Chasing things just beyond my understanding

I stumbled down a delightful digital rabbit hole yesterday. It started with a Kickstarter campaign that an acquaintence from college had posted on behalf of his friend, someone I didn't know at all. Her project is called the Poetry Pilgrim Project -- said simply (perhaps overly so), she's going to walk across the country and collect people's stories. If you visit her site, you'll see that she describes it all in words I could never muster myself, and the meaning in them is right on the edge of my understanding.

When something is well beyond my understanding, I usually get bored by the unattainable mystery of it all. When it's well within my understanding, I devour and conquer and move on without thinking too much about it.

But when I read something that is right on the edge of my understanding, describing things that I know I've been feeling and noticing but not being able to communicate myself, then I sit at attention. My brain, who wants to describe and record and understand, says YES THANK YOU MORE PLEASE.

I tried reading more by the Kickstarter lady, but it was too far beyond my understanding. It did, however, lead me to a heartbursting love-blooming dazzling made-me-feel-as-if-I'd-come-home website. The cynic in me laughs as I write this, but it reads to me as if Jesus himself had a website. This woman is so warm and heart-centered and so full of prana that her love has the power to travel right through the internet tubes and into my face! That's some powerful love.

The things she writes about are also just beyond my brain's understanding, but my heart reached out for it and was like THIS THIS THIS PLEASE. I have been in a sad and weird time of spiritual dormancy and confusion and disappointment recently, but this was the impetus for an Easter/vernal equinox-style reawakening for sure.

I am so grateful for and so terrified by and so skeptical of the mysteries of life. There is a major voice in my head that brings me down about all this and says this stuff is crazy. But what I really want is to know love in a major way. Maybe being crazy just comes with the territory.

A piece of my upcoming grant proposal

I have been blessed with an opportunity to apply for an invite-only grant via Theatre Bay Area. The grant asks a lot of great, personal questions about who you are as an artist, what you believe and why, and gets you thinking about what, specifically, you need in the next 12 months to keep going.

The following is what I wrote in the "why I do what I do" section. This hasn't been polished yet, but I'm proud of it and I'd like to share as-is. I have felt pieces of this idea just beyond my consciousness for many years now, but I've never been able to put it in words before. I'm grateful to TBA for giving me a push.

Storytelling is mankind’s greatest resource. In storytelling lies our most accessible connection to our past, and our best chance towards reaching a positive future. It is, in the words of the religious practice that I’m most familiar with, “the truth, the way and the life.” 

Other organisms may have the ability to relay information, but only humans use stories to keep lessons logged in our group consciousness over time. We have been doing it for tens of thousands of years: long before recorded history began, the aural tradition passed down stories from one generation to the next.

As I see it, in the beginning, there was something like a first story, which has yet to be relayed in its entirety. We have spent our whole collective existence trying to pass the story along, through religion, novels, plays, opera, dance, and more.

(A simple 2-minute game of Operator can bungle a sentence; imagine how much worse it might be for an entire story, over ten thousand years, transcribed and then translated into hundreds of languages.) 

The message has surely been obscured, and yet there are some indications of what the first story must have been, most clearly in the presence of archetypes. Over time, stories’ characters have become less obviously archetypal, and the number of methods by which we transmit stories has increased, but we are still passing down minute pieces of the wisdom contained in that first story.

Each time we share a story, we etch some piece of that first story deeper into the collective human consciousness that spans all time. In the fullness of time, all will be revealed and mankind will have finally relayed that first and only story to itself. 

Every storyteller has her own innate strengths. Mine lie in music, spoken text, and writing. I feel that I can make the most of this lifetime, and bring my storytelling as close to the truth as I’m able, by focusing on those and supporting them with other practices that I’m not as gifted in (e.g. dance, clowning, yoga).

In telling stories as well as I’m able, I’ll bring mankind one step closer to collectively understanding the truth we are all so desperately seeking to hear again.

Waiting For The Fat Pitch

My husband Matt introduced me piece of baseball jargon that I love: the fat pitch. In baseball, a fat pitch is one of those {haaaallelujah!} moments for the hitter, 'cause he knows he's gonna connect with that ball and knock it right out of the park. They say the ball actually looks bigger or 'fatter' as it's coming towards him.

In life, Matt and I use the term to mean those opportunities that come your way where the stars all align: it fits your goals, it utilizes your strengths, and it's a great networking opportunity to boot. You connect with the opportunity, and you -- wait for it -- knock it out of the park!

I got some bad news this week about a couple of potential performing opportunities. I really wanted these roles, and I over-hyped myself. I was really proud of my work at each callback, and when I didn't get either role, the tapeworms of jealousy and self-doubt (you know, those parasites living inside each of us that just love to feed on bad energy) had a field day!

I got myself all tied up in knots, but fortunately I have re-centered (at least for now), and I'm realizing the benefits of having an unexpectedly open few months. I get to take on more work at my day jobs. I get to spend more time with my family. I get to focus on the acting goals I made just a month ago.

Waiting for the fat pitches can be totally frustrating for me. When you're searching so desperately for them, they are harder to see. You see what you want to see, and you miss out on the truth.