Today, I thought I was going to write about being so incredibly isolated by ignorance and resistance to know the truth about one's self and the world we each live in. About being the daughter of a parent who has always been mentally ill and never had the where-with-all to investigate this fact for and about her own self!
I thought I was going to bemoan living in a house of people, so resistant to knowing the broader world around them and to more openly sharing any differences at all that over time, sharing living space has begun to
feel to me like being entombed alive! Yet instead, right now, what I believe I am recognizing is a greater call for me to outwardly express the compassion that is within me with a lot less fear. Even so, it isn't any easier to write than it is to put into action! I am shaking as I write this recognition.
Even in the recent past, I can attest to being totally uncoordinated about how to go about addressing this inner recognition_ but today is the first step to doing, being with and in life all differently. Differently, I do dare say for all of us human beings really!
I am an artist and I know that out of chaos comes creativity. As a human being I know I can come across as not being friendly-like in the soft and fuzzy ways of say, the mainstream mothering female archetype. My own daughter grew up saying, "I am the only one who knows how nice a person you are!" Call it the successful conditioning of fear. I am still a social geek even after all the years of therapy. Twenty years ago, I needed what crazily turned into too much social isolation, to start this big work in my own life in order to feel safe within from the former terrors that were childhood_ he-e-e-y!
To this day my sibs seem to only remain emotional enemies; resistant to mutually clearing up mis-defined family "reality" that only continues sadly instead, to be fierce. Pride dies hard, hard, hard.
Yet, even as I have hooked your curiosity to the universal commonality in my story_ I turn instead, because it is more important, to walk out onto this US socio-economic landscape to testify. I believe that in the bigger picture of life, my social return to community is timed right! My child is doing a fine job in the world even though there were many time that I was treated as though kids raise
themselves! You know, grow up in a vacuum for crying outloud! Afford your own sense of recognition is really where we are going...
The real point in writing today then is about:
I - M - A - G - I - N - A - T - I - O - N!
I
know my fair share about imagination and how to continuously use it well, as my life has been nothing short of endurance (like the races) without the support of commonality from family and friends for over twenty years now! As a result, I offer a sensitivity that allows me to see
how soft many folks have become; how much the mind/intellect has been allowed to run rough-shod over "reality." Reality, you do know this one too when you let yourself! It's the stuff that shows up at the front door of your life without an appointment. Life, not appointment calendars filling up the years of living. No! No! This is not a cliché! In the big picture, I am pointing to TRUSTING your own self to be good enough to be loved, that you are already loving and that we each really are loveable.
In this economic fallout right here in the good old U.S of A., love really is the heart of the matter now! So, I am talking to everyone like the artist. Don't walk away, don't even steal this idea. Let your vanity retire from believing it is in charge. Really, now is the time to self-examine_ not to be targeted but to truly, undeniably hear our own individual and collective truths.
One truth being: we have more in common with one another than not! One of the great truths that has been run over and left for dead on our community and national social highways.
MORE in common
WITH one another,
THAN NOT!For example, we all really do have more of our basic humanity in common with the mentally ill, the socially ignorant_ plainly, plainly, plainly then, there is more to learn from one another. MORE to observe, taking sentimentality out of observing as much as possible_ only, as much as possible. Sometimes it is simply not possible_ this is part of what makes us human. We are connected... we are connected. We are all connected. No one is left out. No one. Can you really hear this yet?
Artists of all stripes, are you hearing me?! Right this minute I am saying: speak to your truth. Stand naked in this world! Lift everyone up by your commitments to truth, love and freedom. Make art that does not only sell, but rather art that also openly risks telling us again what our collective truths are, about love and freedom! We are a country of human beings who have the greatest opportunities to advance, to evolve in many, many spontaneous, subtle, nuanced, empowered ways! Speak to these truths_ NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE, OR WHAT YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES_ speak to your own capacity to speak in trust of your best possible self_ using the medium that you love best!
Weave our differences together now in new harmonies, in new color combinations, in more poetry, theatre, dance, sculpture, paintings, movies, books of risk! Do what the great predecessors of our industry left to us_ to show others what they resist doing for themselves: to see! To hear! To taste! Touch and be touched in self-respect and safety. Speak and be spoken to, in self-respect and safety! We all flourish like the flowers_ with enough sun, clean soil and flowing water. Dig deep within all you artists and show us this! In this land of the free we have been very free to whine and fight like the spoiled brats this nation has allowed itself to be portrayed by_ long enough!
The mentally ill have dignity. The socially ignorant have dignity_ there is human dignity in all; great capacity for polish, for development_ to embody our own possibility. Reread, "The Agony and the Ecstasy!" Remember Martha Graham’s great quote, about each doing one's own work in this world while we are each alive here?!
What does it take for us to be brave enough to know we are alive while we are here? Many will talk a blue streak about being alive but are nonetheless still asleep for one reason or another. Wake them gently. Ask, what does it take to reach each human being where
they are? Put the ego to the side to navigate this set of creative considerations. Then who is actually left out of the call to consider
how to respond? Artists show everyone how. Then each one can look inward and collaborate, to creatively speak to what human challenges are at hand in her and his own best ways_ together!
This is the time of artists of all stripes, all mediums and all considerations.
So, we believe that we do not have money in the same ways we are conditioned to believe in currencies of exchange_ create new conditions for transaction! Create new community currencies! New inter-community currencies! New national currencies!! Come on now, all you artists! Shake this up! Examine value! Examine self-value! Make people happy! Make the environment around you friendly. Lift families to feel safe. Let the children tell us what we are missing; what we are not paying enough attention to! All is NOT doom and gloom_ ask what are you agreeing to?!!! Choose! Choose! Choose! You are free to choose! You are free to slow down! Eat more homemade! Make more homemade! Share! Potluck! Visit! Consciously notice!
Ask yourself, ask each other what (you) are really doing? Really listen now. THIS IS truly more a time to relax_ to reconsider. This is a great time to back up and re-access what is working and what collectively and individually we can afford to shed now.
All of our young people need time and space. They are missing that
and many do not even know this! Let them make mistakes in order to learn and develop their own creativity!! Let them have their own creative time and space to grow and develop! Remember having this kind of wealth?! Space and time.
No more isolation for anyone!! Shake it up! Mix it up! Talk! Dance! Make music! Move your body! Write! Tell us poems! Show us theatre! Show us movies! Be openly, self-respecting every step of the way! Reveal new ways of being non-reactively courageous in this life!! OF MOVING BEYOND REACTION CONSCIOUSLY.
For the truth in all this economic downturn is: there is a new paradigm of creativity in seeing, in thinking and in doing in this world that is upon us all.
YA-ho-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!!!
