a writer friend of mine.
One of my best and most wonderful friends in the world is a writer and has an incredible, new-style family, mixed with 2 mom’s and a dad who is incredibly present, but only physically there several times a year.
All three members of the family are writers, and the mother is someone I follow consistently. Her words never cease to inspire and amaze me.
The most recent post on her blog is one I feel very compelled to share with all of you:
http://mamanongrata.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-will-i-dance-now.html
Please take the time to read it as I feel it is very important we are all aware that things like this continue to happen.
What is suppression?
Why do we insist of the mundane of beige same-ness in order to make ourselves feel complacent?
Where did the celebration of something evolved, different, or simply honest go?
My heart aches for stories like this. Since being in Prague, building this play with all the people I am working with, I have had the honor of watching some of the most amazing and honest expression i have seen in a long time. The people I am working with are people who understand what it means to know themselves, to be and feel alive in their imaginations, and go wild with it.
The show we created is an example of all our wild ideas combined. The music, the dancing, the costumes, the story, the purpose are all things that came collaboratively and organically out of each of us sharing and expressing ourselves.
I learned, very obviously, that I have such an intense fear of being honest in this way. it is so interesting, because this is how I used to play. My best friend Jenny, my brother, and I would spend day after day calling each other different names and seeing the lamp posts change and morph from light sources in the literal sense to magnificent jungle trees. I brought this imagination and expression to my work, and so I was successful. I built a life and a career around make believe, around sharing my insides with the outside. But somewhere in the last 10 years, I feel I have been lost. I feel I have ignored the value of my own internal representation. I chose to follow the rules of what is wanted from me rather than step to my own rhythm.
Consequently, I lost a part of me. A huge part of me. My sense of my self.
Insecurity abounds.
But in this last week, I have been surrounded by examples of artists that dance under the magical jungle trees until the wee hours of the morning. Artists that laugh at their failed ideas because they see it as the valley leading up to a mountain of inspiration.
My muscles are sore and my skills are atrophied, but I am so excited to get back to the practice of honest expression. I look forward to the film I am doing in June and I look forward to taking all that I have learned thus far on the journey back to Clark and Lois. I am grateful for the way lessons are taught in this life time. All you have to do is listen.
watch and listen.
impress and express.
think and create.
be joyful and grow.
evolve and dance.
xo
a
Tags: Acting, career, creating, honesty, imagination, loving, suppression, taking a stand, Violence
when we are honest…
I have been having the coolest experience with respect to honesty. Everything is so much better when you take out the bullshit. Things actually surface and you can see yourself, your true self, for what and where you are.
I think I am only now beginning to understand the joy in self-empowerment. The intense value in owning your own shit, and then making the necessary choices and steps in overcoming whatever struggle you are having in the moment.
It is incredible how quickly we can grow and evolve when we remove all our lies (including pride and ego) and actually put effort into building an honest sense of ourselves vs. clinging so tightly to the masks we wear that we can’t even see through the peep holes.
Wow, the result of honesty? Deeper and better everything. Who would have thought?
xo
a
Tags: ego, honesty, pride, self-empowerment
