Jumping for Joy: Child's Play and Exuberant Aging

Today is International Childrens' Day. Where is this celebrated? I never have heard of it. But children are so worthy of celebration and care, every single day. Every one of us was a child once. What do you recall about your childhood? The things I remember with the most joy are picking blackberries with my mother and brother out in the country, lying on the beach in the sand and playing in the ocean, and walking in the fields near my aunt and uncle's dairy farm.

In ordinary life, it seemed to me that adults often paid very little attention, being weighed down by their various concerns and responsibilities. There was one adult who was different. We kids called her The Beauty Lady. When she walked down the street, she always seemed so happy. As she passed us in our play, she paid attention to each of us. None of us was accustomed to getting that level of attention often. She made us feel as if we were special, as if our world was thoroughly engaging.

Yesterday I was out in our small yard potting some flowering plants and heard two children on the other side of the fence. I'm sure they were looking at me through the fence slats. Then there came a friendly "Hello, we see you." "Yes," I responded, "that's because I'm here." "We found some pretty things on the ground," said a little boy's voice. We want to give them to you."

"Well that's nice of you," said I. And then I saw the fellow's hand and arm coming through a hole in the bottom of the fence. "Look, here they are. Aren't they pretty?" They were lovely-- small smooth ovals of glass, some clear white and others pale blue. "They are very pretty and I will put them in among my flowers," I said to the young chap.

"Look, here I am," he said as his head and shoulders appeared at the top of the fence. "Oh, look at you. You climbed up." He was totally dear. I never got to see his much quieter sister. And soon some other adult was shooing them away. "Get back where you belong," she said, constraining their enjoyment in a way that I remember well from my own childhood.

Children deserve celebration, love, and a world that supports the emergence of their unique gifts. They deserve a world that recognizes and appreciates their beauty and allows them to bloom and ripen fully. A Russian girl is jumping for joy in the photo that ornaments this post. May children jump for joy, and in their jumping bring joy to others.

I am still hobbling along mending my fractured foot bones. Even though I am not jumping for joy physically, I feel exuberant. Exuberant, a word whose roots mean abundant, fruitful, unrestrained. I am invisibly jumping for joy. Why? First, being alive. Then the blessing of passionate creative engagement. Piercing beauty everywhere. The transitory, finite nature of everything. And all this gives me a rather no holds barred style these days.

The other evening, I performed characters, songs and scenes from my musical play A New Wrinkle for a packed room. My collaborator composer Laura Rich presented with me. She sang Sex after 60 and Why My Grandma Belongs in the Elder Hall of Fame. I sang Hip Hop Elder's Rant and Baba Yaga's Raga and shared the lyrics to Are You Gonna Take it with You to the Grave? It was invigorating. I am looking forward to doing more performance events. So far, I have three scheduled, all in Ashland.

Performing is something I really love. I also love writing very much, but it is so solitary. Singing, chanting and storytelling is so different. Performance engages something very different in me. There is a wonderful energetic exchange that happens with the audience, too. I learn a lot from that. I know that performing is something I am meant to do at this time in my life and I'll write more about it as my performance schedule develops.

I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to do what I love. What makes you exuberant? What makes you jump for joy?

Portrait of the Artist at 69: The Happy Hobbler's Story

Yes, I am now hobbling without a wheelchair or walker. This is the 8th day. Someday I will be able to take a real walk or even a hike egads, but for now the marvel of being able to carry a cup of coffee upstairs or to carry a bag of groceries to the car is my celebration.

I had an appointment with Gary Einhorn, my business consultant at the Small Business Development Center yesterday. I've been acquainted with Gary for over 20 years. I started consulting with him in January when I realized I needed more support and business expertise in order to womanifest my dreams. Our 1-hour appointments are great fun. He reads the minutes from our last meeting and then I recite the litany of my current efforts, usually with many addendums and diversions. We have spirited conversations about art, people and growing a business venture.

I report that I'm getting ready to do an evening of characters, songs and scenes from my musical play on aging A New Wrinkle at Peggy Rubin's. (That's tonight!) My collaborator Laura Rich will present with me. She's bringing a drum and a guitar. We've never performed or presented material from the play together before.

Do I know who is coming? Well, the attendees from the
Center for Sacred Theatre workshop will be there for sure, and I hope playwright Dori Appel comes, and poet Robert McDowell, and dancer Robin Bryant who is supposed to be arriving with Julie McDiarmid, board president of the Arts Council of Southern Oregon. Angie Thusias, my old friend who invented Kentro Body Balance, has said she's coming. Otherwise, I have no clue. Gary says he thinks he will attend. That will be wonderful, I tell him.

No, I'm not nervous. It will be great.

Aside from that venture of this evening, there's the two choral pieces from the play. I want to get one of the local choir directors interested in supporting the rehearsal, recording and performance of those two gorgeous choral pieces.

Also, I am inventing fliers for 3 more performance gatherings I've scheduled so far in June and July. One will be at Melanie's at the end of June. It will include Ancient Voice, a form of wordless improvisational singing and sung poetry, transformational real-life stories, and a couple of songs or excerpts from my play. The other two events, in July, will be like the one I am doing with Laura tonight at Peggy's --They will focus on A New Wrinkle--one evening at Tangren's, the other Rob and Rochelle's. There's work to do to prepare guest lists for each of them.

No, I haven't heard from theater producer Peter A. yet with his feedback on the script. No I haven't heard back from Jim G. or Tammy M. yet. Gary tells me I need to find people to intercede and act as a bridge at times. He relates how he did that in his own natural foods business when people did not return his calls. Someone told me I had a hard sell/soft sell approach, he says. Just keep at it, he urges me.

There's a lot more to keep at. Raising $5,000-$8,000 to produce the play for instance. Finding other venues for performance gatherings in other cities. Doing a virgin voyage of a new workshop on creative aging. Checking out how to connect with Kickstarter.com and Fracturedatlas.com regarding raising money and finding a nonprofit status specially devoted to supporting artists.

The list-- like the beat-- goes on. Gary as usual looks at me with a smile and tells me "Well there is a lot going on!" He summarizes from his perspective the high points and main characters and sets out some action items he suggests I follow up on.
I'm glad to have this relationship as a support as I develop my work.

Metamorphosis. The progression from one stage or form into another. Change. Growth. Transformation. Emerging. Flying. Communicating. Sharing.

I'm looking at my little vision book, which is not yet half-filled. It contains images and words that encourage me. I've turned to the page where dear Carolyn Myers has written on a birthday card from 2009:

"Ride high! Write on! May all your pigs fly! May the ageist populace flee or convert!" On the opposite page is a rubbing of a hag who could be Baba Yaga riding a wolf.

Another person, Jane from my Artist Conference Network group has written:

"Gusto, humor. Sink your teeth into this potent, unarticulated subject and make us look."

These love notes inspire my momentum, especially when I feel a bit weary. This morning, I am not weary. I am quite happy, even though hobbling. I am looking forward to this evening.

Originality and Origins

"Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary."--Sir Cecil Beaton

This is a quote I certainly can relate to and a sentiment and way of life I have believed in for many years.

Lately, I found myself thinking again about originality. Those contemplations soon led me back to memories of my 17th year, when I resolutely presented myself as a non-conformist to my high school classmates. I wore black, refused to salute the flag and espoused bohemian sentiments like those expressed above by Sir Cecil Beaton. I must have been quite convincing, because many of my peers believed I would be honored as the class valedictorian. They were very surprised when my scholastic average placed me modestly right in the midst of everyone.

My classmates connected my originality with studiousness. But my non-conformist posture had nothing to do with hitting the books, even though I loved reading and learned more from my own studies than from the ordained curriculum, such as it was. Which was often quite irrelevant and uninteresting. With non-conformity, I was taking a stance in favor of independent thinking/learning and the value of the life of the imagination. In that way, I have not changed much.

I think about originality, the pursuit of which is something so peculiar to Western culture. "Insist upon yourself. Be original," Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote. People are naturally original, left to their own devices. But are we left to our own devices? I mean the devices of imagination, leisure, creative expression, contemplation, in fulfillment of what is original in us.

"Originality consists in returning to the origin," the architect Antonio Gaudi once said. After all these years, I begin to experience that more fully. As Gaudi explained, originality is returning through one's resources to the simplicity of earlier solutions.

Earlier solutions, the glints of which were there all along from the very beginning. Perhaps much earlier, out in the timeless, free of the constrictions of logic and history and education.

At this age, I am free to be the woman I have become. I no longer struggle to be original or repress my originality. I am just being myself, natural and easy. No big deal really.

Given all that, there is still plenty of reason to refine and learn. Which brings me back to You Tube-- my new artistic medium. Now I would like to get really sophisticated and creative with You Tube-- and I certainly am in my imagination. Yet my limited ability with the darling little Flip Cam and editing protocols make my brief productions extremely naif--translate primitive.

In Artist Conference Network, a coaching community I belong to, this would be noted as a "story." And it is a story. Fact is, I love doing the funny homemade Flip Cam clips, and if I keep at it, I will learn more. Or I could magnetize a marvelous human being who loves what I am doing, has video skills and wants to do the darling Flip Cam clips him/herself. I am putting that on my list of things to womanifest.

Today I did a short interview with Laura Rich, the composer with whom I've been collaborating for months. It is #3 in the Sage's Play/A New Wrinkle series. I feel glad because I completed my three-month goal for Artist Conference Network to post 3 video clips on You Tube! The latest clip doesn't seem to be posted yet, but it will be soon. (I can't attach a link in other words, but you can show your curiosity by searching for it! Or not, depending on your inclination of course.)

What are you up to these days? What is inspiring and challenging you?

Reaching for the Moon

Full moon time again. This marvelous photo is part of a series titled Moon Games that photographer Laurent Laveder created using his children as models. I highly recommend that you take a look at what Laurent has done at Moon Games. The images are quite magical and I imagine it was a lovely experience to play with one's children and the moon at the same time.

We've all dreamed of climbing up to the moon at times, haven't we? I know I have done my share of it. When I was a child, one of my favorite occupations each month was kneeling at the window, resting my arms on the sill and gazing out at the full moon and stars late at night when everyone else was asleep.

We humans have been moon gazing for a very long time. There's something about it that stirs and revives us. Of course, that inspires art, whether it's Laurent Laveder's photos or haiku by the famous Japanese poet Matsuo Basho (1644-1694). Here are three of my favorite Basho poems about the moon.

The pine tree of Shiogoshi
Trickles all night long
Shiny drops of moonlight.

Among moon gazers
at the ancient temple grounds
not one beautiful face

Spring too, very soon!
They are setting the scene for it --
plum tree and moon.

Have you ever written haiku or other forms of poetry about the moon? Do you reach for the moon from somewhere deep within yourself? What does the full moon mean to you?

Meanwhile the sun is rising outside the windows with an orange glow. Yes, spring is certainly arriving here in Oregon. Violets, daffodils and even some early tulips ornament the landscape. The hills are green again, even though we still could get more snow in the mountains. Each spring, completely fresh.

Full moon gazing and springlike appreciation-- and on a practical level, the next two weeks will be busy ones in my casita. Composer Laura Rich and I just had our second run-through of the songs in A New Wrinkle. It's great to hear them, but there is still more work to do to get the singers comfortable enough with the material to warrant recording the songs. I'm also rewriting the script of the play some. We're still revising some of the songs, too. So there's all that regarding the play.

This week, I am beginning work on what will be a series of video clips for You Tube that will document the process of creating A New Wrinkle (and other creative ventures from Sage's Play.) I am working on putting the first three of these clips up soon. It's playing around with a Flip Cam and so far has been lots of fun.

In addition, I'm moving in mid-March. The move is not a big one geographically. I will still be in Ashland. But it entails all the usual packing, so my place is now filled with empty boxes and packing material and the piles of filled boxes increase each day. I will be sharing a home with my friend Louise Pare. I'm looking forward to it.

And check out the trailer for this documentary on women artists, "Who Does She Think She Is?" Although women comprise more than half the population, it is more difficult for them to succeed as artists. If they are raising children, that demands a great deal of creative attention and rightly so. Even those without children encounter the prevalent assumption that all the great artists are men, and the cultural bias toward art created by men. I am looking forward to seeing the whole film.



That's the full moon news from my neck of the woods.

Opening The Doors and Windows

“Our senses are indeed our doors and windows on this world, in a very real sense the key to the unlocking of meaning and the wellspring of creativity.”--Jean Houston

The Muse and the creative inspiration she embodies is not tidy or convenient. It's important to keep regular work hours and invite her to visit you then, but she may choose to visit you at odd hours or unlikely places, too. That explains why I woke at 2:30 AM with the sound of various songs from my play going through my mind.

Yesterday I attended the first run through of the songs in my play with four singers and a very good pianist. Composer Laura Rich and pianist Darcy Danielson took charge together, and I mostly sat and listened, and sometimes got up on the pretext of turning the heat in the hall up. I really wanted the chance to walk a little as I listened to some of the music. It was sometimes a big experience to hear it, and walking helped me to hear and integrate the sounds I was experiencing.

Reclaiming Old, the first song the Chorus sings brought tears to my eyes. I loved what Laura did with it, bringing something gentle, powerful, dissonant at times, loving and elegiac. What a process. The singers learning their parts together, me hearing where they stumbled because the lyrics were too heady or compressed, and noticing their delight and appreciation for what was being communicated in the songs. That kind of response came especially during the Reclaiming Old piece, the Scintillating Secrets of the Older Brain, and Sex after Sixty. Witnessing their response to the songs was like having feedback from my first audience in a way.

Still work to do of course. Lyrics and music are not done, but are in a process of development. This is just the beginning of opening this particular door, sharing what has been a collaboration between just Laura and I with a wider circle, then wider and wider still, opening the door to refining the songs and dialog in the play, opening the door to more actors, singers and musicians, to productions, to audiences.

"Imagination is the beginning of creation," George Bernard Shaw said. "You imagine what you desire; you will what you imagine; and at last you create what you will."
In that process, the Muse appears, gives you one of her incandescent looks or touches you with her incandescent wings and you find yourself going out beyond yourself into that beautiful place where what you are creating is no longer merely you. Opening the door to the transpersonal, the universal, the canto hondo, the deep song.

I had a wonderful astrological reading in December with Vedic astrologer Dennis Flaherty. One of the things he talked about was "getting into the river of what inspires you." That's what I am doing these days. That is how I want to live this part of my life.

The beautiful image included in this post is a window somewhere in Portugal. It rejuvenates me. There are many evocative doors and windows ready to be opened--the door of the senses, the door of the imagination, the door of the heart, the door of one's deeper dreams and purpose. What doors and windows are you opening now in your life?

In the Midst of the Music

When I saw this image I couldn't resist it. Just look at those two, transported through their music into such visible pleasure, right there on the street. I wish I knew what they were playing at that moment. Are they in Italy or France? I can't decide. The photographer is from Italy, so probably they are Italian, too. I don't know about that, but what I do know is that they are in the midst of the music. And that is a good place to be.

We are quite literally made of music. From the music of the spheres, the celestial unstruck music, the primordial Sound, our physical world precipitates from resonance into more solid form. No wonder music transports us, releasing and refreshing us.

Well not all music you may be thinking. Not heavy metal, or whatever it is for you. But for those who love heavy metal, it invigorates and opens new vistas.

I love so many kinds of music--Indian ragas, native American flute, Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, Brahms Requiem, that marvelous Bulgarian womens' choir, the lambent flames and flowering of some gypsy songs. BB King, Etta James.

The liturgical music of Tibetan Buddhism brings me to great openness. What music transports you, and where/how does it send you?

Today, I am celebrating because I have finished writing my musical play A New Wrinkle! How am I celebrating? No formal feast has come to mind as yet, but I am sure it will. For now, right now, this is my celebration, to breathe in and out, feeling the fingers moving quickly on the keyboard, transmitting thoughts from my mind into words, in the stillness of early morning. In the midst of the music--as if we had a thousand years, as if we were to die tomorrow.


The image of street musicians is by Italian photographer Fabio Gismondi via Flickr

Baba Yaga is My Homegirl

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” --C.S. Lewis


I guess I am qualified, because Baba Yaga, the Russian fairytale hag, is my homegirl. The Urban Dictionary defines homegirl as "The girl who's always there to talk to and who can talk to you back about all kinds of stuff. You've been through a lot together." And that sure applies to Baba Yaga and me.

I'm already on close terms with Coyote Woman, who is mythic and often mischievous. Now Baba Yaga has appeared, too. Perhaps I should be concerned to be associating with them this way. But I'm not. Nothing like a Kali type figure to stir things up. And Baba Yaga is that, an archetype that moves between the visible and invisible worlds. She's a crone, a Black Goddess, a dark woman of knowledge. She can be a bit dangerous and unpredictable.

When I began writing A New Wrinkle (a musical play on aging, which you may have already heard me say) I was looking for a character that could take part in the action in an unconventional way, without being affected by or caring about what anybody thought of it. I wanted a character that could move between ordinary and magical reality. That's how Baba Yaga showed up. Well, actually, who knows how she showed up. This stuff comes in via the Orphic Radio.

And she has done a good job of playing her part in A New Wrinkle. As an additional bonus, from hanging out with her so much for months, I have developed my inner Baba Yaga!

Wishing you all a new year full of joy and adventure.