SALON 22: Invitation to a Dance: Khayelitsha
GREETINGS! PLEASE WELCOME
OUR SALON HOSTESS,
LAVON RICE.
FEEL FREE TO JOIN IN
AT THE COMMENTS SECTION.
CURRENTLY IN SESSION:
DECEMBER 3 - DECEMBER 17
Invitation to a Dance: Khayelitsha
"Africa has been waiting, for centuries, to be discovered with...the eyes of a lover."
--Ben Okri
And can the lover ever see anything from the outside (discovering, as if from a distance)? No, the lover zooms in with her camera, and we are made intimate with every pore of the beloved. How the beloved holds her pen ransom, rapt and writing. How she casts a bright green glance somewhere.
How does the lover learn how to see? Slowly. It takes time to caress, to hold the warmth of images. It takes a lifetime, really—and if you don’t have a lifetime to spare, then do not call yourself lover, artist.
Stop, listen: the blare of headlines--Africa: famine, civil war, blood diamonds!--drown out the sweet nothings whispered by the women and girls of Khayelitsha. Where they fall, inexplicably, in love. “Women and girls dream there,” asserts Joylynn Holder, director of the to-be-released feature film, The Only Road to Khayelitsha. It’s where the main character, the young Thuli, writes and dreams—in Khayelitsha, the largest black township in Cape Town, South Africa.
Although Thuli is a fictional character, the issues explored in the film are based on the very real stories of women and girls from all of South Africa’s provinces. The human rights organization Treatment Action Campaign, the co-producer of The Only Road, provided the interviews that inform the film.
But Holder had no interest in mere reportage, and neither did the women she talked to. Instead: poetic verisimilitude. News reports and documentaries only about the woes of South Africa have been done (and overdone), she believes. The women interviewed—even as they battle poverty, sexual violence, HIV—want poetry. A film that doesn’t reduce them to the size of their suffering. To be seen whole, panoramically.
“They don’t want a sob story,” says Holder, who adds that it’s often Westerners that are more paralyzed and hopeless about the conditions in South Africa than the people actually enduring the conditions. The women have hope because they can’t afford the luxury of despair….
"They don’t need rescue," continues Holder.
But Holder had no interest in mere reportage, and neither did the women she talked to. Instead: poetic verisimilitude. News reports and documentaries only about the woes of South Africa have been done (and overdone), she believes. The women interviewed—even as they battle poverty, sexual violence, HIV—want poetry. A film that doesn’t reduce them to the size of their suffering. To be seen whole, panoramically.
“They don’t want a sob story,” says Holder, who adds that it’s often Westerners that are more paralyzed and hopeless about the conditions in South Africa than the people actually enduring the conditions. The women have hope because they can’t afford the luxury of despair….
"They don’t need rescue," continues Holder.
They don’t need the condescending camera, or the patronizing pen. Some of them are veterans of the anti-apartheid movement, and they are resisting again—on behalf of the full personhood of women. So these women don’t need pity. But they do need beauty.
How can one dare discuss aesthetic pleasure amidst the shantytowns of South Africa? Ah, how can one not? It is black South Africa that boasts of some of the most beautiful protest songs the world has ever heard. Art and agitation as body doubles. Beauty: like bone, like breath.
How can one dare discuss aesthetic pleasure amidst the shantytowns of South Africa? Ah, how can one not? It is black South Africa that boasts of some of the most beautiful protest songs the world has ever heard. Art and agitation as body doubles. Beauty: like bone, like breath.
So instead of documenting only the “what is” with soundbite-sized analysis, Holder says she wanted to architect a film that says, “Look at what we can imagine.”
Look, indeed.
“People need roadmaps, alternative realities,” she insists.
So the camera turns cartographer, mapping out the could-be country. So the camera turns choreographer, essaying ways we can move in the world differently because the beloved is everywhere (there is no need to look for her).
Watch what happens when the photographer puts down her equipment and invites the “subject” to a dance. Lip to lip, belly and belly: the art of the empath.
The only one there is.
--LaVon Rice (c) 2007
(Photos by Louisa Butler)
ABOUT OUR HOSTESS: Based in Washington, DC, LaVon Rice writes frequently about "artivism" for Colorlines. She is the co-curator and co-conspirator at strangeblackgurl.com, a soon-to-be-live online destination for quirky women of African descent (and their allies). To be informed when the site is up and running, e-mail her at LaVon.Rice@gmail.com. She is also a script consultant for The Only Road to Khayelitsha. To learn more about the film, visit http://www.coconutdaughters.com. To donate, e-mail director Joylynn Holder at joylynn@coconutdaughters.com.
ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM
MICHELLE and GREEN PHOENIX PRODUCTIONS:
Greetings,
I'm excited to see what dialogue ensues with our new Guest Hostess, LaVon Rice, regarding social responsibility and the creative process. Myself, I can't stop staring at and enjoying that first photo she gave us (the photos are stills from the film), and lingering over her way of writing - sheer poetry.
If you go check out the link she provided, you can actually watch a few minutes of the film and hear its compelling soundtrack! So...go watch a movie for a bit, visit the links she gave, then come back and let's talk!
MY NEW BLOGS:
Meanwhile, I have a few new blogs for you to check out, in all your cyber spare time. I would be thrilled if you would send these links to any of your friends who might be interested in ritual scarves or treehouses!
COME HANG OUT AT WRITEFINE...
AND ENTER A SHORT STORY CONTEST!
Please visit http://writefine.com/ where I am on staff as a writing instructor. We are having writerly conversations in our Forum section, and a beginning writers' fiction competition! Although most of the workshops are for a fee, YOU CAN HANG OUT AT WRITEFINE.COM FOR FREE and join in the dialogues, pick up some tips, finds lots of writerly articles to read, ask for advice, give advice...It's a great new place and already it's winning awards and attention on the Web. You can get in on the ground floor with some good people and get a little creative hit with your morning java!
The 1st Annual Writefine.com Short Story Contest is unique in that the prize is editorial! Winning writers will be able to then work, FOR FREE, with a writing instructor in their particular genre, to take their story to the next level, to get it ready to submit to publishers or other competitions, and garner an editor's recommendation to boot. Plus other prizes that only a writer could value (Grin). For all the information on this interesting competition, see the home page at WriteFine.Com. DEADLINE IS JANUARY 20TH, 2008.
Speaking of contests...Michelle Miller Allen is pleased to announce that her essay "A Fork in One Hand, a Pen in the Other" won 2nd Place in the 2007 FundsForWriters One-Year-to-Write Category! To read the essay (and find out about Hope C. Clark's website, blog and pioneering work in helping writers get paid for their writing), visit: www.fundsforwriters.com/annualcontest.htm
Writer Silvia Sanza and Polly Frost's Blog:
Writer friend Silvia Sanza was recently interviewed at Polly Frost's blog, leading me to discover the joys of Polly and her circle...including fans of the Dog Whisperer (I'm a HUGE fan). Check out Polly Frost at http://pollyfrost.wordpress.com/. This week she is interviewing an interesting animation expert, Tom Hart, and as soon as I finish posting this blog, I'm off to visit HIS website. Animation is something I've always wanted to do, myself! (And check out Silvia Sanza's books too. A sassy, sexy urban writer of literary note - her books are at Amazon.com!)
Oh brave new world!!!
UCPOMING SALONS:
December 18-December 31: Michelle Miller Allen, Just Sitting Between a Dalek and the Tardis, Watching Musical History
January 2008:Brett Weber of Broken Art Gallery (http://www.brokenartgallery.com/) His website tells you it is about "The Healing Art of Creativity: combating chronic stress, depression and multiple sclerosis (MS), but learning some colorfully sweet notes along the way." (Exact topic and dates of salon TBA.)
DO WHAT YOU LOVE AND LOVE WHAT YOU DO!
And please remember, I am always happy to talk to potential new hosts and hostesses. It's free, it's fun, it's networking!
Michelle Miller Allen
posted by Spiritbear @ 9:51 AM
58 comments
58 Comments:
Thank you so much for visiting my blog. I do hope your readers will check out Silvia.
And Tom Hart is an amazing presence in the indie graphic novel scene. I went to a reading he hosted of graphic novelists -- they showed slides of their stories and read the balloons! Made me want to animate my next story.
I'm really enjoing A Bear Named Hope and look forward to reading Salon 22: Invitation to a Dance!
I love your blog, Polly Frost, so much going on there and great links to others!
The graphic novelist reading sounds like a lot of fun!
Good to have you stopping by.
SB
Brava LaVon what an apt description of the life survivors carve out in joy. Negative thoughts are a luxury one can not afford amidst adversity. I hope to bring to light the breadth of the female experience beyond pain, abuse, codependence and relational existences. Women are more that what they are to others. Survivors are more than their abuse histories. Simple details are where romance and true love live waiting for the warmth of attention. I know that blood diamond, blood sugar, Hotel Rwanda, HBO's April something film and other horrendously lopsided portrayals of the African continent will not deny the lives that are being lived. Life is a spectrum not a deficit. How dare Hollywood continue to misrepresent and sensationalize with nativist paternalism the African experience. Grow up, get a clue there are people living full lives beyond false sympathies. There is more to African life than security, development or the development of security. Thank you for the incisive review and call to activists to provide fuller visions of this immense continent.
Oddly, one of the courses I will be taking this spring is called 'Social Justice in Education'. Any thoughts from anyone on this topic?
"Negative thoughts are a luxury one can not afford amidst adversity." Very well said, akartemsia.
Off topic in terms of the specific human situation this film is about, but on topic in terms of universality of human experience...when my late husband was asked how he could stay so positive while dying from a cancer that attacked most of his organs in quick progression and changed him so dramatically over less than a year's time as to almost not be recognized unless you knew him from the familiarity of Love...his answer was that his attitude was the only thing he had any control over. He would not allow despair or negative thoughts during that last year of his life.
I feel that the central message of this thread ("Life is a spectrum not a deficit") is nothing less than profound and yet, shamefully, it should be the most obvious human thing.
I look forward to LaVon's response...
Thank you for stopping by!
SB
ShaRi,
I think we posted simultaneously...does the course have a description? You might want to look at the current case at the BBC News page regarding Gillian Gibbons, it might be on target for discussions in your class...
SB
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Thank you, Akartemsia, for your eloquence. Your "negative thoughts are a luxury one can not afford amidst adversity" reminds me of one of my favorite quotes. According Eduardo Galeano, it was scrawled on a wall in Bogotá: "Let's leave pessimism for better times."
Our fondness for "reality" is as much a fiction as anything else. Facing reality is not the same as I call "caressing the negative," which is the side I believe most portrayals of Africa err. These depictions, however "well-meaning," end up objectifying and simplifying. And every human life, no matter how oppressed by external circumstance, is iridescent and complex. To ignore this is to commit further violence to anyone who has already suffered violence. And not forgetting the old labor song that reminds us "hearts starve as well as bodies":
As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for but we fight for roses, too!
(words by James Oppenheim)
And, Michelle, the story about your late husband is beacon and guide.
Ah yes, bread and roses!!! And I love the Galeano quote.
LaVon, in re: Rick, we would not even have this salon - we would not be having this conversation - were it not for him. Everything about "A Bear Named Hope" stems from him, his life and death and values. His legacy is huge.
One human can truly impact so many.
What I am loving about this conversation (which has barely begun!) is not only what is being communicated but the the power of the way it is being said - the language we are all sharing.
Which I assume comes through in the film. Which I look forward to seeing!
SB
I can't find a course description. I was just wondering what the title brought to mind. What do you think social justice in education might entail?
As far as Gillian is concerned, she seems to have lacked an understanding of the religion/religious climate of the region in which she was teaching.
As for the main topic of this blog, I found the opposite to be true when I was teaching on the Navajo Reservation. Most teachers would come there with what was referred to as a 'Bronze Gods of the Wilderness' attitude. They idealized the 'Noble Savages', and thus denying or not seeing their struggles as humans.
Thanks for your observations, Shari. Making an entire group of people "sages" at the expense of their humanity is yet another way to not see fully. And I think the artist's eye (and we're all artists if we see rightly) has kaleidoscopic powers.
When I think of social justice and education, a few names just come to mind: Pablo Friere, bell hooks (Teaching to Trangress), John Gatto. I think of the beautiful essay by Ben Okri, found here: http://tinyurl.com/yuqqke (scroll down to the last half of the article for the education piece). I think of the wild and inspiring "unschooling" movement.
In the spirit of Rick,
LaVon
Wow! That is a fantastic essay LaVon! Here's some of my favorite food for thought from it:
"Treat life as a workshop to find out who you are"
“Education tends to divert us from our true selves. Education is not about putting facts into the heads of children. Education should help children discover their talents and their best qualities—no matter how humble or how exalted."
"People accept things unthinkingly. They assume viewpoints before thinking for themselves, before figuring out how they feel about issues. People must use their freedom to think for themselves."
"I believe that we all fundamentally share the condition of the artist. We all fundamentally share in the ability to listen and to sort out what is of value to us, what is good for us and for our children."
"This age of Internet and vox populi actually enables people to express themselves more than ever. But the essential thing that is missing is clear thinking. It is not taught in school; it never has been. It does not exist in any aspect of the curriculum, in any of the disciplines apart from philosophy. Thinking should be included as a subject in all schools."
"We are not free until we have cultivated the art of clear thinking, until we grasp the freedom to ask questions about all the things we assume about the world: about our history, about what we see with our own eyes and what we don’t. It is the freedom to venture behind the television and beyond the newspaper. It is the freedom not to believe what we are told anymore. It is the freedom not even to trust the evidence of our own eyes. Then we will no longer need others to make our decisions for us. We surrender too great a part of our destinies to our leaders and we sit back and let them make decisions for us. And then we pretend that we do not feel guilty about those decisions if, for example, they involve bombing other people halfway across the world for reasons that are not clear to us."
“It is the freedom to investigate your shadow side, the side that you disown. You do not just get up and become a photographer. You have to enter into the process. You have to learn and surrender and, at some point, mastery will come to you. There comes a point when your hands are broken, your face is broken and your spirit altered, when you begin to sense the hidden laws of your art. Only then can you start to take photographs and write poems that will be of great value to this world. Only then can you transcend yourself."
“In the end, it is all about the love of humanity. At the bottom of freedom itself is love. Our challenge is to learn to love in this world. Most of us are pretty astonished when we feel love. I think we are astonished because we discover to our amazement that it’s not like what we thought it was, nor how the films tell us it is. It is different; it is richer. It’s very troubling and very chaotic. It turns our world upside down. It destroys many of our belief systems and our prejudices. But love also inspires the confidence to take risks with one another. You just don’t know what trust in another person can lead to. And love is about courage. Do we have the courage to smile at somebody we meet for the first time, the courage to be friendly and warm, the courage to venture into unknown territory and encounter other people, with common sense and a clear, awakened mind?”
To quote again from the Ben Okri essay: "Thinking should be included as a subject in all schools.
"We are not free until we have cultivated the art of clear thinking, until we grasp the freedom to ask questions about all the things we assume about the world: about our history, about what we see with our own eyes and what we don’t. It is the freedom to venture behind the television and beyond the newspaper. It is the freedom not to believe what we are told anymore. It is the freedom not even to trust the evidence of our own eyes. Then we will no longer need others to make our decisions for us. We surrender too great a part of our destinies to our leaders and we sit back and let them make decisions for us. And then we pretend that we do not feel guilty about those decisions if, for example, they involve bombing other people halfway across the world for reasons that are not clear to us."
In my own education, it was not until age 18, my first weeks at university, that anyone offered to me the concept as described above. I had had good teachers in specific subjects in high school, but it was one man in particular who challenged me finally to "... ask questions about all the things we assume about the world: about our history, about what we see with our own eyes and what we don’t." His name was Michele Blouin, he lived in the French Quarter, New Orleans, in a tiny shotgun studio apartment. It had 2rooms: a front room and a kitchen. The room had very tall ceilings and all four walls were filled, floor to ceiling, with books. There was a mattress he slept on. We all sat on the floor for class and he smoked incessently (this was 1969-70). He had a record player on the floor in the middle of us and played Bob Dylan lyrics and we discussed them, that was one of his classes.
He challenged us to think about WHY we wore what we wore, down to that basic. He was tough, he scared us a bit, but the love for language and learning and THINKING was so clear in him, we were like moths to flame. No one had ever talked to us that way. I think no one ever did, again. I am eternally indebted to him, he was a teacher in the truest sense of the word, he lived to teach, he did nothing else. The university (it was Loyola), amazingly enough, had hired him in the English Dept. and kept him on for a long time. Unfortunately a nun took one of his classes and he said things about Jesus that upset her (nothing that wasn't true, really) and she complained and he ended up having to be let go. HOWEVER...the chairman of the English Dept. and its board voted to let him keep teaching us for credit, off campus. That is how we ended up sitting on Michele's floor, LEARNING TO THINK.
Thank you for the reference to the Okri essay, LaVon, and thank you ShaRi for quoting it here. I'd say this is a good start to MY day!
SB
When were you in NO? I was there in the early 70's. I sold watercolors of the Quarter on Jackson SQ.
I had no idea that one could have a world view until someone asked me what my world view was when I was a freshwoman in college. I had had nothing but American history in school, and learned of world history only thru my art history classes in college. How lucky you were to have experienced such a teacher!!
Geesh, ShaRi! I didn't know you were in NO back then! I was there from 1967 to 1971 or 1972. I used to go down to the quarter a lot on the weekends in the late 60s to listen to music in the clubs til dawn, have breakfast in the Quarter, take the trolley back to campus and sleep all day!! How long were you there?
Small world, smaller every day!
My own "world view" has expanded much more since moving my arena out of the United States to the UK.
SB
Wow, Michelle, your account of the blooming, brilliant Blouin just made me shiver. As you say--the power of one.
Looks like you were leaving just as I was coming. I lived in the Quarter on Ursaline between Royal and Bourbon. I was there for about 2 years. I also worked as a switchboard operator at Mercy Hospital to which I would take the trolley!
Curious as to how your world view has changed.
You were right in the middle of it, then! Magical, seductive place New Orleans.
Hmmm...world view has just expanded. Main change is I've become more curious about what is happening beyond my personal sphere, definitely beyond the USA. And I'm still ruminating on what is to BE American, observing how we are seen from the outside, what our energy is about. And I'm not talking ala "George Bush" or necessarily political (although there are those who claim all is political and others claim all is spiritual but I claim nothing, I just know we each have our own filter thru which we observe our world)...but listening to what people here think Americans are about. I would say my main new observation (new to me) about Americans is we are incredibly pampered, insulated, spoiled...we are more in touch with our "child" than many other cultures, our credo to pursue happiness impacts us much more than we realize (and is not necessarily the credo of all countries, all peoples!). America is a playground in many senses. Our freedom explore, to create, to push the envelope...we have no idea how HUGE that freedom is and we abuse it and waste it.
I think I'll stop now because this is going way off topic and I could write a book about it. And it's just my own wee personal observation of the moment, it's still cooking and brewing, it's not written in stone.
SB
As a PS to that, I don't mean that I'm "down" on America, I mean I realize now what an amazing concept/place/culture it is. But I feel there is a lot of potential there that is not appreciated or fully used or explored.
Our maverick quality, our entrepreneurship, our independence-mindedness, our "can do!" attitude are all fantastic and unique. I didn't realize how much of our character IS these things until my peers and friends in the UK began to reflect back to me that these are qualities I am bringing to ventures over here...yet I did so without realizing. I clearly see this as a result of my being American and of my American culture having created this person that I am, without my ever having been aware that there could be any other way to BE in the world.
Our self-preoccupation, all the focus on "fulfilling our emotional needs" seem pretty myopic and childish to me now. Odd to hear myself say that! Here in Scotland I get a sense that more is about the common good...yet it's not heaven here. I think the individual's growth doesn't have all the room the way it does in America. The youth here are troubled...there are little boxes into which you can place yourself for a career or life function...
not a lot of outside-the-box thinking...on the other hand, there is a stability here like the old stones and castles, and it is needed, with so much harsh weather! A kind of acceptance about life and its cycles(at a biological level, even) and, I think, they are closer to nature here than we are. For example, as a nation, walking out in the wilds is a big pasttime, not just for a small percentage of hikers or rock climbers but for everyone. One walks.
Maybe culturally in some ways we Americans are stuck in an adolescence and need to be catapulted to the next level of maturity. After all, we are a very YOUNG culture, compared to Europe and the UK.
Maybe the residents of our culture need shaking out of their attitudes the way films such as "The Only Road to Khayelitsha" can do.
Ok, off my soap box. Dang it ShaRi, you made me do it!
:)
SB
Michelle, you remind me of a visit I took to Ireland when I was a college student (with a group of other U.S. students). One of our Irish hosts noted the how "resourceful" and "enterprising" we were--which is something I don't think the average American thinks about in his/her usual cultural milieu.
As you note, such national attributes have their shadow side....
And I do hope "The Only Road to Khayelitsha" is part of the shaking-up--
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Michelle, you remind me of a visit I took to Ireland when I was a college student (with a group of other U.S. students). One of our Irish hosts noted how "resourceful" and "enterprising" we were--which is something I don't think the average American thinks about in his/her usual cultural milieu.
As you note, such national attributes have their shadow side....
And I do hope "The Only Road to Khayelitsha" is part of the shaking-up--
That's the best way to put it, LaVon, "shadow side". Every culture has its shadow side. I was thinking, if anyone said, "describe this cultural group (or that) or country (or that)" you'd have to preface it by saying, "As I do, you will need to allow me to contradict myself constantly...if I say they are yin, they are also yang..."
I guess that complexity is what makes every culture so rich.
And so you take America, SO complicated by so many complicated cultures thrown together. It is truly the great social experiment of the world, of history.
Well, deep deep thoughts, all...it's pushing midnight and I'm off to my scratcher as they say (off to bed) here and I don't even want to ask them where that expression started! That's a little bit TOO culturally rich for me, hah!
Grins,
Spiritbear
Interesting conversation I have just clicked into.
Men bestow and take away freedoms from each other, freedoms that only exist because we have come to some disjointed agreement about what they are and are not. The only God given freedom we are born with is free will. We have the will to choose how we deal with the wonderful nature of, how, why, what, and the potential of who we are. We can will the pursuit of beauty and truth, of goodness for all life, initiating the creation of dreams and imaginings, or we can choose to bring about the adversities and tribulations that come from separation and disunity falling towards the evils of self-interest and separation.
The efforts and the beautiful dreams of the women and men of South Africa, and good people everywhere, must be individual supported by all of us willing to dream into creation the potential we hold in common. Others tell us about how things are that we have not experienced. How can we then know to what extent we share the grievous conditions from the evil of a few, or the goodness of others from which we find benefit? As the parts develop so the whole will progress; as the whole progresses the parts will develop. Since life shows nothing but diversity, it is a great challenge to dream of one family on this planet, to the imagining of an entire cosmic community. The present must always be the future; the past is not a goal worthy of pursuing. I find no security in life if not for the changing and the progression of right choosing. That brings us back to the only freedom we have that cannot be taken away, nor broken. It is then a question of personal choice; what will be done?
what will you get done? Is more the question. You are the only one to answer it. Hopefully proactively addressing those spirits you encounter in everyday moments. I have an action plan for life that is basic...enjoy. I find joy in many interactions. The world will not do for you what you do not ask of it. Why not make an event around the film and gather people, children and others together to discuss this filmmaker? Could be fun. LaVon could be the MC...since she seems to have gotten us all riled up.
"Others tell us about how things are that we have not experienced." --Brad
"Hopefully proactively addressing those spirits you encounter in everyday moments." --Allison
Good comments, both of you. These are the phrases that lept out at me as I read.
Thank you!
SB
There are two ways of spreading light; to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. --Edith Wharton
Thank you, ShaRi!
I like to be a mirror, myself.
Hey, after I thought a moment I realized, what allison suggests is exactly what we are doing! Cyber has as much impact as 3-D, or it can, in its own way. And it can reach more people faster. We ARE having an event, right here, gathered around this film, filmmaker and LaVon's words about it to us all. Obviously there will be such events in 3-D life too, there always are when such expressions go out into the world.
SB
Not to diminish what Edith Wharton has said, for her statement reflects truth, but who of us is a candle? As mirrors we are not without flaws. To actively reflect requires clear thinking and attentiveness to observation and reflection about the greatest good for the greatest number over the greatest period of time, to the smallest measure. We must all find our own unique angle of reflection, expanding clarity, otherwise things get jammed up, and we miss the grandeur of loving. We miss the beauty of living light. This is a bit of what I understand LaVon has beautifully written in her introduction.
Good words, thank you Brad.
I just wanted to stop in and thank everyone who takes part in these conversations at the salon. I find myself thinking about these dialogues when I am out in the world doing other things. Events, other comments, things I find in my daily path will remind me of something someone said here at the salon, on this thread or earlier ones. To me, that's a sign of a living conversation. You are all so generous with your hearts and minds. Thank you!
It's a light dusting of snow tonight, fell so fast and soft I didn't even know it was there til I stepped out just now. Am off to walk the dawg in it.
SB
Indeed--thanks to everyone for such passionate insights. Thank you for your kind words, Brad. I love your "grandeur of loving." We talk about the Sturm und Drang of loving...what about being grateful for our ability to love?
And Allison, your "action plan" is the soundest one there is. (And you know I know that you truly practice what you preach!)
Speaking of...
A friend and I were talking just the other day about how children are completely committed to pleasure and play--unlike most adults. In fact, adults often tell the young ones (complete with self-satisfied sneers) that adulthood is no fun. But who made it so? Where is this written in stone?
I also love how if you ask the average child if s/he is an artist, you will be likely be told, "Yes, I write, I dance, I paint, I...."
Yet as adults, we think multidisciplinary artists (or artists, period) are anomalies.
Our goal: to discover our true, forgotten faces.
And thank YOU, Michelle, for this exuberant, heartfull forum.
LaVon, my goal is to keep discovering faces of truth I have not seen, in myself and in others. I figure those forgotten faces are no longer necessary; scaffolding that accompanies growth. The true is ever evolving into greater truths that are present in the future, not the past.
Can you talk more about "Sturm und Drang of loving".
Brad, your thought about forgotten faces reminds me of two things:
1. A mutual friend of ours once said "We remember a place we've never been."
2. The Shakespeare quote "God gives them one face and they make themselves another" is usually attributed to women wearing makeup. But I always hear it as we are born with a face of innocence and by the time we die we have created a new face, which reflects our experience and attitude.
Interested to hear what LaVon has to say about your question.
SB
dnwyevOn being a mirror:
"When that light of the divine Oneness hits the reflecting mirror of our true human Oneness, the pattern revealed is not of this world alone." Cynthia Bourgeault
Brad, would you say that we are all mirrors and the divine Oneness is the candle?
That One light is "like a pure diamond blazing with the invisible light of heaven...is in everybody, and if we could see it, we would see the billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of the sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely." Thomas Menton
My world View:
"i am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together." Lennon & McCartney
Sorry, that would be Thomas Merton :(
Yes Shari,
I believe there is only one light source; center/circumference to all matter, mind, and spirit realities. It is ok to see ourselves as candles or as mirrors, the Infinite Eternal Divine Light is beyond all metaphor.
Brad, I'm digging the "scaffolding that accompanies growth." I was simply referring to the "native" self, that creates beyond tameness and childhood conditioning.
And regarding the "Sturm und Drang of loving," I was just reminded with your words about the "grandeur of loving" that as much as we wring our hands about love's trial and tempest...we can stop the wringing for just a moment, long enough to appreciate that our hearts are red. And made for deepest feeling.
LaVon, our heart's "deepest feeling" must eventually come to mind, open to spirit reality. With every contraction and release the heart moves blood necessary for physical residence. And every beat, wills to the soul either nutrients or poison. On all levels of intake we choose our health by our feeding habits. More importantly is the responsibility and love with which we feed each other. Love is Wholly non corruptible, all else is as you say, the wringing of human condition.
Oh wow.
A writer friend, Lee Sturgeon Day, just sent me this:
"Excerpt from Doris Lessing's Nobel Prize acceptance speech.
Here is the last paragraph, after she has described seeing a young pregnant woman (in Zimbabwe) with 2 children who has trudged miles to get fresh water and finds part of Anna Karenina in the store, and begins to read. (Left by an UN worker!!!!)
"The storyteller is deep inside every one of us. The storymaker is always with us. Let us suppose our world is attacked by war, by the horrors that we all of us easily imagine. Let us suppose floods wash through our cities, the seas rise...but the storyteller will be there, for it is our imaginations which shape us, keep us, create us - for good and for ill. It is our stories, the storyteller that will recreate us, when we are torn, hurt, even destroyed. It is the storyteller, the dream-maker, the mythmaker, that is our phoenix, what we are at our best, when we are our most creative.
That poor girl trudging through the dust, dreaming of an education for her children, do we think that we are better than she is - we, stuffed full of food, our cupboards full of clothes, stifling in our superfluities? I think it is that girl and the women who were talking about books and an education when they had not eaten for three days, that may yet define us."
I doubt this could be any more on target to this discussion, LaVon? I was amazed to see this in my email tonight!
It is about what your film is about and it helps answer my ongoing question about why we crave stories and storytelling.
As Brad just said, "On all levels of intake we choose our health by our feeding habits."
Lessing is one of my goddess writers, so it was also fantastic to read this.
SB
Apropos on several levels, Michelle.
Personally: I was despairing of the use of novels when I read this today: http://tinyurl.com/37qtsg .
In such ecologically chaotic times, perhaps we need stories as much as ever. And on the evening of the world as we know it--we'll all ask for a story, please, for the night. It reminds me of Carole Maso, who wrote about "huddl[ing] around the fire of the alphabet" in her transcendent book, Break Every Rule: Essays on Language, Longing & Moments of Desire. Story as campfire and comfort...
(It also reminds me of the most quietly affecting scene in the Titanic; a mother reads a bedtime story to her child as the ship sinks. Then again, aren't we all sinking, a little, all of the time?)
And of course Lessing's speech is apropos in relation to Joylynn's film. Storytelling is as old as Africa, so it makes sense that Anna Karenina--as well as eons and eons of indigenous stories--would be as necessary as food.
Excellent connections, LaVon...can you double check the tinyurl? I can't get it to work...really want to see what you were looking at...
SB
Thanks, Michelle. The URL works on my end, but here it is in the original:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/12/11/arctic.melt.ap/index.html.
Yes we are defined by the best, and the worst of us. Ultimately the worst will be a wash (the ice melt may be the first scrubbing) and the best willing to survive to dreams of divine fulfillment.
Ah, ok, now I was able to see it. I had to chop off the last bit of your URL so I could get to it but I got there.
Yes. I know. There are definitely those times when one wonders if writing and making art has any validity in the face of what is happening to our planet. On the other hand, many writers and artists have served as coal mine canaries in history, helping wake up the culture to social and environmental and moral issues. In fiction, too.
This morning I was trying to listen to a broadcast of Al Gore's speech at the Nobel Prize ceremonies , and about 1/3 of the way in, the local news chops him off to report on some stupid criminal matter locally. Which led to me ranting in the kitchen where I was fixing coffee. Dammit! Priorities are totally twisted around. And we are fighting it at small and local levels all the way up to the fate of our entire planet. Here in Scotland and the UK in general, we are struggling with the greed of overbuilding homes smack in the middle of flood plains. It's as if no one is listening to what is happening, humans think we can just proceed according to outmoded ways of living. So focused on the moment, no concern about the seven generations before and after us.
Well, I have no great conclusion to this rant, so will stand aside for a bit and come back later.
SB
http://thinkprogress.org/gore-nobel-speech
Ok, you can read the transcript of his speech here and there are also other sites via which you can watch the video of his speech.
Funny, I've been thinking about how the Native Americans say in each action consider the ramification son the generations seven years before and after yours.
And Gore's speech is all about "seven years".
Now the question is: What, as individuals, do we DO?????
I want to find out, for one thing, what this blog can do. I'll look into this.
SB
Typo: it should read "...the ramifications on..."
From his speech:
"...We also find it hard to imagine making the massive changes that are now necessary to solve the crisis. And when large truths are genuinely inconvenient, whole societies can, at least for a time, ignore them. Yet as George Orwell reminds us: 'Sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.'"
On a smaller note: The level of UNCONSCIOUSNESS is incredible. A local developer is trying to push through a building site which is a flood plain, the ONLY attentuation area for a huge amount of homes...anyway, the drama of the wrongness of this choice occured on 13 December 2006 here, some homes near us were flooded, we were surrounded by water. We are very worried. We are working on flood defence/politics here about this. So, meanwhile, a meeting is set by the local authorities and this developer, to push through the final decision, despite the protests of local residents and even the protests of some councillors. The meeting is today, 13 December 2007. With no mention of what happened a year ago today to this very same area that will be negatively impacted by this construction. But, hey, these developers don't live in our wee humble town. They live in nice expensive homes up on hills somewhere else.
Can you tell I'm ANGRY???
Hey, do you know what you get when you are fuming mad in rainy Scotland?
Steam. Fog! Lots of fog!
SB
Spirit bear, if you, anyone else, have not seen this, it will add clarity to the situation:
http://www.storyofstuff.com/index.html
Collective we've done this and collectively we will have to undo it, or be deservingly washed in the process of the earth regaining balance and health.
Ok, Brad, will check the link after Shaka's walk. He is very adamant that it is TIME.
Meanwhile, I just got a call that the building proposal was KNOCKED DOWN by the council today, based on public outcry. This is great news! And surprising news. And folks around me are talking about Gore's speech. Interesting. It's all linked. Dare we hope we can make a difference, one small patch of earth at at time?
Will be back later folks...
SB
Thank you Brad, that was EXCELLENT. Everyone should watch it. I think the phrase of the times is "Take back the planet".
Sad thing is, we all were talking about this in the 1960-70s. We were called the counterculture and back-to-land movement. And it mostly fizzled out and was laughed at by "the establishment" culture.
Hey, you know who has the smallest carbon footprint? Findhorn in Scotland.
"A recent study has shown that the Findhorn Foundation community's ecological footprint is the lowest ever recorded in the industrialised world, and just over half of the UK average."
Baby Boomers were all very aware of Findhorn in my 20s, they were our model.
LaVon, you have launched us all over the planet in more ways than one, with this discussion!
SB
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/120/50-ways-to-green-your-business.html
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/120/hire-this-guy.html
Perception is strong and sight weak. In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things. --Miyamoto Musashi
Yes, Michelle, it is true that art can be the clarion call to consciousness. I remember a woman I met at a party who left the armed forces because she was so affected by Julia Alvarez's In the Time of Butterflies.
Brad, thanks for sharing the Story of Stuff (I started listening--interesting). And Michelle, great news regarding "power to the people" and flood plain development. I have to run, but I'll be back later with more.
btw, Shari, the Fast Company links don't work?
:( They work for me, but I had to copy and paste them onto my browser.
Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough. Not only have I found that when I talk to the little flower or to the little peanut they will give up their secrets, but I have found that when I silently commune with people they give up their secrets also -- if you love them enough. --George Washington Carver
Hair and mushrooms create a recipe for cleaning up oily beaches
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/14/MNPQTBLE4.DTL
Thanks for that beautiful George Washington Carver quote, Shari. Once again, I couldn't access the link, but I guess it's just me!
Well, my time as guest-blogger is approaching its end, but I read something tonight that I think makes for a perfect "last dance." It's included in Innovative Women Poets: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry and Interviews--an interview with Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge (who actually lives in northern NM, too).
Listen to her:
"A reader can carry the influence of my poem to another person without that person necessarily knowing the poem itself. I also feel karma works in the proliferation of one's influence or expression. But I don't think understanding is that important. I think there are mysteries. Things can set other things in motion that can set yet other things in motion. Without understanding."
So, friends, we do what we can. We make art that sends flame out into the dark. We have transforming conversations that never die, soundwaves infinitely crashing on further and further shores. We get on our knees and kiss the earth in as many ways as possible.
Thank you, Michelle, for providing the ballroom, and thank you all for this dance.
LaVon, I love the Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge quote!
I found this in the materials on "stuff", and it seemed appropriate to this forum:
"A student once asked Cesar Chavez how he organized. He said, “First, I talk to one person. Then I talk
to another person.” “No,” said the student, “how do you organize?” Chavez answered, “First I talk to one person. Then I talk to another person.”
LaVon, thank you so much for the dance! I feel that we all took away some good thoughts and connections from this salon, that will stay with us and...get spread around!
And thank you to all who have participated, whether or not you joined the conversation or "lurked". Remember, you can always add to this conversation, even once we move onto the next salon. The archives remain accessible.
I have changed the format to approve comments again, at least while we go through the spaminating holidays!
I will be posting a new salon in about 36 hours.
I hope to see the film available in the UK or at least to be able to get it on DVD at some point, LaVon. Please keep us in the loop as things develop.
Do what you love, everyone, and love what you do!
SpiritBear
I will definitely keep everyone in the loop! Thanks again...and peace.
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