Something happened in Andrea's class this past Wednesday. We were working on a simple diagnostic of our breathing and how we use the breath to communicate. She was touching my solar plexus and looking me straight in the eye as she explained to me that I either didn't give enough breath to carry my intention to my intended target, or that I was straining to send the message; that there was no ease to my speaking. In that moment, certain circumstances of my life, which I have recently been dealing with all came to a fine point. I had a sort of epiphanic experience where many things suddenly became clear to me.
I realized that there were some rather old wounds that I had thought long healed that had perhaps not mended properly; I had felt my problems had been allayed, but like a broken bone that doesn't stitch properly, I had come face-to-face with the realization that I was, intact, perhaps still not well. As she continued on to work on my classmates, I watch, and wept with the ideas that were now swirling in my head. I tried to set it all down to be digested here, but ended up with far too much to publish in one go. This is the beginning:
Many, many years ago, perhaps about a decade ago I was fortunate enough to come into contact with something that really changed my life.
I was free-floating outside of high school, working a job and more than a little upset at the then-recently changed standards for acceptance into university. I had only applied to two colleges my senior year at Casa Roble: UC Davis and UC San Diego. At the time I was finishing high school I was interested in pursuing psychology as a major and, confident in myself, only thought to apply to the two schools. I got into neither and thus started my journey through the wonderful adventure that was community college. Everything happens for a reason; I was instructed in both the arts of disappointment and humility. I was also introduced to ideas of traditional religion, which would be something that would forever alter my outlook on faith. In my studies, at the time, I found that many traditional peoples practiced religions that had striking similarities in their make-up. Almost all of these belief systems had a shaman or a kahuna or a medicine-man or a witch-doctor, a person who could channel spiritual energies for the purpose of healing the bodies, minds and souls of the people under his or her care.
During this time, I was fortunate to discover some people who had dabbled in what might be called the mystic arts. They can be particularly hard to find because, as it has been explained to me, one can rarely find a person with shamanistic ability by merely asking around. True Shamans will never proclaim their prowess to people-at-large because it is seen by the spirits as a form of pride and an insult to the greater powers beyond. Tricky stuff. I was learned in the beginning practices of taking spirit journeys and the ability to begin to communicate with animal spirits and achieving a more fluid transfer into an astral state.
I was intrigued at the time by the relation, as it seemed to me, to modern day psychology; holistic healing and practices like hypnotism. At the time there was a continuing growth in the idea of the mind's ability to help heal the body, positive thinking; breathing; spatial awareness; biorhythmic connection... that sort of thing. And as I became involved in the theater again I remember learning how a tribe's medicine-(wo)man was also a keeper of oral lore and would often be turned to for stories. I started thinking about the role of the story-teller; the actor as a spiritual healer. It was then that I first started to form my personal opinions of the importance of theater in our society. The stories that can be told have the power to inspire thoughts; discussions; revolutions but also have the power to heal the souls of the people that witness them. I feel certain that you, reader, have had at least a few of these experiences watching a television show or a film or a play... perhaps a piece of music that communicates something that eases the soul of trouble. The theater has the potential to transform into the hospice of the weathered soul. This possibility, this aspiration is what keeps me coming back to work in this medium. I didn't take the path of the medical student; I'll never be a doctor of medicine. My ability to treat the wounds of the body will always be rather limited, but if I could help people to find a way to nurse the wounds that we cannot see, I could consider my life worthily lived.
A kahuna once shared with me a story that I, in turn, shared with my acting class in my final year at CSUF and I now share with you:
The kahunas of Hawaii teach that a soul is like a bowl, a wide-mothed vessel, that contains the light of the human spirit. Every event in a person's life has the ability to shape them and also can leave a stone deposited in the bowl. If left unchecked, these events can leave so many stones in the bowl that the light has trouble being seen, for the bowl will brim with stones leaving the light covered. This is why it is important to frequently cleanse the soul. One must strive to pluck the stones from the bowl so that the light is not covered or worse, extinguished (which is soul death).
Shamans, being practitioners of soul-care, are supposed to be finely attuned to themselves as well; for how can someone weighted down with stones ever hope to help an other person to liberate themselves from their burdens? Much like shamans, I suspect that in order for an actor to be able to channel what is necessary to tell stories that could possibly heal the hearts of the audience, (s)he too must, at the very least, be aware of his or her own struggles in order to be that pure medium.
I realized that, in me, some of the old hurts had left their mark on me physically and were impeding me from communicating effectively. A spate of awareness took me by surprise and I realized my bowl may yet be full of stones I thought long discarded, and the light that I saw might be a diminished light that my own eyes had simply grown accustomed to. Wednesday began the examination of the landscape of my own heart and mind.
"Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
-R
I realized that there were some rather old wounds that I had thought long healed that had perhaps not mended properly; I had felt my problems had been allayed, but like a broken bone that doesn't stitch properly, I had come face-to-face with the realization that I was, intact, perhaps still not well. As she continued on to work on my classmates, I watch, and wept with the ideas that were now swirling in my head. I tried to set it all down to be digested here, but ended up with far too much to publish in one go. This is the beginning:
Many, many years ago, perhaps about a decade ago I was fortunate enough to come into contact with something that really changed my life.
I was free-floating outside of high school, working a job and more than a little upset at the then-recently changed standards for acceptance into university. I had only applied to two colleges my senior year at Casa Roble: UC Davis and UC San Diego. At the time I was finishing high school I was interested in pursuing psychology as a major and, confident in myself, only thought to apply to the two schools. I got into neither and thus started my journey through the wonderful adventure that was community college. Everything happens for a reason; I was instructed in both the arts of disappointment and humility. I was also introduced to ideas of traditional religion, which would be something that would forever alter my outlook on faith. In my studies, at the time, I found that many traditional peoples practiced religions that had striking similarities in their make-up. Almost all of these belief systems had a shaman or a kahuna or a medicine-man or a witch-doctor, a person who could channel spiritual energies for the purpose of healing the bodies, minds and souls of the people under his or her care.
During this time, I was fortunate to discover some people who had dabbled in what might be called the mystic arts. They can be particularly hard to find because, as it has been explained to me, one can rarely find a person with shamanistic ability by merely asking around. True Shamans will never proclaim their prowess to people-at-large because it is seen by the spirits as a form of pride and an insult to the greater powers beyond. Tricky stuff. I was learned in the beginning practices of taking spirit journeys and the ability to begin to communicate with animal spirits and achieving a more fluid transfer into an astral state.
"Sanctified by their initiatory experiences and furnished with their spirit guardians, the shaman alone among human beings is able to consciously travel into the spiritual worlds as cosmic explorers."
-Dr. Hank Wesselman
A kahuna once shared with me a story that I, in turn, shared with my acting class in my final year at CSUF and I now share with you:
The kahunas of Hawaii teach that a soul is like a bowl, a wide-mothed vessel, that contains the light of the human spirit. Every event in a person's life has the ability to shape them and also can leave a stone deposited in the bowl. If left unchecked, these events can leave so many stones in the bowl that the light has trouble being seen, for the bowl will brim with stones leaving the light covered. This is why it is important to frequently cleanse the soul. One must strive to pluck the stones from the bowl so that the light is not covered or worse, extinguished (which is soul death).
Shamans, being practitioners of soul-care, are supposed to be finely attuned to themselves as well; for how can someone weighted down with stones ever hope to help an other person to liberate themselves from their burdens? Much like shamans, I suspect that in order for an actor to be able to channel what is necessary to tell stories that could possibly heal the hearts of the audience, (s)he too must, at the very least, be aware of his or her own struggles in order to be that pure medium.
I realized that, in me, some of the old hurts had left their mark on me physically and were impeding me from communicating effectively. A spate of awareness took me by surprise and I realized my bowl may yet be full of stones I thought long discarded, and the light that I saw might be a diminished light that my own eyes had simply grown accustomed to. Wednesday began the examination of the landscape of my own heart and mind.
"Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
What follows is still to come.
-R
No comments:
Post a Comment