Shakespeare Moments
“Let’s go in.” At the close of most Shakespeare comedies and romances, everything seems solved and every one has arrived at a place where she (or he or they) is ready to begin a new life. But first it’s vital to say again and again and maybe again exactly what happened to bring them to this precious place of resolution and new life. One of the characters will say the equivalent of “Let’s go in and tell each other the story again so we can catch up on everything that’s happened since the play began,” and sometimes way before that.
Going in is a fascinating process. When Shakespeare’s characters speak about it, we in the audience may picture them as gathering at a feast perhaps, each one regaling another with the story of what occurred from her/his particular point of view. And knowing how families and friends love to reminisce about special times in life, surely this gathering is one which they will remember in the days to come. I always imagine their lives from this moment on being marked by the memories of this watershed event. Those moments are particular – before this moment I was someone I knew, after this moment, I am becoming someone entirely new.
I am imitating this beautiful Shakespearean process with the motion of “going in.” I am taking a substantial pause in the life I have lived to this moment and having no idea who is going to come out the other side of the story.
The Long Table of Communion
One of the images that came to me as I envisioned this year was The Long Table of Communion, a symbol that contains all the people, creatures, incidents, events, and ancestors who make up the aggregate of who we are. Sitting down to commune with each means reviewing relationships, making amends, closing accounts, bringing things to current status – a kind of soul-level bookkeeping.
And who knows what happens next?
Hafiz as a Model
Another image I received as part of the plan for the rest of my life, was to become more like Hafiz, the heart-stopping poet of love who says the only God to worship is the one who says, “Come Dance With Me.” Hafiz’s name means “The Memorizer,” so this is a year to memorize favorite poems and songs. In Islam, Hafiz is also called “Tongue of the Invisible World.” Thus my “Going In” will demand listening deeply to the invisible, and beginning to write what comes.
New Printing of The Book
Thanks to you for buying so many copies of the Sacred Theatre book, To Be and How To Be; Quest is ready to reprint. One of the wonderful reports I have received from friends is about their joy in using the book as part of the study in circle meetings. That seems to me to be a marvelous way of honoring one’s own life and experiencing the way the great play reverberates in the lives of cherished friends. I would love to hear other ways of using it. The glorious Elaine de Beauport has said that it could be used as a kind of psychological development textbook.
The Journey Begins
On April Fools Day, 2011, my traveling sabbatical starts. Over the past weeks, whispering calls have been arriving from countries I want to visit or revisit: Ireland, Israel, Ithaca (Greece), Spain, and Italy. So I strike out on April 1, driving across the country to teach a class with Jean Houston for Wisdom University (April 10-15) at the Garrison Institute in Garrison, NY. That class is on Women Mystics, and I am fascinated and delighted with the subject and the opportunity. Then I’ll visit friends and attend Jean’s Mystery School session also at the Garrison Institute, April 29 to May 1. Then I am getting on a jet plan for my first stop: Dublin, Ireland. We’ll see what unfolds during the coming months.
Journey Ends
If it works out with Pat Heck and Patti Kaufman, sponsors of New Jersey Sacred Theatre, I expect to be making a “report on my travels” to sacred theatre friends and players in Ocean Grove in October.
A Year for Joy
Inspired by the poets who attend Jean Houston’s Mystery School and the beauty they create each day, I am happily compiling a book of Meditations from a Mystery School, based on the Path of Joy, and called A Year for Joy. Each month of the year is forty days long, and each is named for one of the steps on the path of joy. Each day of the forty contains a wonderful poem written by one of the Mystery School poets, and includes an invitation to respond to the day’s inspiration with you own writings. The brilliant graphic designer and writer, Trish Broersma, creates a gorgeous PDF and also a word document for each month. If you would like to participate – or just receive – each month’s offerings, here’s how: send an email to trish@greenhorsegraphics.com and request that you be added to the list of those who receive A Year for Joy.
Intermission for a Website
While I am away, and while I am enjoying this year of sabbatical, most activities are “going dark,” as we say in the theatre. Come the fabulous year 2012, things will light up again.
