What a character

Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Alan. Noi. Lid. Joan. Marilyn. Rebecca. Tal. The character study acting class. Deborah and Abby, too. My passport, expiring 2029. The Conifer Cafe, tamale and egg with green chili. Ode, trippin’ thru Colorado. Psilocybin spores. On their way. Happy Camper. How do I feel. Or, personal inventory. The amphitheater at CBE. Finding a hermit character. Stretching the Self. My son and his wife. Murdoch. My dishwasher. Refrigerator. Induction stove. Sink. Solar Panels. Mini-splits, heat pumps.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Being There with Peter Sellars

One brief shining: We sat in a semi-circle in the social hall of Congregation Beth Evergreen the Rabbi’s son teaching us to move as an ensemble, to balance the space, and how to sit with a cracked egg running down our head loosening each part of the body it touched, running our tongues around our mouths to taste our last food, sniffing trying to smell ourselves, putting our hands on our knees to notice how it felt to the touch, listening listening listening as usual I could not hear much, finally opening our eyes and seeing something we hadn’t seen before looking looking looking closing our eyes and drawing it in our mind’s eye a Lee Strasberg exercise outside the usual Stanford Meisner work Tal prefers.

 

Yes. Back at it again. Acting class. Third one with Tal. I skipped the Winter semester. This one is character study. Met Noi a local artist and photographer. Lid, who identifies as non-binary and has their happy place in a city park in Nebraska. Alan is in it, coming in a bit late and when asked what his happy place was said having breakfast with Charlie. Joan Greenberg, the author of several published novels including her most well-known, I Never Promised You A Rose Garden. Like Alan a long time member of CBE. Rebecca a former oil and gas lawyer is also in the class as she was in the two other classes I took. Deborah and Abby also in the class were not there last night.

At some point we all have to pick a character. Tal last night went through archetypes often used in playwriting classes: the Caregiver, the Hero, the Sage, the Jester, the Outlaw, the Ruler, the Member, the Lover, the Creator, the Explorer. Alan would like to study Lear. I’m interested in a hermit character, a Chinese scholar/sage type. Wanting to explore myself and my current situation. Might work this character study into my planned Crossing the Threshold ritual on October 8th.

These classes push me into a different place. More emotional. More thoughtful about my body as an instrument of artistic expression. Into the Charlie who took many theater classes as an undergraduate. Who did modern dance. Acted in high school and seminary. Who went with the family to Stratford, Ontario many summers to Shakespeare on the Festival stage. Who had season tickets so many years to the Guthrie. All the memorable performances there. A place of modest discomfort sometimes. Growing edge.

BTW: my happy place is my home.