Category Archives: improvisation life

May23

theurgy

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The Orion Nebula

Pam sent me this word for the day:  Theurgy, meaning “the working of a divine or supernatural agency in human affairs.”  This image of the gorgeous Orion Nebula captures for me the wild, unknowable nature of the divine and how it can reveal itself in our lives.  Within this “cavern roiling dust and gas where thousands of stars are forming,” is something more – the inescapable need to accept what is beyond my grasp, my control or understanding.  I love and hate that. Mostly I love it, because it leaves open the doors for what I cannot predict or manage on my own and for support from the unknown.

Theurgy also means “divine working,” meaning (from Wikipedia) “the practice of rituals, sometimes seen as magical in nature, performed with the intention of invoking the action or evoking the presence of one or more gods, especially with the goal of uniting with the divine, achieving henosis, and perfecting oneself.”

In Toronto, a Tibetan lama is saying a puja for our daughter.  He has given us a chant to say for her:  Om banja guru path ma siddhi hung.”  In Virginia, our telepathic friend is checking on her in her dreams.  In Kauai, our astrologer is helping us understand this terrible darkness and where to look for light.  Here at home I am burning a candle, bowing down, breathing, smelling the last of the lilacs and waiting for the irises.

Today, my words from the universe from TUT were, “Beyond your greatest fear, Paula, lies your greatest gift.”  My greatest fear has happened.  So perhaps now, my greatest gift is coming.  What could that be?  Something clothed in love, in forgiveness, in understanding, in compassion, in hope.  Tucked at the bottom of that same email was this:  “And your greatest gift, Paula, is the example you become.”


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May18

galaxies, collisions, spells & love

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When I first met my daughter at an orphanage in Kathmandu 14 years ago, her head was cropped short against lice, as were all of the children’s.  When she turned her head I could see that she had a double whorl that looked a lot like the two colliding galaxies above.  For no particular reason, I thought, “Hmmmm, complex.”  I was right.

I was thinking about her, not the overwhelming complexity of what she was bringing with her, the galaxy of her traumatic background, her early profound losses, long years in an orphanage and her fragile sense of herself and her own self-worth.  In the exuberance of mothering, loving, nurturing, we did not focus on the scars.  We saw a valiant, brave, inquisitive, beautiful child.  We talked about her past when it came up, had therapy when it seemed appropriate, but did not dwell on the trauma.

In four billion years, the Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way will collide.  Astronomers also speak of them as merging or interacting.  They will become one massive thing.  From what I understand, both galaxies are strong and fully formed, so the collision will transform them, but will not destroy them utterly. Apparently the bigger Andromeda will direct the action.

When the unconscious past – in the form of old traumas and losses – rises up and collides with the present, the possibilities for destruction and transformation are both there. When galaxies collide, the starburst results in the birth of numerous “young, hot blue stars.”  However, only the very brightest and largest clusters are capable of surviving the galaxy collision, the numerous smaller clusters are destroyed by rapidly changing gravitational forces.

So we pray that our daughter is one of those bright and strong surviving clusters.  But we are seeking help.  Our Tibetan friend, Phuntsok, is asking a Buddhist priest to cast a “mo;” a divination tool used to determine possible future outcomes.  One of its uses is to help cast out evil spirits or lift an evil spell.  There are 36 possible outcomes with names like “the demon of afflictions,” “the overflowing jeweled vessel,” “the nectar-like medicine,” and “adding butter to the burning flames.”  The one that I am hoping for is “the jeweled banner of victory” and I plan to use “the great fiery weapon” of my love to move in that direction.

But really, it is up to her, this decision to move toward recovery and health, or to stay in the world of Mara.  In Buddhism, Mara represents the “unwholesome impulses, un-skillfulness, the “death” of the spiritual life. Mara is a tempter, distracting humans from practicing the spiritual life by making the mundane alluring or the negative seem positive.”  This reminds me of my favorite fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson, The Snow Queen, in which an evil mirror created by trolls shatters, and the splinters are blown around and get into people’s hearts and eyes, making their hearts frozen like blocks of ice and their eyes see only the bad and ugly in people and things.  When a splinter blows into the eye of the little boy, distorting everything he sees and freezing his heart, only the tears of his sister can rinse out the splinter and melt his heart.

So, galaxies, demons, divination, fairy tales, prayers and love.  Mostly love.  Always love.

 

 

May17

thank you universe

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Flocculent Spiral

Today I learned that I had been awarded a Connecticut Artist’s Fellowship in Choreography.  A friend suggested that I apply and so I did. The news was wildly unexpected and appreciated.  A blessing and a strong beam of light pointing forward.

I used to depend on on raising money from foundations and corporations along with bookings to support my dance company.  Fundraising was a constant, teetery dance, a bizarre mazurka with changing partners and alliances, all danced on an uneven floor.  It was also a contest of endurance, persistence and grit.  Then the economy tilted even further, shifting away from public funds for smaller, independent artists, moving toward the safer zone of funding big companies and institutions.  I was tired of expending so much energy on the fundraising, and proportionally less time making work, along with the politics, and what could feel like the creation and maintanance of relationships for gain. I am speaking for myself here.  I am sure that is not everyone’s experience. Real friendships did bloom, tender roses in a field of weeds. I still treasure those friendships – all of them rooted in a deep passion for dance and respect for the dancemakers.

So why the galaxy image?  Initially, I thought that this picture was of the Andromeda Galaxy, but it turns out that it is something called a flocculent spiral – a stellar nursery – which “plays a pivotal role in the evolution of galaxies and it is also in the earliest stages of star formation that planetary systems first appear.” I like that because it is about beginnings and what looks like cooperation.

So I am thinking about relationship and inter-dependence and cosmic support and stuff like that.  I am thinking about John Cage, chance and quincunxes (fated events).  And I am feeling how the small events, like receiving this blessing, are part of a bigger phenomenon that holds us all together as we grow, each in our own unique and meandering way.

And I am appreciating.  Thank you universe.

 

May11

midlines

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Sensing and feeling the mid-line can be a challenge when most of us feel out of kilter and out of balance a lot of the time.  A couple weeks ago my lovely Amadeo had a nice big buck while I was riding.  I was feeling fragile emotionally, and so not quick enough to come up out of the saddle to protect myself.  The result: a coccyx sprain.  I walked around feeling rotated, disconnected and fragmented until my next osteopathy appointment.  It was frustrating and interesting to feel that off my mid-line.  Andy Goldman, my osteopath, encouraged me to ride my mid-line in sync with the mid-line of the horse.  So on my next ride, I paid attention to my newly centered tailbone, feeling it connect to the horse’s tail, and sending my energy up my spine through the center of the occipital ridge while seeing/feeling the horse’s poll.

The result was a surprising deliciousness and sense of connection and balance in the ride.  I also noticed that Deo’s crookedness tracking right was connected to the way I close the space between my right shoulder and sternum (shifting my mid-line too far to the left), effectively closing the door to his ability to open to the right!  When I opened that space, with a feeling of widening and softening, he began to straighten and soften!

Revelations!

Then today, while coaching a performer (the lovely Sari Max), I asked her to notice her mid-line with a couple somatic exercises of moving away from and then back onto a centered mid-line.  Then I asked her to move from lying down to standing pausing along the way to look at where her mid-line was in that moment,  The result was that her movement from floor to standing was beautifully effortless and grounded.  Then we took that same sense of mid-line into the text of the play, connecting a physical sense of center and balance to the emotional through-line of each line.  The result was a deeper authenticity and groundedness in the language and movement.  Brilliant and transformational!