Where is offstage when, according to Shakespeare ‘[a]ll the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players’? This question jumped out at me, bouncing on its dot, following the opening night performance of The World Outside, a story of family and folklore – both that of the New Forest and that of the tales we tell ourselves as we grapple with our sense of identity and roots, our position in a place and the notion of home. All those ideas and queries we ask ourselves at some point in our lives, whether sat in the audience or washing the dishes at the kitchen sink.
My friend and I sat in the audience in a small village hall, deep in the New Forest. The World Outside – commissioned by Forest Forge, directed by Kirstie Davis and written by David Lane – is set in the New Forest is rich with its stories and history. Forest Forge tours throughout Hampshire and Dorset, bringing theatre to towns and conventional theatre spaces as well as taking it to village halls and rural communities. The play explores what it means to live in the forest, to have roots, to run from your roots, to feel lost and to search for connection with – and freedom from – place and people. The superb cast (Isobel Arnett, Michael Cole, Verity Hewlett and Andrew Wheaton) were a joy to observe and work with in rehearsal, as was Kirstie Davis for whom I was assistant director. The highly skilled cast created characters full of life and truth. The actors searched out their truths in each moment, following the scent within each sentence, silence, action and stillness. They had researched, unearthed these truths over the preceding three and a half-weeks of rehearsal. During rehearsals it seemed to me that the actors were exceptional archeologists, finding motivation behind each motion, sifting through dialogue to detect every shift and subtlety, every clue to the character and their past, in order to accurately convey them in the present. At the end of the performance my friend turned to me. Impressed, he said quietly 'It's like life isn't it? We're humans watching humans playing humans: “Now, you be a woman and I'll pretend to be your brother and…”’ And so it is we humans examine what it is to be, to exist alone and alongside others, through theatre. Theatre helps us understand the world within and without.
Notions of identity are also unravelled and reshaped in Born, the companion piece to The World Outside. Born is delivered by Forest Forge's excellent youth theatre, directed in a distinctly physical way and innovative style by David Haworth and Lucy Phillips, performed by a dynamic young cast. I recommend seeing both performances if possible as David Lane has expertly crafted the pieces so that each holds secrets that belong to the other play. The shows are on tour until the 29th of October 2011 for full details and more information about the show and Forest Forge’s work, please click on this link:
http://www.forestforge.co.uk/shows/11/performances
The Grand Grotesque Parade also explored the issues of identity of place and people, in an experimental processional performance involving local artists and public participants. On the 24th September 2011 as part of Bournemouth Arts by the Sea Festival, hundreds of costumed characters (and the odd dressed-up dog) floated through the eras whilst moving from the pier through the gardens to the heart of the town and back to the sea. We 3, (performers Antonia Beck, Felicity Crabb and myself), were associate directors for this project, one created specifically with Bournemouth past and present in mind. Prior to this year’s event, the parade last happened in the town in 1910. Artistic directors The Girls (Zoe Sinclair and Andrea Blood) set out to re-invent this tradition by blending symbols, characters and cultural issues of the present-day seaside town with those of its past. We 3 were lucky enough to explore these ideas with an energetic, creatively generous team of local actors and dancers, devising the final performance piece working with over eleven extraordinary women in response to The Girls’ ideas, imagery and focus. Collaboration was the key to the success of the parade, with The Girls bringing in artists from all disciplines including Ali Sharpe who led the haunting, feral choir and filmmaker John Holman who captured our all-female troupe of artists on camera in a surreal short film, also directed by The Girls, that flickered on loop throughout the parade. In his essay Carnivalesque and the British Seaside, writer Bevis Fenner speaks of the Grand Grotesque Parade and The Girls work, highlighting the links between cultural events that offer release and a chance to invert social norms and the way in which ‘[…] the environment of the seaside resort facilitates a kind of alter reality’ where we adopt different behaviours and, arguably, other identities for a single night or an entire holiday. And, on the 24th September, that is exactly what we performers did.
As the sun slid from the sky and into the sea, a strange hybrid creature was birthed and she slithered through the streets: suffragettes in pink regency dresses and painted faces seemingly ‘swept their way to the future’ according to one on-looker, whilst a ghostly choir, sepia-stained, sang a strained and melancholic ode to the seaside. A luscious mermaid was served up on a deckchair, mistaken for an ice-cream by unthinking consumers, she was devoured before the crowds. Suffragettes transformed into zombie-hens on a riotous night out. Underground steampunks came out to play – as did other groups of public participants – their presence reaffirming the town’s creative identity and the importance of community involvement in such processional performances. Equally important is the desire to engage the public, to connect with them. Theatre is not theatre without an audience. The audience, as it is with the actors, also has its part to play. Perhaps during a processional performance, the lines between public and artist/participant become exceptionally blurred, particularly when the parade’s creative source and soul is the very town in which it is being performed. Where then, is offstage and onstage?
We all take on roles within our families and relationships, we perform niceties every day, we sometimes talk through a mask of grinning, gritted teeth, we put on a telephone voice, we act the fool, we entertain a fantasy in the private auditorium of our mind. We are all actors and audience at once. Acting and observing. From a yogic perspective, the whole of life is a huge play – Lila – the Divine Play. And through observing this, we need not get fully caught up in any drama. Yogic philosophy suggests we are all here for a reason, all performing our roles as best we can. Someone’s role is to be an astronaut, another’s role is to be a film star, another’s: a fish. Someone’s role is to act the ‘bad’ person in order that somebody else can fulfill their role as the ‘good’ person. Everyone plays their part. Arguably, these are all roles which we will drop come curtain call. In fact, it is often the passing of someone – a fellow player – that reminds us the oft-quoted truth that ‘life is not a dress rehearsal’. Perhaps like actors, those archeological experts who uncover the motivation and meaning behind a character’s thoughts and actions, we too can dig deeper in our art and in our daily lives. How would it be if, as humans and creatives, we were to act from this position of awareness? Whether onstage or offstage, there is fun and freedom to be found in realising we’re all simply playing a part, in order that we can focus on what is really important: connecting with the heart of others as well as unearthing, and then acting from, our core values and truths as we explore our role within this drama, seeing how the story unfolds.
For more information on Bournemouth Arts by the Sea Festival and a whole range of artistic treats happening right up until Saturday 15th October:
http://www.artsbournemouth.org.uk//
For images of the Grand Grotesque Parade 2011, the following Flickr accounts of Fraser Donachie and WheelzWheeler capture some striking shots:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/-phraser-/6180190549/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wheelzwheeler/6185891539/in/photostream/
Eerie live footage from Many Chef’s Broth:
http://manychefsbroth.co.uk/bournemouth-arts-by-the-sea-festival-grand-grotesque-parade
Soundscape from the parade, composed by DJ Bacon: http://www.archive.org/details/GrandGrotesqueParadeBournemouthSept2011
Joseph Kent’s article about the parade via Bhbeat.com:
http://bhbeat.com/17808/bournemouth-goes-grotesque-in-first-grand-parade-for-100-years
For Bevis Fenner’s essay Carnivalesque and the British Seaside:
http://www.thegirls.co.uk/photo_8435987.html
For further details about The Girls, artistic directors of the Grand Grotesque Parade, see:
http://www.thegirls.co.uk/
And, last but certainly not least, for a full list of the amazing array of generous and talented people who also made the event possible:
http://www.thegirls.co.uk/photo_8165759.html
...
31 Jul 2011
Artist Call-Out: Grand Grotesque Parade 2011.
We 3: associate artists for The Girls' Grand Grotesque Parade 2011... and we'd like you to join us!
Earlier this year as We 3, myself and performing artists Antonia Beck and Felicity Crabb were the odd and prodding guests of performance artists The Girls (http://www.thegirls.co.uk/) in their residency for Millais Off-Site Projects: 'The Paper Eaters Do Bargate'. We 3 experimented with notions of intimacy, with the public as our playmates, in 'We 3: Intimacy'. We donned tutus and different faces and with Post-it notes and knitting needles in hand we asked people to reveal what was in their heads and hearts - the results of which you can read about in earlier posts.
We're now very excited to be working with The Girls again, this time as associate artists on their latest project for Bournemouth Arts by the Sea Festival 2011: The Grand Grotesque Parade, a cross-artform celebration of all things weird, wonderful and wonky all with an Edwardian edge.
Insert Yourself Here:
We're currently gearing up for a rehearsal day with The Girls, the space generously provided by Pavilion Dance, for the Grand Grotesque Parade and we'd like you to join us. If you're a performing artist, actor or dancer and you'd like to be involved please click on the link below for more details:
If the project resonates with you please send an e-mail telling us why you're interested and details of your experience and/or a CV to dearwe3@gmail.com. Application deadline: Sunday 7th August. You can also find out more and contact us via our We 3 Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/We-3/232506710102320
Over the coming two months, we'll be moving from the rehearsal space to the beach and streets. We'll mix our art together, turn ideas into the manifest, move from paper and pen and pictures to bodies and costumes, song and sound as we parade through to film and final performance. Looking forward to sharing it with you.
...signing out with some extra links for you:
For more information on the festival and all the events taking place over Sept and October visit:
http://www.artsbournemouth.org.uk/And, if you're in the Dorset area, have a look at a very interesting international research, exchange and education project, HamletZar, that's coming to Pavilion Dance this month, presented by Goossun Art-illery:
http://www.paviliondance.org.uk/page/144/HamletZar-Overseas-work-in-progress/299
31 May 2011
Time for Two Lines!
May: a month. A busy month for me. This has called for curtailing, pruning or, rather, selective choosing: just two lines a day.
This idea comes from Mari Messer's book Pencil Dancing: New Ways to Free Your Creative Spirit. Here's Mari on The Two-Line Journal:
This project has been a lot of fun. Very simple. Here's my month of May, two lines at a time:
*Messer, Mari, pp. 29-30, Pencil Dancing: New Ways to Free Your Creative Spirit, Walking Stick Press: 2001.
This idea comes from Mari Messer's book Pencil Dancing: New Ways to Free Your Creative Spirit. Here's Mari on The Two-Line Journal:
This is my favourite. I've been keeping one for over seven years [...] While it takes just a few minutes to write your thought, you search all day long for that one thing that deserves saving in your journal. It keeps your creative antennae tuned [...] You can use the two-line journal to hold:
· brilliant ideas you'd otherwise forget
· short quotes and observations
· thumbnail sketches
· happenings of the day
· a short rhyme [...]
· a crisp descriptive phrase or two
[...] Knowing you'll need a line or two at the end of the day makes you more observant. Limited space makes you more succinct.*
This project has been a lot of fun. Very simple. Here's my month of May, two lines at a time:
1st
I travel back to shiny times and wish upon the stars there,
pick up the path, and from the heart, I ask the stars: Where?
2nd
Centre, better. Sea, re-see.
3rd
Arms reach up, break the surface of the day
How strange it is to move between two worlds
4th
I called up Love today.
And love made all the difference.
5th
Each day a journey to the end that is the start
Without within begins.
6th
Concrete. Walk among daisies.
7th
Coming home to yoga
Sleep sleep sleep
8th
Bitter ginger on the tongue
Overheard: And I shall say to Mary, ‘Why dunt she talk t’us?’
9th
Meditation:
The power of Creation is in the act of creating.
10th
Sellotape, Sellotape, Sellotape,
Are these really my last words?
11th
Cakes for mistake
After, empty case, all I have is my word.
12th
Dealing out smiles
And we all play Snap!
13th
Mermaid tale: tin foil scales
siren singing to chip-fingers
14th
Cough cough cardigan time,
Throat is more honest than mouth.
15th
Bathtime reminds: embryonic state
global yolk: universal union
16th
Green Bug, Eight Legs,
so small with much to do.
Thank you for taking time to come and visit me.
17th
Candles throw shadows
but I would ride my Story Horse
18th
Dolphins! Amazing!
19th
The Dance of Drowsy Woozyness,
Loose-limbed we spin and flop.
20th
Spellingis thair to be plaid wiθ
21st
Today.
Hard to encapsulate.
22nd
Grateful: I am not comatose and
I can feel my toes.
23rd
All bedecked, a ribboned room
alive with what will come.
24th
Light plays on the ceiling,
inviting imagination to join in.
25th
26th
I forgot last night, but it remembered
to turn into today
…
Silliness is best shared
27th
Chipfritter
Familytimes
28th
The metaphorical overflows into simile like wine at a wedding
29th
Eye of pine
all-seeing tree,
we squirrel away
our memories.
30th
Dolphin Boy – the human spirit:
delicately indestructible.
31st
This time, next month, yesterday.
...
30 Apr 2011
April 2011: Inspiration Alert! Imagination very alert!
In my head, this spring blog was to be about creative inspiration. However, it seems that Imagination would like a mention and some attention too, and who am I to refuse? My findings and fumble-upons have certainly brought my awareness to both notions that are new and knowtions familiar but forgotten…like an old, holey sock stuffed down at the bottom of the drawer. And so it is that odd socks I lay before you. Perhaps you will find one that matches your own (head-nod remembering) or you’ll sock-swap stripes for spots, spots for stripes or you’ll simply shut the drawer. Whatever your pleasure, here is this month’s offering:
April began. I contemplated creativity. I watched with curiosity as I diligently set up hurdles to action: “I need a good clear run at Creativity. I need hours to get creative.” I knew this was not the case, although it is arguably a view that many of us hold. Often other work takes priority over our artistic passions and when sacred space to create does appear suddenly, somehow, the hoovering or laundry demands our time. Creativity goes to the back of the line. It became apparent that April was to be a month of finding little ways to play, acting upon them and also sharing these with others. I began by observing and appreciating the small ways in which I was being creative in each day. Habitual acts became happenings and experiments. At breakfast, I became a sorceress of smoothies, swirling tastes of different types into my bubbling, speed-blended splendid pot. General cooking, too, became more creative the more conscious I was to this element within it. As did no-cooking: a raw food snack was too fun to make without sharing it online with friends:
Inspiration Alert! Try this raw food truffle treat: blend/whiz up 2 cups raisins/dried fruit with 2 cups nuts, teeny dash of fruit juice. Shape mix into small balls and roll in cocoa powder/shredded coconut! Magic! Creative and VERY tasty!
This boomerang came back as a friend in Australia, Angie, posted her own variation of this recipe:
I used dried cranberries, apricots, dates, raw cashews, raw almonds, sunflower seeds and sesame seeds! It was really, really yummy!!!
A daisy-chain of delight was forming. Another friend made the raw treats for his family. Creative acts continued. I gave flowers to the local hairdresser instead of a tip. Wonder was at work for that very same day, flowers were gifted to me too. Artist and creative adventurer Natalia Dawidowicz Mahabeer posted notes on what was inspiring her:
is also allowing me to share with you a link to her artwork online, perhaps giving you insights into other worlds or ways of being. As you open up her webpage, you pull back the curtains to a hideaway place, filled with secrets and soul-glow:
In someway, this exercise brought me closer to the imaginary friends of my childhood: a sheepdog, a pig named Figaro and small dinosaurs who were also friends with my siblings. I wonder where they are now? The dinosaurs that is, my siblings are real and their locations known. I also experimented with imagining certain people were behind the door too, which was comforting. Although a number of people commented on the activity, I’m not sure if anyone actually explored it or at least consciously so. Later that week, as I was off to a meeting, I soon came to re-see that we make up worlds all the time, and in such detail! I was certain of the scenario: I was right, they were wrong. They were opinionated, they had ‘issues’, they were blocking me, they, they, they – ooh, creatively cooking again, I simmered myself up into a right old bother. The meeting in reality: we met. All was well. The world I had imagined never existed beyond my bonce.
April trotted on and I opened up a book* and saw far more fully that the imagination is a key that can open doors to a world of liberation, even when the reality of a person’s circumstances is so horrific that most minds would struggle to comprehend the atrocity and cruelty experienced. I read of the experiences of Victor Frankl, a psychiatrist and a Jew, imprisoned in the death camps of Nazi Germany:
Except for his sister, his entire family perished. Frankl himself suffered torture and innumerable indignities […] One day, naked and alone in a small room, he began to become aware of what he later called “the last of the human freedoms” [...] He could decide within himself how all of this was going to affect him. Between what happened to him, or the stimulus, and his response to it, was his freedom or power to choose his response.
In the midst of his experiences, Frankl would project himself into different circumstances, such as lecturing to his students after his release from the death camps. He would […] give his students the lessons he was learning during his very torture.
Through a series of such disciplines– mental, emotional, and moral, principally using memory and imagination– he exercised his small, embryonic freedom until it grew larger and larger, until he had more freedom than his Nazi captors. They had more liberty, more options to choose from in their environment; but he had more freedom, more internal power to exercise his options.
Author Stephen R. Covey suggests that Frankl used the human endowment of self-awareness to discover ‘Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose.’ He also notes that the other uniquely human endowments within that freedom to choose are: imagination, conscience and independent will. Covey argues that these ‘[…] lift us above the animal world. The extent to which we exercise and develop these endowments empowers us to fulfill our uniquely human potential.’ Frankl’s strength, great heart and empowering choices in such degrading, apalling circumstances, arguably demonstrate just how powerful a tool the human mind is and how we can choose to use the qualities and gifts we have been given as humans, for good.
Although we humans may be very different to animals, aspects of our nature are not far-removed from our brothers and sisters, the beasts. Sometimes I like to think of the mind as an energetic sheepdog. We can keep it content, healthy and bright-eyed if we put it to work well, have it jump the agility circuit, run in wide, open fields to return home exercised and fulfilled. Or we can stay at home and watch as it chews the table-leg and become neurotic, barking as visitors walk through the door. Bear with me as I tell you about an uninvited visitor who did not enter through the door this month. Imagine: I am home alone. It is one a.m. and I am woken suddenly by
heavy breath
door flung open
window open
heavy breath
I FREEZE
bedroom door open
bedroom window open
heavy breathing
someone is in the room
a man is in the room
standing in the alcove around the corner
from my bed
I can hear him
heavy breathing.
Panting, panting
exhausted from his climb.
Any moment, he’ll make his move.
In the shadows
I can see him
greasy hair, stained sweatshirt, baggy clothes hang off him.
I grab the glass from beside the bed, ready.
Do I run?
Am I fast enough?
Street below: male voices shout
my slumber-encumbered brain shouts
What is going on?
Heavy breathing
now wheezing
wheezing
turns to
whirring
whirring
motorbike revs up and
revs off
voices leave the street
The Intruder leaves the room.
My imagination
is panting, panting
heart fast
still afraid
very afraid
of the never was.
Too shaken to sleep
I stay awake.
For some reason I
imitate his breath
to check it sounded as real as it sounded
which scares me even more.
Heart fast.
Stop imitating. Switch landing light on. Close window.
Just in case.
The next day I decide, once and for all, it is probably best that I put my active imagination to good use.
…
How would it be if each of us were to take responsibility, gently, quietly and triumphantly, to observe our thoughts and watch where we let our mind-puppy wander?
By wandering on my own this month, I have also re-realized that that which we put our attention on, really does grow. It’s time for another Inspiration Alert! Time to take a Flower Walk:
Pick a route, ideally a route you’re familiar with – that way you can really enjoy seeing it anew. If you have a camera, bring it along, if not, blink your eyes and use the camera of your mind, sniff what you see and store this in your scents memory. As you walk your chosen route, mindfully bring your awareness to each and every blossom and bloom you come across.
It is springtime here and the trees and green friends are displaying their finery for us. On my flower walk, I stepped out with a woody ones in mind, en route, that I knew were veritable pompoms of pink and white. Even before I’d reached the main road, I saw weeds sprouting hello halos of gold petals, I spied a bank of daffs I’d previously bustled by. No more than a minute passed before I paused to sniffseesnap what was before me. I was surprised to see far more flowers than I imagined I would. What you focus on, you see more of. Simple as that, if we can remember. With my eyes wider and mind more open too I walked back home and I started to see people as flowers. Some, seemingly flourishing in the sun, others, with petals shaking, clinging on to their inner and outer stalks of support. How humbling and heartening that we are as nature is; all of us in need of the right soil, light and shade. Humans as flowers: achingly fragile and boldly brilliant by turns. May you spot blossoms of all sorts and species on your own flower walk.
And should it seem a little tricky to see the sparkle in each day, here’s a happening that will make your heart smile: the 365 Grateful project. In 2008, Australian Hailey Bartholomew, was feeling really down. She consulted a nun who was also a life-coach and counsellor. The nun suggested that the secret to happiness was reflection and gratitude. The nun asked Hailey to write, each night, something about the day that she was grateful for. And this grew into the 365 Grateful project http://365grateful.com/original-365-project . You can view Hailey’s gratitude photos via:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/poppysmiles/sets/72157604663676256/ . It is a testament to the project’s positive power that people all over the world have since created their own gratitude projects because of it. And so another daisy-chain of delight grows around the globe.
This month, may you see those ever-present treasures that call for your awareness. May you bring your attention to blessings, find the real in the unreal, and reunite with long-lost socks.
 |
| Spring Flower Walk: Hello Halo |
21 Mar 2011
Change: Brace or Embrace?
Change
February has changed into March. The tiny tight bud changes to sweet breathe-easy blossom just as wrapped-up Winter changes to open-arms Spring. Change is inevitable. Change can be deeply shocking and devastating as we have seen this month in Japan. This certainly puts smaller changes into perspective. But those small-scale subtle changes still exist, from changing your clothes to change in your pocket. This post is an exploratory creatory meander into what change might be, asking how do we view it, approach it, embrace it or brace for it?
 |
| At a local cafe |
Having asked lots of people, grown-up and small ones, some I know, some I don’t, I’m offering here a scrap-book-blog of thoughts and creative words and some interesting links. Feel free to add in your own via eblogger.
Paragraph change. Ooh, no, let’s have a font change! A dear friend, Caitie, wrote to me about changes and movements within her life, she also wrote of the changing of the seasons in her home state of Michigan:
Do you know what a chinook is? --- the warming winds that can melt snow rapidly and drastically raise cold wintry temperatures? -- well. We're having that today. (Have you seen the movie Chocolat? mm. I love it! -- you know when a certain wind came, the mother always knew it was time for a change) ---The chinook is a blowing and it's feeling true. Time for change. Sometimes February and March are kind of harsh. Blowing and pounding and snapping and cracking and pushing away anything that is weak or dead. Yes it's harsh. But then I remember it's to make room for what wants to live. and it needs to make room for April. ... for "La Primavera..." (the first green) ah si?
Which inspired me to doodle down this poem:
Michigan
Michigan
The Mitten State
its mission statement
blow brittle winds
bitter
knowing best
branches bend in recognition
they break their bones
ready for the reincarnation
particles that once were other
always all
all Om
now heed the winds of change.
Us, heads bowed
bustling through
busily avoiding winter
we’d break our bones to cheat
reality
clinging to trees as the wind shoulders past
picking up existence as it goes
because the first green is coming!
Make way! Make way!
Primavera
Springtime
she sashays in
petals rustle as we breathe her in
she promises so much
her warmth and smile
beguiling us.
…
And just as we experience weather in the world, we can also experience weather in the heart. When change is mentioned, the emotions can really come into play depending on how much we’re attached to life as it is or our vision of how we think it should be. In yogic terms, these attachments or aversions are called Kleshas and it is through the Kleshas that we arguably, ultimately create our own suffering. We may either yearn for change or see it as something to fear, our attachment or aversion to change can dictate our reaction to it. I read an interesting article on change, from a yogic perspective in Yoga Journal (http://www.yogajournal.com/wisdom/1769) Another friend, Tim, described change in a very visual way: change as the undercurrent of the sea, ever present, something we can either swim against or choose to accept and enjoying swimming in and with.
One reason I’ve been pondering change is because my partner is overseas and will be for a fair wedge of time yet. My heart does not think this is much fun. Even though my heart has been informed about the Kleshas. So here’s a poem about change and a moment.
In between
I changed the lightbulb today
in our room
the dimmer switch did not concur.
The light
flickers.
I turn it up
its wattage highlighting
your absence from
our bed.
I know. I know,
you are not far.
I know.
I wear
your pyjama bottoms
not your top
so it still smells of you
75 watt bulb
brighter
dressed in black
their silhouettes
may be similar
but they are not the same.
You awake at first light
while night falls here
And in the flicker
flicker
in between
we meet.
….
The winds of change. Time for change. A change is as good as a rest.
So they say. It would seem to serve us well to accept change exactly because we can’t stop it. A young boy and also a grown-up, Melena, both told me that it is best to adapt to change. That is, after all, evolution. Change happens, we change, we grow, inside and out, we evolve. Or is there an alternative? What is the opposite of change? The Same? The thesaurus tells me changes antonyms are to: hold, keep, remain, stay, constancy, invariability, monotony, permanence, stability, uniformity.
Stability brings me to another connection that, as synchronicity would have it, came to my attention from three separate sources, a Yogic text, a book on personal development and the website of writer-psychologist Christopher Coulson: thegiftedway.com. Christopher’s blog, most recently, seems to explore how he navigates a different emotional terrain as he adjusts to the huge change of moving from Tulsa, Oklahoma, back to Bournemouth, UK. Both Christopher and the other two texts mention Maslow’s Pyramid. This pyramid suggests that a person’s basic needs must be met before one can focus any energy (or is that be open to allowing the flow of energy?) that enables one to live in a self-actualized way. The real stability is within, but in order to nurture inner stability, it seems it is vital to cover the basics of external stability, food, shelter and so on. I really enjoyed Christopher’s blog, so I urge you to take a peek and ponder onwards.
A group of primary school children I have been working with generally had mixed feelings about change, perhaps because stability is more important to them at a young age, or perhaps, they were being more open about fear of change than most adults are. But, when asked to imagine a world without change, the children grew contemplative. A world without change, for most, was not an inviting prospect. If we look at the antonyms for change, we can see a possible pattern: stability morphs into invariability which gives way to monotony. And so lack of change can result in a stagnant state. And so, perhaps, not only is change inevitable, but it is also necessary:
Some striking, rhythmic lines come to mind, from a poem written and performed by Julie Cartwright and Bryan Thomas of Vita Nova writing group; it is well worth catching at one of their new writing scratch nights in Bournemouth (www.vitanova.co.uk):
If nothing change, then nothing changes,
Everything stays the same,
If nothing change, then nothing changes,
Everything, everything stays the same.
….
And it is so true. If nothing change, then nothing changes. I met a young man on the beach today, he spoke of change as inevitable and, if we don’t engage in it and hold a positive vision of change in our lives, we can slip into negativity, into being ‘stuck’ and feeling powerless amidst change. Or perhaps it is just the way we’re looking at it. How liberating when an internal shift creates a change in perception or approach that allows one to see the same situation with new eyes and, from that more easeful, comfortable state of acceptance, change often naturally begins to flow.
Today the sky was blue and without clouds all day. I noticed more people out and about in more daring less-layers ensembles, more runners by the sea, more flowers on bushes and grasses and more smiles on faces. More openness. It really is as if everyone was opening anew under the sun. Emerging from their own personal winters into spring.
To keep that inner blossoming alive in me, I write, I engage in little creative projects which connect me connected to my source, inner self and others, either online or in person. It might be insightful or just plain joyful for you to do the same. Do you know how our loved ones feel about change? How about strangers? Maybe your words and interest will act as sunlight and encourage a blooming in their chest too. And a big thank you to all those who kindly shared their thoughts on change with me (and now others too!), your words and engagement: rays of light. And, for your collective eyeballing pleasure, I’ve asked my neighbour if I can photograph the changing bulbs on display in her garden. So I’ll happily share their growth this month - such a soothing activity, simple, creative, pleasurable and it reassures my heart and head that time passes. ‘Time passes no matter what we think of it’ a wise friend once said. And so, too, change comes.
 |
| Day One of Street Springwatch! |
 |
| Dusky Yellow |
 |
| Out She Peeps |
 |
| Night Growing |
 |
| Yawning Yellow |
 |
| More Friends |
 |
| Calling More Friends |
 |
| Glorious! |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)