A Mini Online Artist Retreat Week 2
Welcome Meditation Week 2
Let’s close our eyes.
Focus in on your breath: watch the breath enter the body. Feel the coolness of the air as it enters the nostrils and feel the warmth of the air as it leaves your nostrils.
On every exhale, allow your body to drop more deeply into the support underneath you, spreading your toes, widening the feet and feeling the floor, the earth underneath you. When feeling the earth, give thanks to the First Nations Peoples of Australia. who have looked after this land, for 10s of 1000s of years. Enormous gratitude and respect for the worlds first story tellers.
And as you sit today, bless those around you.
Metta
Loving Kindness Meditation embraces unconditional love for all peoples (Sharon Salzberg)
May I be safe.
May I be healthy.
May I be happy, and
May I live with ease.
Blessing your loved ones:
May you be safe.
May you be healthy.
May you be happy, and
May you live with ease.
Blessing the difficult people in your life:
May you be safe.
May you find happiness.
May you be well, and
May you find peace.
And blessing all of those in war zones and unsafe places:
May you be safe.
May you be healthy.
May you find ease, and
May you find peace.
As you travel through this mini retreat, remember that you can always come back to a quiet time with eyes closed, feeling the floor, the earth underneath you, the support at your back. And the delight of your breath.
NOW, LET'S CONSIDER YOUR STORYTELLER-AS-ARTIST
WHO AM I?
When I think of young theatre makers, I am in awe. They are taking on the world. And I am also in awe of those more experienced performers/makers who are still at it, despite the difficulties, the challenges, the lack of opportunities.
You are the future storytellers of our world.
You dear ones have all been given the task to shape what will be.
Do not underestimate this power.
Do not take it lightly.
I must tell you, I didn't have this insight as a young artist.
I seem to remember that all I was interested in was working hard, training my body, and training my voice.
My inner philosopher was still very small.
It didn’t take up much room inside my 17-year-old body.
But she has grown since then, through the decades, as I learned to juggle ego with soul, and motherhood with the demanding gods of creativity.
Throughout these decades, my greatest teachers were my 4 children, who challenged me daily, and the acting students I worked with for many years.
I watched the artist grow inside them and learned what would inspire and light up their world.
Did I succeed?
Well, perhaps, sometimes, I did.
I hope so.
I do know this. I have come to realise that as artists, we need to lean in on each other. Just like family. Welcome the challenges, inspire each other, and care for the little things.
To nurture yourself in these dark and uncertain times, you must turn your back on individuality and work side by side. Supporting, leading, and following each other. It is your peers that will define your future; your relational being needs to be strong.
Prop each other up when necessary and sit next to each other when required.
Embrace your vulnerability, not your “fake it till you make it”.
There is no room for fakery in this one desperately beautiful life.
Show us how to deal with our broken world.
Write the stories that change your DNA, and in turn your audience.
We are edge dwellers who can see beyond the status quo.
Our job is to offer alternate ways of being, yes, challenging, not easy. Sometimes ambiguous and always mysterious.
As artists, we learn to live with uncertainty. We must hold on to courage as we ask questions that perhaps will never have answers. But we ask them, because it is the questions that move us into exploration and discovery.
TASK 1: THE BEAUTIFUL QUESTION THAT SITS AT THE TIP OF YOUR TONGUE…or DEEP IN YOUR BELLY
IF YOU HOLD AND SERVE THE QUESTION, UNTIL ALL AMBIGUITY IS RAISED AND YOU REALLY BELIEVE IN YOUR QUESTION, IT WILL BE ANSWERED; THE BREAKPOINT WILL ARRIVE WHEN YOU WILL SUDDENLY BE ‘READY’. THEN YOU MUST PUT YOUR HAND TO THE PLOW AND NOT LOOK BACK; WALK OUT ONTO THE WATAER UNFIMDFUL OF THE WAVES
PEARCE, (1971, P. 108)
As artists, we never stop asking questions and we never stop our training. We begin in an institution or a school, and as the years pass, we engage in various programs to enrich our practice, all the while with an awareness that as theatre makers, we are given the gift of expansion, and with this gift, we have a responsibility.
Huge responsibility.
We are responsible for asking the right questions so that we can shape and nurture our beautiful, wounded world. Many resist this view because the myth of the artist often centres on the self: my body, my voice, my strengths.
I come from the School of Social Constructionism. While Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am,” Ken Gergen offers, “I relate. Therefore, I am.” We are only as powerful and as strong as our neighbours, our friends, our colleagues. And together, we question and reflect on what is going on in the world.
We are, if you like, the lens through which our audience experiences hope. We want to create stories that nurture, that provide alternate paths forward, that make the familiar unfamiliar. that cause us pause. And we do this by using the language of the body, the voice, and the space to challenge our audience's perceptions. to challenge injustice and champion inclusion.
Yes, we do all these things, and to do it with honesty and an open heart, we must know ourselves so that we can ask the right questions.
How do we get to know ourselves?
Through contemplation, through generosity, and through saying yes to the mess, and engaging in joyful adventures both within ourselves and without.
Artists, we need to dig deep.
To step into a deeper way of life, where we are no longer needing to acquire ‘things’ but rather experiences and ideas.
Society is driven by acquisition, and capitalism is based on lack. “We need to buy this, then I'll be happy. If I do this, then I'll be able to... etc., etc., but what if we stepped away from this idea of ‘not enough’ and lack, and began building on the wonders that make up our lives? The philosophy that enriches the soul? Philosophy sits at the very centre of our lives, and helps us answer the questions about who we are and who we are becoming. We all deal with this question, or questions, this artful question, this shimmering question, that sits within us, moving us forward. Dag Hammarskjöld expressed it like this:
I am being driven forward
Into an unknown land.
The pass grows steeper,
The air colder and sharper.
A wind from my unknown goal
Stirs the strings
Of expectation.
Still the question:
Shall I ever get there?
There where life resounds,
A clear pure note
In the silence.
(Dag Hammarskjöld: in his book Markings, 1963)
This question could perhaps answer the existential problem of existence.
EXERCISE: Think of a question that you have been grappling with…for me I find it by exploring the niggling ideas that stay in my head. Write it down, and then talk to it through expressive writing. Write for 25 minutes, and when the writing stops, write “What I really want to say is…” (borrowed from my notes from Natalie Goldberg’s workshop, NYC, 2005), and keep repeating this until you can no longer help but write some more. When you have finished, stand up, and read it out aloud. Note the phrases or words that stand out, and also write what surprises you in the writing.
Thank you for turning up to Week 2.
See you next week,
MARGI
