writing this to criticize anyone. Rather, I’m writing this to ponder out loud. I am wondering what I am being shown and what I can learn about consciously being in and striving to do best for the collective. I’m wondering – as said earlier in this post – when does giving attention to self cross over from being self-care to self-indulgence? I am wondering how often I cross boundary. How often have I crossed it in BUST? How often do I cross it in other parts of my life?

At the same time, all these questions about showing up have me wondering about the ways in which we physically show up but are still absent. We are focused on the thoughts running through our heads, the emotions moving through our bodies. In our most recent session together – as a full group – we did an exercise where we reviewed a list we each had done on the first day. These lists set out how we show up in the world when we are at our best. We were asked to find a word to capture the different elements on our lists. I remember at the time feeling a bit odd by what kept coming up for me: present. When I am at my best, I am present.

This doesn’t seem like a particularly vibrant word to encompass me at my best.

Turns out, I wasn’t the only one who landed on present. First, a person across the room shared that word. Then the person next to me brought her present into the circle. I felt encouraged by this and choose to go with it.

What’s my point? I think I’m wanting to say that  another way of describing the balancing act of self-care and caring for the collective is to say that the task at hand is to be present with what is alive within ourselves and be present with the world around us. Striking this balance, I imagine, requires being in a deep state of awareness.

And I’m thinking this is a particular type of awareness. It is, for example, about being aware that I’m feeling angry without latching onto the anger and following it wherever it wants to take me physically and mentally.

Perhaps you have read to this point and feel like you’ve been taken here and there and all over the place. I wouldn’t be surprised if that is the case – I’m feeling bit befuddled by the terrains through which I’ve been traveling this past week in BUST.

What are your reflections on these balancing acts that are part of being in service to collective and caring for self? How do you assess when self-care has crossed over into self-indulgence? What one word would you use to describe how and how you are when you are bringing your best self forward?

 

 

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A Balancing Act -the art of caring for self while serving the collective

Posted on June 13, 2014 by seeandconnect

A lot of what we are doing in BUST – a six week intensive circus camp at Wise Fool NM – involves finding your balance. This week, I’m thinking about the balance between pushing myself and self-care. BUST as a word conjures up images of breaking loose. The words “I can’t” are ready made shackles. Much of the BUST experience is about saying “I’ll try” and often finding out that, in fact, “I can.” I’ve opted out of the aerial activities – fabric and trapeze. Even if you aren’t performing on these in the show, you are encouraged to keep working with them. At first, I thought “C’mon, Veena, push yourself.” Then I decided, “You know what, I’m not going to do these things – my body isn’t up for it.” This choice has got me thinking about the line between self-care and not stepping up to the plate when I could. 

The story I’ve created is this: Had I been more conscious before BUST began, I would have gotten some serious body work done to open up my lower back. My lower back is totally compressed and even with a lot of regular stretching, it isn’t going to open up. I’m pretty sure it won’t open up enough to enable me to enjoy the aerial activities and also to be able to do them with minimal risk of hurting myself. I say all this in the context of having broke my back over ten years ago and being very clued-in to looking after it. And the truth is, this past year generally, I haven’t been looking after it. Consequently, I have some constraints at the moment.

Initially, I wanted to be critical of my self for a whole host of things – for not looking after my back generally, letting it get compressed after having done a lot of work in decompressing it in the years previous; for bowing out of aerial activities rather than pushing myself; for failing to meet the challenges before me. After giving it a lot of thought and landing on the perspective in the above story, I think that I am meeting the challenges before me – just not in the way I had anticipated I would. I decided simply to acknowledge this is where I’m at. As recently as January, I might have been inclined to get wrapped up in a whole cycle of blame and judgement, I’m not going there this time. I’m just choosing in this instance to opt out. I think I am probably making a good judgement call in not forcing myself to persist in doing aerial. 

Sometimes, though, I’m sure I do choose to walk away from something for other reasons. Out of fear, mainly. Or out of rooting myself in a story of “I can’t” when actually, I can. How do I know if that’s what I’m doing? Increasingly, I’m learning to connect more clearly with my internal wisdom and I follow that. Sometimes, perhaps, I can’t really know. Sometimes, perhaps, I will shrink away when I could actually stand up large. Whichever I do, I’m starting to think what’s important is awareness of what I’m doing and how I’m being. If I’d like to do differently, then I need to own up to the reality of what is and take responsibility to work on being different – coming from a more expanded consciousness in order to DO differently. 

All of that said, I’m also very conscious this week that so much of the angst that can arise in something like BUST is starting to seem trivial to me. Sure, it might be indicative in me and others of genuine stories and beliefs that hold us back from living our full potential. Busting out of these stories and beliefs is an important and essential part of self-evolution. Yet, the fact that I have time and space to put energy into contemplating at length something like do I do the aerial circus arts or don’t I – well, it makes me feel a little bit indulgent and silly, if I’m honest. 

Which, in a way, is linked to this theme of balancing and crossing fine lines. I’ve been fairly inward-focused in recent years. Some of it has been needed and constructive. Some of it has been at best navel-gazing and at worst narcissism (which doesn’t mean, by the way, spending time in the mirror admiring my own beauty. I’ll save the meaning of narcissism for another post).  Rather than focus on wrapping my own knuckles for being overly self-focused (which then simply becomes more self-focus!), I’m wanting to acknowledge that I’m itching to be much more out in the world in service to others. In fact, I’m aware that some of the inner-work actually requires me to be more active in the world around me – otherwise it is an excuse to be disconnected and self-centered.  

This week, BUST is reminding me that when I’m out in the world, knowing when to retreat to practice self-care is important. Caring for myself enables me to give more to others. Equally, stepping out into the world and standing firmly in my values in service to the collective is important. 

A balancing act. 

In what parts of your life – in the different communities you inhabit – do you sense that you are out of balance? 

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Ugly is a Ugly does….

Posted on June 4, 2014 by seeandconnect

We are into week three of BUST circus camp at Wise Fool NM. So much I can write about. What’s front of mind right now is the ways in which we can be so hard on ourselves. I’m thinking about how ugly it is. I’ve written about the ugly before, with The Ugly in Beauty. I’m paying a lot of attention to observing my fellow students. The other day someone was clearly struggling with an activity. I watched and listened to her agitation with herself. I remember thinking, “Wow. That’s really ugly.” I told myself, “There, that’s it. See, see what it looks like. Choose beauty.”

This might sound mean-spirited. But it isn’t. I watched my compañera and knew I was looking in the mirror. I did ELEVATE – the two week Wise Fool NM circus boot camp – in January.  At the time, I was very uncomfortable in my body. In the previous six months, I had put on a lot of weight (for me, anyway) and I was out of shape.

One objective of ELEVATE is to increase one’s fitness. I repeatedly criticized myself for things like having poor flexibility. When I did so, my fellow ELEVATORS (as it were) would encourage me to take a different perspective. They would tell me to focus on the fact that I was showing up and I was stepping in the direction of fitness. They encouraged me to give myself some credit for taking steps in a different direction.

I’m grateful for their encouragement.

Notwithstanding the ELEVATE experience, I’ve made some “I’m really frustrated with myself and my limits” comments during BUST. The other day, when I saw someone else doing this, I was jolted. I saw how ugly it is. The tone of voice, the look on her face, the visible tension in her body. I was watching someone expressing self-loathing rather than self-love. Not a pretty sight. I thought – geez, I don’t want to be that way. I don’t want to embed it into my self. What struck me even more, was the sense that I don’t want to send that ugliness out into the world.

I want to send beauty out to the world.  I want to send beauty in the world in order to play a nurturing role in the collective. Why use creativity (the ability or power to bring things into being) to give rise to ugliness? I say this and then I think “Whoaa, hang on!” I’m inclined to pause because I don’t want to be an advocate for turning love into a practice of sweet words and affirmations. Yes, they have a role to play in generating love and beauty.

At the same time, both love and beauty ask more of us. What I liked about the way fellow ELEVATORS responded to my ugliness – that is, the negative self-talk I was generating – is that they didn’t latch onto what I was saying one way or another. The didn’t try and cover up what I was thinking and feeling with sweet compliments. They didn’t say “no, no, no, you look great.” Nor did they try to reinforce my negativity. They didn’t say “Oh yeh, I know what you are saying” and then throw in their own version of ugliness.

They nudged me to respond lovingly to what I was feeling and experiencing in the moment – in all its ugliness. I’ve noticed this kind of response happening with our BUST women, too.

Again, I am grateful for it.

How conscious are you of the ways in which you create ugliness in thoughts, words and actions? When the ugliness bubbles up, what kind of reactions do you have that fuel it? What kind of responses could you have instead? What does it mean to you to give rise to beauty in your self and others? Image

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Roll up for the Magical Mystery Tour…

Posted on May 25, 2014 by seeandconnect

Yesterday we had a full group session of BUST. I started writing about BUST last week, with the post What Does it Take to Support it Each Other to Rise and Shine? Since then, I’ve experienced two beginners’ group training sessions on aerial fabric, trapeze, partner acrobatics and stilt walking. Yesterday we had a full group session working with physical theater. As people reflected on their first week of BUST, tears were shed. Everyone is on their own journey and some people are in one of those times in life when we feel we’re at sea in rather turbulent waters. Tears were shed while people talked about BUST as an anchor in the storm. At the same time that BUST is for many a bit of grounding in the chaos, I’m conscious that we are a community of people on a journey to creating a quality performance. Right now, it is a bit hard to imagine how it will all come together. 

Yesterday, for example, we had different stations for training in physical theater. We could learn and practice juggling, the hula hoop, the diablo and rola-bola. As with all the arts we are learning, we clearly have varying degrees of skill. I had a stab at rola-bola. It consists of a wooden plank and a sturdy plastic cylinder. They cylinder is on the floor and you place the plank on top of it, cylinder more or less in the middle of the plank. On the plank are places at each end to put your feet – points where there is a bit of gripping material. Your task is to do a balancing act on the plank. With slightly bent knees, arms out, back straight, you teeter-totter on this mini see-saw. Eventually, you might juggle while doing this balancing act. Or you might have someone stand on your shoulders. 

Me, I was just starting. I was happy to be able to weeble-wobble for a little bit. Eventually, I could sustain it for a respectable amount of time. Yet, I’m far from integrating my weeble-wobble into a peformance. At one point, I looked around the room and saw the mayhem of people practicing this and that, to varying levels of success. I said to Victoria, one of the teachers: “I’m curious to see how all this will unfold. I mean, the other day someone I know told me that when they came to BUST last year they were impressed by the quality of the performance. They had expected a roughly done variety show experience, but it was at a much higher level than that.” Victoria simply responded: “That’s the magic, the mystery.” 

Magic. Mystery. This morning, I’m thinking about BUST and our performance and I’m thinking about people on their ships in the turbulent waters. We’re all in the same boat, as it were. We don’t know, we can’t know. Life and theater are both like that, aren’t they? In BUST we are creating as we live, by stepping into chaos, mayhem, uncertainty and unknowing.

I touched on this subject in a recent post, The Mystery. Brilliant theatre performance arises out of mystery and magic. Performers understand this. In the world of social policy, I don’t think I ever talked with anyone about magic and mystery. We talked and gave a lot of time to planning. We set up projects by listing our outcomes. We must all know from our own lives about the inevitability of chaos, mayhem and uncertainty. Yet, we’ve created institutional cultures that seem geared towards keeping chaos out. We’ve created institutional cultures where chaos is bad, where “I don’t know” is not said and where we relish in having total control. 

As I think about it now, the word delusion comes to mind. 

At this stage, I’m understanding that BUST has two essential ingredients: (1) teachers and students use the question “What do we need to do in any given moment to bring out our best selves?” and (2) a tacit agreement that we will trust in, and hold a space for, the involvement of magic and mystery.

How does this compare and contrast to the ways in which we tend to work together to promote social justice?  Image

 

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What does it take to support each other to rise and shine?

Posted on May 20, 2014 by seeandconnect

On Sunday, we began the WISE FOOL (New Mexico) circus camp called BUST. BUST has been running for twelve years. It is a six week program of intensive circus training for women. We will explicitly be learning aerial acrobatics on fabric and trapeze, partner acrobatics on the ground, clowning, physical theater, and stilt-walking. I imagine, if we are open to it, BUST will be a place where we each can go deeper into one of my favorite questions: What does it mean to be human? At the end of the six weeks, we will give three performances. I mentioned to someone yesterday that I’m doing BUST and it turns a colleague of hers did it last year. She remarked “You know, I thought it would be like a student variety show but it was really impressive.” Despite being a group with mixed ability and experience, the idea is that we will put on a well-rehearsed and directed performance. Rather ambitious, I think. I’m certainly to curious to see how it all unfolds. How are we all going to work together to shine brightly in our own eyes and in the eyes of of the audiences that come to see us?

We kicked off this journey with a two hour opening-the-circle session. This was a chance to bring all the players into the room – teachers and students. After introductions, we stepped into the art of physical theater. In two of the exercises we did, we were in pairs. In pairs, one person had the power to touch. We did this in two ways. In one way, when a person is touched (a light tap), they move their body into the place where they were touched – as though the touch is a pull.  This movement seemed like a time to contract, get smaller. In the other way, when a person is touched they move their body as though the touch is pushing them. This movement seemed like a time to expand and get bigger.

When we reflected on this exercises, a few people spoke up and shared very different experiences. To one, for example, the touching someone and watching them contract was uncomfortable. It gave rise to the sense that the person doing the touching was some how hurting their partner. To another person, both exercises where just about physics. You pull someone towards you or your touch and they move accordingly. You push them away from you or your touch and they move accordingly.

After hearing a few different perspectives, we seemed to reach a vague consensus that how we experience each other depends a lot on our personal narratives. What are the stories guiding our perceptions? Nikesha, the teacher, also mentioned how it is that all actions generate a reaction (I would add, or a response). I took her to be highlighting for us that our time together creating a performance is going to be an endless series of actions and reactions or responses.

I spring boarded from that thought to focusing on the fact that all any of us can try to control is our actions. This brings me back to the theme of conscious creativity (I’ve written about this often, including in my last post).  Conscious creativity can sometimes become an exercise of walking on eggshells. We become so sensitive to not wanting to push people’s buttons, say the ‘wrong’ thing and the like, that we tread carefully. When that happens, the journey becomes tiring and rather unfun, no? It also becomes self-defeating. The idea with conscious creativity is to lift our selves and others up – not keep us all pushed down.

On that first day of BUST, we were encouraged to nurture ourselves and each other through supportive words. I welcomed the emphasis and I enjoy cheerleading for others. Yet, I think Wise Fool teachers and my fellow students are aware that lifting each other up is about more than affirmations and cheerleading.  I’m excited and curious to step into a question over the course of BUST: Beyond affirmations and cheerleading, how do we support each other to rise and shine?

I’ll be blogging regularly about my BUST experience over the coming weeks. I’ll let you know where this question takes me.

Where would this question take you, if you were to step into it at home, at work, on the street?

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What’s in it for us, if I care most about what’s in it for me?

Posted on May 12, 2014 by seeandconnect

In a previous post, I highlighted the question: What kind of player are you? How focused are any of us on bringing out the best in our selves and others? What are we focused on in how we are using our creativity (ability to bring things into being) and power (ability to act)?

Some thirty years ago (I’m soon to be forty-four), my experience of the the US public education system was that it was dominated by cliques, hierarchies, popularity contests and a lot of superficial judgements. When we consciously created together it would be in small groups. The students who came together to build the homecoming float. The students who cheered the football team from the stands. The students who consciously performed together in their respective, usually disconnected-from-one-another groups: cheerleaders, band players, drama-theater players. While students often participated in these group activities motivated by passion, e.g., for acting or music, they also were active to look good on paper for college recruiters, prospective employers or givers of internships and the like.

Perhaps this is an outdated experience. Perhaps things are different now. That would be great, it would bode well for the future. Meantime, in the present, we have a lot of people who were schooled in this type of environment.

As adults, what kind of relationships do we have with consciously creating in service to the collective? We might belong to a band, a reading group, a group at our place of worship. We might support our children’s school in some way. We might volunteer at a soup kitchen. We aren’t a country solely full of endless self-centered activity.  That said, I get the impression that for the most part, our activities are usually centered on benefiting the individual or on benefiting a small group, e.g. one’s immediate family.

If we aren’t looking out for number one, we are trying to keep up with the Joneses. We strive for more expensive cars, gadgets and bigger houses. This is much more dominant a way of being in the US than it is in the UK (I’ve lived twenty years in both places, and consider both home). Thankfully, we increasingly – on both sides of the Atlantic – have social movements that seek to counter rampant individualism and consumerism.

Looking out for number one and trying to keep up with the Joneses tends to steer us towards relationships that are transactional – this for that. When I was working in the social policy industry on matters to do with equality in the workplace, we were repeatedly told by business leaders to address the question: “What’s in it for me?” WIFM. Me, being the business leader on wanting to increase the stock price of his or her company. I reckon a lot of our relationships in industrialized societies are like this – people asking the question “What’s in it for me?” We are led by this question in and out of office buildings.

In the USA, the dominant cultural norms encourage us to use our creativity and power to protect our own interests, even if it is at the expense of others. We aren’t explicitly instructed to trample on others. Rather, what happens is that we are guided by a story that tells us if other people aren’t succeeding (which is usually measured by wealth and status), it is their own damn fault. That means, it has nothing to do with me. The sub-text of this, it seems, is that I must do what I need to do to serve the interests of my self and my nearest and dearest. How my actions might impact on others isn’t something to which I should give attention.

Everyone has their own bootstraps by which to pick themselves up – if someone else seems to struggle with their bootstraps and with rising up, well, that couldn’t possibly have anything to do with my own efforts to stand tall.

Where does such a belief lead people?

I’m wondering: What are the dominant beliefs and assumptions by which we are indoctrinated in the USA and the UK in terms of the relationship between the individual and the collective? Even simply the relationship between me and you?

 

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The Mystery

Posted on April 24, 2014 by seeandconnect

I picked up Chris Jonas and Dylan Mclaughlin  from Albuquerque airport the other day. The had been in New York working on an opera with Anthony Braxton and the Tricentric Foundation. I knew they were tired and that they had just been through an amazing collective creative journey. I knew this could mean that the question “Well, how was it?!” could seem overwhelming. 

I asked it anyway. 

I’m glad I did. 

Chris described the experience of being in a space where individually people were supporting each other to step into their higher selves. His words: “higher selves.” I didn’t ask him to define this because I felt I instinctively knew what he meant. I don’t know that I can define higher self. I can say that I believe when we are being led by our higher selves, we veer towards restorative (renewing health and strength) acceptance, curiosity, inquiry and reflection in how we relate to our selves and others. He said that people stepped into their higher selves and then collectively they were all in something bigger than themselves that unleashed brilliance. 

Chris and Dylan were part of a team of sixty people performing an opera in Brooklyn.

On a much less grander scale, I felt I had experienced what he was talking about the other day whilst practicing a clown skit.

Carolyn, Corinna and I decided to perform two variations on a scene for input from our Wise Fool teacher, Sarah Jane.  When we had created the two skits the week before, we all seemed to have a preference for the second version. In the run up to this practice session, Corinna and Carolyn expressed an interested in running through the first one, so that we could draw upon anything valuable in it. I remember feeling a bit doubtful, while also being happy to experiment. Sure, I said – let’s run both for Sarah and see what happens.

What happened is that we performed that first version of the skit and felt giddy afterwards. We hadn’t been practicing since we created it the week before. We felt giddy because we so enjoyed the first version of the skit. Something had clicked. We had arrived at a performance that seemed to have gone to another level. 

We didn’t plan it. We didn’t expect it. We can’t tell you how it happened. 

Mystery. 

That thing that is outside of all of us, while also threading through us. That thing that Chris was talking about that left audience, performers and crew alike all mesmerized and giddy in New York, after each performance of their opera. 

Mystery.

Creating an opera or creating a five minute clown skit are both forms of conscious collective creativity. The ideal, when consciously creating (bringing into being), is to be able to step into our higher selves and get caught up in something inexplicable that leaves people feeling expansive, touched and inspired. 

That night, as I was falling asleep, i became giddy thinking about all this. I have this mantra that life is a collective creative process. Life is little different than creating a skit, an opera; it is a on-going performance piece. The other week, I asked the question: What kind of player are you? Now I was being directed to think about mystery – the part of all this creativity (bringing things into being) that is unknown, unimaginable until it is there before us and within us. 

Unable to fall asleep,  I sat up in bed and thought: “Surrender to the mystery.” 

Deep exhale.

What creates the conditions for anyone to step into their higher self? What can I do, you do, we all do to support each other to go there? What does it take to be able to surrender to the mystery? Have you ever experienced that moment of stepping into the mystery? What could it mean for social justice activists to surrender to the mystery? If you said “yes!” to this surrender, how would you work differently than you do now?” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Learnings from a Wise Fool…

Posted on April 18, 2014 by seeandconnect

Yesterday, I was talking with someone who asked me about my passion for Wise Fool New Mexico. In explaining my thinking, I felt like I arrived at some clarity into three questions I am exploring:

  • What does ‘be the change you want to see in the world’ mean in practice?
  • How do I change myself?
  • How is individual internal change relevant to collective political, economic and social change that leads to more social justice in the world?

Here’s what I’m thinking.

Wise Fool NM is a performing arts group working with circus, theater and puppetry. Wise Fool NM performs shows for entertainment, runs workshops for skills and personal development and uses the arts as a vehicle for explicitly supporting social justice movements.

Wise Fool NM’s work hits on all three of the above questions.

As an organization, Wise Fool NM wants to embody the social justice (be the change) it aims to promote in the world. But an organization is a thing. The organization doesn’t want to be social justice organization – the people who run it do. As I see it, Wise Fool Board members, staff and teachers constantly grapple with how to create an organization that gives rise to and nurtures relationships rooted in self-determination, dignity and well-being (for me, these three principles are the heart of social justice). And I’m not wearing rose-tinted glasses. Wise Fool – like all of us – struggles with finding the best steps and rhythms for this dance. On any given day, social justice flows through some interactions more than through others.

That’s life and how we all live it.

Life is a collective creative process. An organization is a collective creative process.

Collective creativity has many levels to it. I’m particularly interested in the relationships we have with our selves, each other and the planet. How do we change these relationships?

How do people change? How do I change?

At one level, Wise Fool NM workshops are spaces where people get to know their selves better. They have the opportunity to make shifts in their relationship with self. These shifts could involve, for example, moving into greater confidence to take risks and being less judgmental of one’s self.

At one level, Wise Fool NM workshops are spaces where we get to know our selves better by – if we choose – stepping into greater awareness of how we tend to interact with others. Creating a performance piece with other people offers up the chance to look repeatedly in the mirror and ask “What does this kind of thinking and behavior result in not just for me, but for people around me?”

Having greater awareness of what kind of relationships we are cultivating is an essential step to creating shifts in how we are living together. Relationships are the basis of living together, no?

Awareness alone is not enough. Change in behavior is what matters. In co-creating a performance piece, we get the chance to experience first hand how collective creativity is the dance of different players. What kind of players we are being determines the outcomes of our collaboration. When I experience first-hand how relationships with self and other can shift to become more just and joyful, I become more committed to both having greater awareness and taking conscious action in response to what I’m learning on a daily basis. Experience tells me it feels good for me and other people, so I act on it.

I like to think I’m not unique this way.

How does all of the above tie into systemic and structural change? What does this have to do with ending oppression? What does this have to do with creating social justice?

I haven’t been to a Wise Fool professional or street performance yet (list of things to do!). I speculate that at one level they are entertaining. At one level they could be educational – raising awareness, for example, about a social issue such as climate change.

I believe we create in our own image. Our current systems and structures are our own creations. Even if we haven’t had a direct hand in their creation, we are still participating in them. That is, we are either resisting them or sustaining them – however unconsciously. Resistance, however, is not the end game. Resistance ideally leads to creating anew and differently. In this way, we replace oppressive systems and structures with restorative and liberating systems and structures.

We CREATE different and refreshed ways of living together.

The individual internal work potentially done through workshops such as those offered up by Wise Fool NM equips people to be better prepared for creating in ways that are restorative and liberating. Armed in this way, when we step out of resistance and move into re-creation, we will start to see and experience different outcomes.

The entertainment (which can also be part of a protest or demonstration) created by groups like Wise Fool NM potentially offers up shifts in insight and perspective on important social issues of the day.

The entertainment also offers up experiences of beauty, wonder and humor. And I do not underestimate the value of beauty, wonder humor in this journey to create better ways of being human.

This work isn’t a magic silver bullet that changes everything. Yet, shifts in hearts, minds and relationships are an essential part of the re-creation journey.

And the performing arts offer rich opportunities for creating these shifts.

That’s what I’m thinking.

What do you think?

Where do these three questions take you?

  • What does ‘be the change you want to see in the world’ mean in practice?
  • How do I change myself?
  • How is individual internal change relevant to collective political, economic and social change that leads to more social justice in the world?

 

 

 

 

 

 

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In the last couple of years, I acquired a mantra – Life is a collective creative process. Breath, emotions, thoughts, words, actions, relationship, dynamics, systems, structures, institutions, communities, societies. These are all products of creativity – the act of bringing into being.

Shakespeare observed – all the world is a stage and all the men and women merely players (from As you like it). 

You, me, everyone – we are all performing together.  Our play is unscripted. We improvise together. As it is in theater, particularly improvisational theater, our collective creative process could be about working with what have in a way that bring out the best of each of us and our resources.

Our creating together could be about nurturing deeper heart and mind connection.

Our creating together could be about drawing out beauty from the most unlikely of places.

The other day, I was with some fellow red noses from a Wise Fool New Mexico clowning workshop. We got together for two hours to create a skit we are planning to perform in a couple of weeks.

We created from scratch.

The process went something like this:

One person says let’s perform together.

Two other people say yes.

We meet up.

One person has three ideas that had popped into her head that she thinks might give us the basis for a skit. She presents them (I’d love to share them with you, but I’ve already forgotten what they were!).

The two other red noses say ‘yes, and…’ throwing out different ideas.

Ideas are taken and grown. Ideas are taken, handled and then tossed off to the side. New ideas are constantly generated.

We land on a basic premise and then hop to our feet to perform it.

We have no idea how it ends. We don’t even really know how the details of most of it. Doesn’t matter, we anticipate that the act of bringing ideas to life will take us to the next stage of creativity.

We perform the skit once and identify a few elements that don’t seem to work. We identify elements that seem worth nurturing and expanding.

We perform again. Again, we throw out some elements, grow some elements, bring in new elements.

Two hours we were together. We probably consciously worked on creating the skit for ninety minutes or less.

We disbanded – still without an ending that felt strong. None of us minded.

We all repeated at different times “Ahh, the ending will work itself out.”

At the heart of this creative process is whole-body listening, observation, risk-taking (and thus, vulnerability), playfulness, and non-attachment.

The last element is important. If we cling to our ideas, we can end up blocking the collective process. As John Flax, Director of Theater Grottesco, said to me the other day – performers are seeking to create a wonderful performance above all else. If individuals start getting attached to their ideas, contributions and ways of doing things they block opportunities to expand and grow collective creative possibility.

Another element in the heart is the art of nurturing. When we play-perform together, we strive to offer each other gifts and to build each other up. I use my strength to support others to find and use their strength and vis-versa.

In the way, we arrive at giving our best and creating our best.

I’ve taken a leap into becoming a performer who creates performances with others on the stage. The experience so far has me wondering: What if I were to go about my day-to-day life as though it were improvisational theater that I’m creating with those around me?

The goal wouldn’t be to be clever or funny. It would be to create an engaging story and behave in ways with that draw out the best from my self and fellow players.

How would behave differently than I do now?

What might the benefits be?

What if an entire community of people – say, a neighborhood, did this?

What if an organization did this?

What do you think – what might happen?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on April 12, 2014 by seeandconnect | Leave a comment