What are we fighting for?

So two weeks into rehearsals for Trailer Park and I still am amazed at the difficulties of being a human being -- our bodies and souls are such precious cargo and we fight tooth and nail to protect ourselves from outside hurts. All of us put up such walls to keep others out, but we just end up lonely and tired and tense on the inside -- all that effort, and what gain?

Of course this is all tongue in cheek, foot in mouth, humble pie on plate because I feel these very challenges so acutely. Shoot, I have trouble painting a true feeling word each day in my journal. The hesitation between picking up my brush, dipping it in ink and then hovering -- poised over the page -- illustrates my very disconnection from myself. I keep hoping for greater flow. I've started wetting the paper before applying ink so that I can let things drip and run down the page. I've used hairdryers, gravity, my breath, agitation -- anything to move the ink around and try to shake up the things inside me that hold tight instead of letting go. All of this played out on the page, in the hopes that the journal art-making will prove to be an efficacious process.

I used this movement technique at rehearsal last night:

Kept em agitated, moving -- ceaseless running around and gyrating and unadulterated grooving to shake the true voice out of folks. Know what? It worked. Always does. It amazes me how gratifying movement and vocal release feel as opposed to the typical sit still, remain stiff, closed jaw stance that most of us assume 99% of the time.

I have always wondered what it would be like to walk around with a personal masseuse for a week; That every time you started accumulating tension, someone was there to correct you. I shared the cellular yielding exercises with the cast last night. I hope they take the time to read and ponder -- but just in case they don't, I'm using a bit of the technique with them coupled with the "masseuse for a day" idea. A little lying on the ground, head release, cranial sacral, toes kneading the shoulders, hands jostling upper chest and neck tension goes a long way. I remember thinking when I first got the Dove Sono that if I could convince "Bob" to do that for me that the progress would have been infinitely simpler and quicker. It's nice to be able to "gift" that to others.

Just letting someone hold your head. It is so peaceful -- so perfectly heavenly but yet such an act of trust. It is a true gift they give you but one not easily won. I'm going to continue meeting with folks and doing the "headwork" required to loosen up the body and free "the voce".


____________________________________


Meanwhile...I need to find my "Slovenka." Sometimes I wonder if by releasing others of tension that you begin storing it in yourself. I need to find a way to process that out. Maybe some big "found object canvases" outside would do the trick. Some full bodied, "em bodied" painting and musical expression may be in order next week. Some Passionate Art to celebrate Passion Week at work. Hmmmmmm.......