Today, the first day of my blogging week, I’m going to tackle the first of a list of questions I’ve been mulling over.  And I’d love your feedback what ideas you come up with on the questions.

 First Question:  What is the nature of dying?

 A reverence for life where people acknowledge the fragility of living; and the solemn observance of a life lived as in the rituals of burying the dead.

 In exploring the nature of dying and death I wander to the topic of the soul.  I have been reading two books on the topic:  “Modern Man in Search of a Soul” by C.G. Jung and “Care of the Soul” by Thomas Moore.  The latter is easier reading and digestion, and so I’ve delved deeper into that one.

 What I’ve learned is that the depth of soul comes from suffering.  (This is not something T. Moore stated, but my own absorption of the book.)  We all suffer, and this experience helps us maintain our humanity and connectedness to each other.  So my instinctive response to the question of “What does death look like?” with “A reverence for life”, I imagined that when we see others suffer then how can we not experience compassion to stop the suffering.

 Ok, I’m going to dare throwing fuel into the fire by going this way.  There were different reactions to the assassination of Osama Bin Laden.  The major news networks televised the celebratory mood of the people in major cities, especially in New York City.  I asked a few people I knew about their reactions, and the responses were:  “I’m glad.” And “It’s a relief.”

 I stop to wonder.  Is the world a safer place with this one person’s death?

 Because this is not the forum for political discussions I won’t venture further into that topic.  But I will continue with a quote from Steve Earle (musician, actor, author and activist.) He recently completed a new album titled, “I’ll Never Get Out of this World Alive”, and also a novel by the same name.  This is the quote from an interview with Amy Goodman:  “Making Art in America is a Political Statement in Itself”.

 When I sat with that thought and watched the interview I decided that it’s not enough to sit by and watch death and destruction while I live comfortably in my safe bubble.  What am I here to do? I ask myself.  (It’s the same question I ask of myself when I’m at the pool with the intention of getting some exercise.  Will I be content to just paddle around, and “just show up”.  There are many days when I feel like that with my good intentions of writing and taking care of my heart:  “Just show up.”  Maybe some magic will happen.  I’ve been praying for a bolt of genius to hit me, but it’s really just hard work and slogging for every bit of meaningful words that impacts me and somebody else from the inside out.)

 It’s getting harder to just stand by and not only for the selfish reasons that one day all THIS will catch up with you and me and we live at the fringes of what’s happening out there.  But the bigger part of it is I do care.  I feel something is array about the way of the world, and how can I make it better I wonder.

 The immediate answer is to work on my art.  My art is my heart, and I have to make a statement in my own unique way about what I see and feel, and not care about what others say or think.  My intention is not to hurt, but to make peace.

 What does death look like?  The esoteric answer is that it is the death of the self – the ego.  In the face of dying the “fevered ego” (a la Bill Hicks) then compassion for another being is born. 

 Down to the nitty-gritty of everyday reality I am reminded of an acquaintance who has been begging me for attention.  She just wears her sorrow on her sleeves and it’s painful to be around her, because I’m afraid I would get drawn into her vortex of sorrow.  Her pain is so visceral that my instinct is to push back.  Once I did invite her for a drink.  After one drink she pulled out a thorn stuck deep into her heart.  She confessed that she had been sexually abused by her father. 

 This was not exactly the way I wanted to initiate getting to know her better, but there is was lying on the table– a writhing doll with pins and needles.  I felt the blood dripping on the floor and my shoes sticking to the ground.  I wanted to escape the rawness.  I wasn’t prepared for this.  My mind judged, ‘She is clingy.”  I’m not the person to help ease the weight of this pain, but I also wanted to help her somehow, maybe with a seed of an idea that it’s possible to step out of her box and to try to imagine a different way to accept the events in her life. 

 Suffering does build our souls.  It makes us grow and expand – literally like growing pains – it hurts physically, but we can’t be on Gerber and Pablum all our lives.  It awakens us to awareness of other planes and possibilities; to reach out – above and below – that allows for depth like the roots and branches of a tree.  (I love old trees – the gnarly knots and bulging roots of an old tree.  I put my hands on its trunk and my ear to its veins and feel the pulse of the earth and beings living on it.) 

 Going back to the assassination of someone deemed as a terrorist, I think of ancient Greek mythology – Zeus, Poseidon and Hades.  The three brothers who rule the realms of the sky, the sea, and the underworld. I entertain idea that all three represent elements in our soul, and these gods tumble and fight for control of our psyche.  What turns a person into a terrorist?  It strikes me now that I could extend more compassion to the woman and withhold my judgments. 

 There are cases that are black and white: Crazy, alien and out of touch with humanity.  But then again haven’t we all experienced a certain madness personally and as a collective?  What’s really going on beneath the surface of what I’m seeing and being told and fed?  I really want to know.  I trust that this curiousity is in the realm of the seeing eye and the feeling heart of an artist. 

We are co-creators in this plane of reality.  As participants in life like the threads in the loom of a carpet we impact and influence the design and feel of the carpet that decorate the walls and floors which is left after the last breath.  How can we revere a life lived?  What legacy do we want to leave behind?

Isn’t it fun to live vicariously through a fictional character?  But isn’t it more bizarre to think of the human capacity to create and create experiences?

Living vicariously through a fictional character is what story telling is about.  Enlivening the imagination and motivating the spirit to go out-of-bounds with the external reality of our physical plane.  I’m curious about the production and fascination of movies that imbues human characters by animation, and allowing for ultra-human capabilities.  My first memory of super hero movies the featured computer animation was “The Mask”. 

 This image exaggerates the love felt by the hero shown as an oversized heart beating out of his shirt.

A lot of people were thrilled by “Avatar” too.  I was personally surprised that it won the Best Picture in 2010.  The movie seemed to be a collage of story lines from “Star Wars”, “Thunderdome”, “Water World”, plus other storylines and it was packaged with computer enhanced technology. 

Movie has always been a “bigger than life” experience in the beginning because it was literally projecting a story on a big screen.  But with the heavy competition for seducing a more sophisticated and pocket-rich audience the movies has had to compete with virtual reality entertainment:  from games to social networks (like chat lines) then movie makers have had to produce story telling to an ultra-reality edge.  But once the after the credits have rolled by and the people have mozy’ed down the aisle into their parked cars and have made their way literally and figuratively into their enclosed compartments – reality sets in.

 We are entrenched in our own dramas.  And working through our moments is often harder than watching the hero overcome their own trials and go through their transformation.  Our heroes are the archetypes that live in us, and we seek out to identify with characters that make us feel alive.

  “I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.  

 “A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself”

 – Joseph Campbell

Go to this link for a lot more from this great thinker.  

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/joseph_campbell.html#ixzz1F203bA5v

 Without going to the movies think of these special moments, and wonder… how amazing, how bizarre, and how delicate life is:

And the secret is if we can pull ourselves out of our internal spiral is to be curious.  Just be curious like a child and relive those moments of wonder.  Going back to story, I try to be conscious of the stuff between the beginning and the ending:  What made my hero go on this quest and put himself/herself in jeopardy in search of that thing.

 Every ending of a journey is the beginning of another.  We are our own heroes each day we awaken and create a new day of wonder and wander.  Go out there and get lost for a bit and see where you end up.  It’s not that scary of a world despite what the news say. 

Live to tell the story.

– Analyn Revilla

“Story is a collection of meanings. Nothing is random” – Al Watt.

The following day after my writing workshop with Al, I sat at an outdoor cafe across from an auto-body shop. Emblazoned in bold yellow letters I read: “We meet people by accident.”

If I learned anything from my philosophy class then by inductive reasoning then accidents are not random. Life is not random; it is a colleetion of meanings. What is the meaning of life? One answer I’ve come up with is that story telling is a method of healing. Sharing stories is more than making connections with others about our similarities, but the process of telling story and absorbing the art form (as a play, book, dance, painting, music, graffitti) is also the opportunity to resonate the truths within us.

There were random events in my 3-day weekend that I’ve decided to string together in a meaningful way beginning with Friday night when I gathered things that have become a clutter in my life. I got a box and stuffed it full of things I didn’t have much use for anymore: CDs, clothes, wine glasses, a vase – things that use to carry meaning for me, but their memories have faded, and/or the meaning was too painful to keep around – so I’m letting them go.

I was reminded of when my siblings and I had tried to “clean out” my parents’ apartment after my father passed away. The apartment, in my eyes, was littered with things that have collected dust, and/or were forgotten in a corner behind something else. When this thing was brought out into the light, “Hey what about this? Can we get rid of it?” I had cried out to my mother, she would howl, “NO!!! That’s…” and I’d forgotten what meaning or symbolism she had attached to this suddenly-precious material object. That thing held meaning for her. The whole apartment was a collection of chapters of a novel and its sequels.

The next day, Saturday, in my writing workshop I’m confronted with stories belabored by hopeful writers telling of wounds and intrigues. Al’s method of teaching is to awaken the unconscious of its collection of random memories and bringing them forward to the conscious mind and framing them around a structure. I left class with the mantra: “Story is a collection of meanings. Nothing is random”.

Sunday morning, I brought my collection of “unwanted meanings” to the thrift store. I browsed through the titles of books at the back and by accident found a book by Caroline Myss called “Why People Don’t Heal And How They Can Heal”. (I’m a quarter of the way through the book now.) In my process of shedding a layer of dead things I was healing with letting go. Whenever I’m going through a catharsis like this I also try to be consicous of how it is reflected in my art. If I’m humble enough I can see reflections of where ART illuminates LIFE. (I’ve been rewriting the scene of a dying man who has accepted his death, but an aspect of his reality is his family is not yet ready to let him go.) Thus as it is with healing, we’re probably not yet ready to let go of our illnesses.

In her practice of energy medicine Caroline Myss states that “your biography becomes your biology” meaning that our beliefs manifests in our cells and can alter our DNA accordingly.

“As terrifying as disease is, it is also an invitation to enter into the nature of mystery. Our lives are made up of a scries of mysteries that we are meant to explore but that are meant to remain unsolved. We are meant to live with the questions we have about our lives, even use them as companions, and allow them to lead us into the deepest recesses of our nature, wherein we discover the Sacred. I hope that this book will help you find new ways of framing the meaning of illness and other life challenges and help you move deeper into your mysteries and further along your personal path toward spiritual mastery.” – Caroline Myss, “Why People Don’t Heal And How They Can”. I can see how there are many aspiring writers who want to share their stories because the process of getting it down is therapy. But it’s not whole until it has come alive in its true form: a published novel, a staged play, or recorded music. Ah… I think I should switch to drawing or painting, because it might be easier for me to express the story in an image with lines and light, then framing the picture and putting it up. This writing thing (aka healing) is damn hard. Why would anyone want to do it? That would mean change, which leads to growth, which is then expansion – and POP! goes the balloon; or it can fly away, way up in the sky – free like a bird.

– Analyn Revilla

The Huffington Post story was headlined, “NASA Discovers New Life:  Arsenic Bacteria With DNA Completely Alien From What We Know”

The words “completely alien” are incendiary, because anything alien is really degrees of differences in colors, or shades of grey.  After reading that story that NASA has discovered a new life form that is “unlike any other living lifeform on the planet – from the simplest plant to the most complex mammal”, I felt a great sense of hope.  I am not alone.  I am not just a black sheep after all.  This newly discovered lifeform survives off arsenic, known to be  toxic to all other life forms.  GFAJ-1 (a microbe that is a member of a common group of bacteria, the Gammaproteobacteria).

When I was a kid I loved eating the apple cores my mom threw out whenever she made pie.  Later on I learned that apple seeds and other stone pitted fruits (peach, nectarine and plum) have naturally occurring arsenic.  I still chew on the pit till it splits open and exposes its soft almond-tasting seed.   

This story brings to mind my Halloween costume.  I was Poison Fairy.  The idea of the costume literally was a bulb that turned on a half hour before going to work.  The incentive to dress up was a $100 VISA gift certificate.   The fun of it was to come up with an idea that would cost me nothing more than resourcefulness and imagination.  (The night before I had the idea of going as Woody Allen’s character in the movie Sleeper, but I couldn’t find a pair of “IRS” type glasses at the thrift store.  That costume would be fun to put together for next year.)

That morning I also had to make an emergency trip to the vet to havedog’s floppy ears drained of blood.  She had hematoma.  After a haranguing experience with a cab company I got home in time to shower.  “Hmmm… what to wear? what to wear?” I pondered as I shampooed and scrubbed away.  This meditative moment gave birth to nada.

I flung open my closet door and saw a sea of black clothes:  black t-shirts from rock concerts, black jeans, black or dark blue motorcycle gear.  I push to the back and saw this sparkly green ball gown.  “Oh this…”  I meant to tear it apart and use the material for curtains.  I pulled it out into the light.

Possibilities:  I have a shiny strappy silver high-heels and shimmery sequined purse.  I can go as a princess.  Nah… ho hum boring.  Then out of the blue a flash:  “Poison Fairy!”  I have a bottle of “Poison” (a la Christian Dior) and vase full of Thistle thorn flowers.  I slapped on some thick make up and got dressed. 

The gown was at a yard sale from a young English gal who was leaving LA to go home.  When I told her about my plan for the dress her pretty face fell to a sad expression, “Oh… Maybe you could try to tear it at the seams so it doesn’t ruin the dress, in case you decide to put it back together again.  I meant to wear it to a party as a fun thing, but there was never an occasion.”  I bought the dress for $2 and it hung once (intact in its form) against the window pane.  But after I got some proper sheers it got stuffed at the back of the closet.)  Now I wish I would’ve kept that woman’s email.  (Claire was her name.)  She would’ve been happy to know that the dress did find an occasion to go to.

At the costume judging event, I threatened to poison the judges if I didn’t win with a big squirt of “Poison”.  (We all know that a squirt of any perfume is enough to give almost anyone a headache.)  A stem of thistle served as my scepter.  (I even researched on the net if there is such a thing as Poison Fairy and indeed there was.)  How did my ancient brain come up with this idea?  I marvel at our imaginative capacity if when we allow ourselves to play and daydream.

As Poison Fairy I was 1^st runner up to Benjamin Franklin.  During the final judging I was dismissed by one of the judges.  She said she’s been poked with enough needles and poisoned with enough drugs from her radiation and chemo therapies that my ploy to “kill ‘em all if I didn’t win” did not scare her.

What’s poison to some is medicine for others.  I truly believe this.  Many people in our society is conditioned to believe that the traditional medicine manufactured by pharmaceutical companies that synthesizes the real thing can’t imagine to try something different prescribed by the doctors.  However, it’s sometimes not until someone is at the threshold of death that they might consider an alternative source of cure.   Pharmaceutical giants have acquired massive tracts of the Amazon Basin. There are in-depth considerations for citizens of this planet to find out the motives for this act.  (Too much to get into in this blog, and the seriousness of which takes the lightness away from my intention.  I need to lighten up!!) 

Thank you NASA!  My tax dollars are finally being put to good use for my own purpose.  Thanks for finding my family.  In the Huffington Post article the agency stated that with the discovery of the new life form “will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.”  (i.e. – there is a greater possibility that there is more of my kin out there and on this planet too.)  I’ll be making plans to drop in on family this coming holiday break.  I love arsenic opium-poppy cakes. 

And the moral of the story is… a whole apple a day keeps the imagination at play!

(Here’s a link to the Huffington Post article:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/02/nasa-new-life-arsenic-bacteria_n_791094.html)

December 1^st, 2010 is rent day and I wrote my last rent check for this year.  Seeing the date with the passing of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend and beginning the preparations for December festivities and more time off, I reflected upon the events of the past year. 

On my desk is a picture I took of a special tree in Vancouver that I saw everyday for three years.  One day the tree looked different.  Its limbs were decorated with an assortment of clocks and watches.  It reminded me of the Pink Floyd’s song, “Time”:  the shrill of the alarm bell then the chimes and ticking seconds… “Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day…Fritter and wastes the hours in an offhand way.”

This picture is a reminder of how I fritter away the minutes in an hour; how readily I take for granted that the sun comes up and around everyday bringing in a new day, a new week and a new year.  During the reprieve from the routine of working in the office and doing chores to maintain life, I finally acted on a project I’ve been considering for sometime.  I started my “dream board”/”vision board”.

A dream board is a collage of images and phrases/words that represents a visual map of your goals and dreams.  Sunday, I sat on the living room floor, and it was a patchwork of pictures, captions and words I had cut out from magazines and other periodicals.   I started late in the afternoon and thought I’d be finished by the time I got to bed.   That was 3 days ago, and I’ve been up early yesterday and today putting together my dream board.  It’s not as simple a task as I had thought.  Once I got my heart and imagination into it I was immersed in more possibilities than I originally started out with; and also further introspection and clarity on what it is I really want to create.

I don’t have nearly enough pictures to express my dreams, and I’m still collecting catalogues, and I have asked the mailroom guy at the office to recycle the old magazines my way.  As I flip through pages of advertising, articles and cartoons of magazines I’ve developed a keener sense of screening what magazines best reflect who I think I am and where I want to be.  An hour intended for collecting pictures is not enough.  I am building, taking down, re-shaping and molding my dream board.

This morning I woke up at 1 o’clock in the morning, put on some coffee and thought of putting an hour into the dream board.  By the time I’ve exhausted my resources of pictures and my being it was already 5 o’clock and the phone alarm goes off in a half hour.  I set it forward to 7:30.  I rested and felt elated.  My half-sleep state brought up more rich images.  I got up again and got through my day with surprisingly little fatigue and I look forward to going back to building more layers to my dream board.

I love the work.  It engages every fiber of my being down to my core and provokes me to poke the smoking embers of the fire within to a flame.  When the flame is exhausted I know I will be empty like that feeling after a long 8 hour hike – summiting and coming down.  Ah…I did it and how much I saw and learned.   

I created a dream board for a character I was playing in one of my acting classes.  It was shortcut way of getting to know this imaginary character.  The exercise opened up images, in a visceral sense, the dreams, fears, hope, joy sorrows and inspirations of that human being that was a part of me too.  It really stretched and strengthened the “empathetic heart”.

The dream board communicates the words and thoughts of our visions, and it’s an effective tool for planting the seeds of change in our subconscious.  By the way, I put the picture of that tree with the clocks and watches in the middle of my dream board.

In closing I want to quote a visionary…

“Carefully watch your thoughts, for they become your words. Manage and watch your words, for they will become your actions. Consider and judge your actions, for they have become your habits. Acknowledge and watch your habits, for they shall become your values. Understand and embrace your values, for they become your destiny.”

Mahatma Gandhi

The fragrance of my shampoo is prickly pear.  While I lather my head with this stuff, without even knowing what it really looks like (the cactus variety) I imagine prickly pear as the delicate Bartlett pear.  (I think the Bartlett variety is the more easily bruised compared to the Bosc or Anjou.)  Then I see the thorns sticking out of it protecting the juicy tasty flesh the inviting light green color and odor of the fruit.  I sometimes feel like a prickly pear.

It’s easy to get use to the mode of being closed and protected when it ALL seems too much – too much betrayal of others and self.  So, I wanted to change this mode of being.  It simply would not do as I was aware that this mode will not sustain a healthy way of living.  Get rid of the thorns and just be yourself; someone who many describe as sweet and sensitive. 

A short diversion about Luther Burbank, a noted botanist, who was a good friend of Paramahansa Yogananda.  He developed a spineless and thornless variety of cactus and he said:

While I was conducting experiments to make ”spineless” cactus, I often talked to the plants to create a vibration of love. ”You have nothing to fear.” I would tell them. ”You don’t need your defensive thorns. I will protect you.” Gradually the useful plant of the desert emerged in a thornless variety. (Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi, Jaico Publishing House, Bombay, Second Indian Edition, 1975, Twelfth Impression, p. 353.)

Rounding back to my original thought, I am reminded of an incident when I shared a scene with my class from my play.  My mentor asked me, “couldn’t you have some compassion for …” (a particular character in the story.)  He pointed out that I was lacking love and that I was writing with my thumb on the scale; and being the writer with the omniscient point of view I was writing with an agenda which the audience would easily be turned off about.  No one wants to be dictated to.  So I took a step back.  I wasn’t aware of what was happening in the writing. 

Explore the nature of what I’m trying to express.  This is what is more interesting rather than tipping the scale to say in the story that my hero is right and everyone else constellating around him is wrong.  It’s all of them constellating around the theme. 

The imperfect hero, I decided, is what I want to write about.  I think this is more interesting and real rather than the hero who is shown as perfectly right.  I could show him as thinking he’s perfectly right, and then show his arc when he realizes it’s not the whole truth.  There are other dimensions and not one is perfect. 

Back to prickly pear me.  When I’m aware of my modus operandi then I’ve observed my tendency to inject into my writing what I’m thinking and feeling at a personal level.  The awareness often (hopefully) makes me stop, because it makes for a disastrous piece of writing.  I could do all that in my morning pages.  Use that for all the crap and then get on with the real business of writing.

As I close my blogging week, I wanted to share with you that today I initiated the dialogue with the studio I work with about LAFPI.  I started it with an email to one of the teachers/directors of the studio.  He’ll be back on the week of October 18th, and we’ve agreed to talk in person then.

It feels good to have opened the window.  At least I know he’s open to the idea.  I explained about LAFPI and its grassroots, and described the goals we list in our website.  I also introduced the usage of our logo as “deemed appropriate” by the studio.

The worst of my fear has been slain dead.  It was really the fear of the unknown, and my pre-conception that I would be rejected.  Thinking about it makes me realize the immaturity of that mode. 

– Analyn

 The soft and red shade of the ripe prickly pear below is what the imperfect hero’s heart is like.  It breathes and bleeds life.

Our lives move along its path in varying degrees of speed and directions.  Like any journey it’s a sound practice to stop and re-orient ourselves to make sure we’re not deviating from our target destination.

 In my Yahoo! inbox this morning I found an email from the Dramatists Guild Women’s Initiative.  In reading the content it echoed a lot of what LAFPI is all about.  The email from the Dramatists Guild was an excellent reminder of why I’m part of LAFPI.

Revisiting the goals listed in our website is the same as revisiting personal affirmations we make to align ourselves towards our true path as we move from the micro to the macro in our vision of the shaping of our lives.  The micro influences the macro and vice versa.  The analogy that comes to mind is the 3^rd law of Newton’s Law of Motion of action-reaction where as described in Wikipedia as:

The mutual forces of action and reaction between two bodies are equal, opposite and collinear.

This means that whenever a first body exerts a force F on a second body, the second body exerts a force −F on the first body.

F and −F are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction. This law is sometimes referred to as the action-reaction law, with F called the “action” and −F the “reaction”.

A synopsis of the newsletter talks about:

1.  An “Access Event” in New York, NY which will give writers direct access to people who are in decision making roles.[1]
2.  The first conference on Women in Theatre: Achieving Gender Parity. [2]
3.  A general meeting with the topic of  “What am I doing to further parity for women in the American theatre that doesn’t cost any money?”

This last one really stuck an elbow to my side.  I’m reminded to go to my acting studio and ask if they would be willing to support LAFPI in using our logo. 

Asking has always been a weakness for me when it comes to some form of charity.  I’m reminded of a friend who called me recently to ask for a donation for her husband’s political campaign.  I empathized with her when I heard the hesitation exhibited by pauses, carefully selected words, the sighs and mostly the apologetic tone of her voice. After hearing her out, I wondered how the experience for both of us could’ve been different.  I’m changing my viewpoint from “charity” to “how it benefits” the studio to have the LAFPI logo and supporting what we’re trying to achieve.

We’re always championing change as a sign of progress and it takes a lot of courage and action to make it happen.  A segway into Newton’s first law of motion often referred to as the law of inertia:

• An object that is at rest will stay at rest unless an unbalanced force acts upon it.
• An object that is in motion will not change its velocity unless an unbalanced force acts upon it.  (source: Wikipedia)

The direct translation in my situation is “Stop procrastinating and just ask the studio if they are willing to support the LAFPI cause.”  I gain more by asking even if I don’t convince them the first time around. 

For completeness sake I’ll include the 2^nd law.  F=ma.  I think it’s like the force is proportional to the rate of change (the acceleration) and inversely proportional to the mass of what we’re trying to change. 

We need a lot of force to make the change.  As seen on the page that declares our mission statement “And now the real work begins!”

The Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative was created with the following goals:

1. To create an awareness of the facts: women playwrights are critically underrepresented on the American stage.
2. To advocate for female playwrights based Los Angeles – specifically by creating an active nexus between theaters, companies, organizations and theater artists who want to produce, promote and employ women playwrights.
3. To investigate and report the accurate history of producing organizations and plays by women in the Los Angeles area in the 21st century.
4. To recognize and support LA-area theaters who produce, promote and employ female theater artists through sharing our logo and advocating for – and attending – their productions.
5. To open channels and create opportunities for women playwrights, and by extension all women theater artists, in Los Angeles and beyond.

Before the end of my blogging week I will report on how I did with asking the studio to support LAFPI.

[2] This event event marks the first anniversary of the DG Women’s Initiative whose mission is to identify and address the challenges facing women dramatists, and develop action steps to advance and sustain fairness, equality and gender parity for all dramatists.  The keynote speaker for the Symposium is playwright, Julia Jordan, and features two panels moderated by Julie Crosby, producing artistic director of the Women’s Project, and playwright, Tina Howe.  Confirmed panelists include: Tessa LaNeve, literary manager of Primary Stages; Linda Chapman, associate artistic director of New York Theater Workshop; Beth Bickers, agent with Abrams Artists; Emily Mann, artistic director of McCarter Theater; playwrights Annie Baker and Winter Miller. Additional panelists will be announced.  We look forward to welcoming those of you who are coming to New York to participate!

 Just go.  Do it.  Even if what you’re thinking of embarking on is new, foreign and maybe even scary then it’s important now more than ever to trust your inner wisdom.  Trusting the inner voice strengthens our connection to the higher source of our creativity, even if we are blocked creatively.

 Yesterday, I had my first energy healing therapy with a healer whom I met at Jennie Webb’s world premiere of her play, “Yard Sale Signs”.  The Healer came initially as a stranger on Saturday night.  I had a reservation and I was running really late on Saturday evening.  I was ready to forgo the play as  I was afraid of walking in late.  But, my sense of commitment was stronger than my fear so I quickly put on my helmet and fired up the motorcycle.  I wound through traffic and found a spot right in front of the theater.  The doors were open and there was a short line at the box office. 

One of the box-office attendants called out, “Is there a Lauren here?”  I shook my head no.  Then the woman behind me asked “What did she say?”  I said, “She’s looking for Lauren.”  We both settled back into our spots and waited politely for our turn.  After a quick and warm hello with Jennie, I found a seat and settled in for a string of provoking and funny conversations in the next 80 minutes.   The play explores 3 varying mother-daughter relationships.  The impact of the story telling unfolds unconsciously. 

After the play there were pockets of conversations, and I stood next to the woman who, earlier was with me at the box office line up.  She’s a kindergarten teacher and she met Jennie at a fundraiser.  Further into the conversation I found out Hillary is a healer.  She is an Energy Healing Therapist.  Based on what I heard from her I was deeply interested.  She spoke about how Energy Healing Therapy is a healing process that clears blocked “chi” meridians.  This language spoke chakras to me and I was already familiar with the energy systems of chakras based on Christiane Northrup’s book,  “Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom” (Publisher:  Random House.) 

Next thing I found myself asking her if she could see me for a session the next day.  Rather impromptu, but she admitted she’s an impromptu kind of person.   Meanwhile, my left brain was already putting on the stops:  the cost, the trip out to Venice Beach, the traffic because of the Abbot Kinney Festival.  But Hillary was all about finding a way, a solution.  We made the appointment for 10 a.m.; I showed up at her purple painted door at 10:30 (my lateness signals my resistance.)

At Venice Beach the street festivities were well on their way.  Hillary’s home was a canopy of a serene oasis against the stuffy air.  I was boiling underneath all my motorcycle gear and the heat of the engine.  I changed into shorts and a fresh shirt in the bathroom while I stared at Buddhist thangkas.

The session begins with her question, “Why are you here?”  Though she was aware of the reason it was also a question that forces me to be clear on my intention.  I intuited that the problem was my resolve to finish my first rewrite which I’ve been circling round and round with, and never getting to the end. 

I couldn’t get past a certain point.  The path was blocked.  I had the desire to be creative but I lacked something and I was getting tired of trying to figure out how to get through it.  A heavy lethargic grossness overcame me whenever a great idea popped up.  As soon as I make my way towards the computer or pick up the guitar, I allowed myself to get distracted – too easily.  I found excuses:  coffee, sugar, housecleaning, going for a walk with the dog, and mostly “I’m not ready, because I don’t have the confidence that I have something to say.”  I wouldn’t allow myself the permission to just do it, and trust my inner guidance that I am an authority on what my imagination brings up.

I explained in depth to Hillary personal issues from the past, and that I needed helped to move forward.  It was sort of a desperate plea for help, but I wasn’t sure what form that would come in.  As I relayed the “issues” one by one she would stop me to ask where physically I was feeling something.  Mostly I pointed to the abdomen, and she observed a few times that I held my breath.  After the consultation she asked if I was ready to go on the table where she touched on the energy centers.  She began with a pendulum to determine the blocked energy points in my system.  The answers from the pendulum exposed that I was blocked on my 2^nd and 3^rd chakras.  The 2^nd chakra is related to sexuality, creativity, finances, personal power, relationships, sensuality and pleasure; while the 3^rd is about the development of personality, self-esteem and ego. (Reference –  Christiane Northrup’s website:  http://www.drnorthrup.com/womenshealth/energycenters/index.php.)

I recognized that my blocked chi in this chakra is related among other things with my disjointed relationship with my mother.  In trying to do my “Physician, heal thyself” I had neglected to dig into my own “sickness”.  Guilt can be like eddies draining you down, keeping you under, preventing surfacing up towards light and new growth.  

Story telling is how we share our humanity.  It is a form of healing that asks of us to share our joys and grievances to a sympathetic ear.  The wonder to me is the magic of how my inner guidance led my path to Hillary.  With the network of people who participated that evening at the Rogue Machine Theater, I wonder what new connections were made.  For myself, continuity of the story about mother-daughter relationships and how my intuition guided me to take the risk of trying something new, and being vulnerable to someone unfamiliar, and then coming to a point of initiating the unraveling of a knot in my chi relating to my family history, my need for security, validation and healing of hurts past forgotten but still resonating in my psyche and body as ailments.

While Hillary was moving energy through my 2^nd chakra I found myself unexpectedly sobbing.  Further on, perhaps after that channel opened up I breathed continuously and deeper than ever before.  I spoke to her, “I feel like I’m drinking water for the first time.”  Her response was “the 2^nd chakra is associated with water.”  Wow.  This is too bizarre to try to understand, but just accept it Analyn, I told myself.

Afterwards, I had a feeling of deep gratitude and strong sense of well being that everything is going to be alright and I can continue my work on the play.   There are different methods of resolving creative blocks and this is one method which I highly recommend based on personal experience.  The writing process is in itself a healing process and it’s a cathartic process whereby writers need sensitivity to the effects of the process in their bodies, heart and mind.

 To learn more about Hillary go to:  http://hillarybedell.wordpress.com/.  You can contact her via email at [email protected]

There’s a writing exercise that my mentor uses to get the fire started when imagining the world of the story.  The exercise is to do stream of consciousness writing on a topic that the writer feels strongly about.  What this is does is raise the counter argument to the opinion.  Then the writer takes this debate onto the story in a parallel vein. 

The argument is the catalyst to a dialogue between the hero and the antagonist.  Both sides have a need to be fulfilled, and they’re going to try their damndest to get what they want.

Today, I’ll indulge in something I feel strongly about.  An email sent in good will, but ending with words that made me think if what each of us were pursuing was in the best of our own interest.  The email trailed of as “just wanted to say hello..let’s try and get together sometime, when you’re not so busy…”  My knee-jerk reaction was detecting an undercurrent of complaint – “when you’re not so busy…”

What I feel strongly about is when people make demands of another person’s time to fit well into their plan.  I feel there has to be a strong mutual motivation between two people to spend time together, before the other person can begin to insinuate any demands on the other.  I think the friendship/relationship is already on a bad footing when one feels neglected and the other feels obliged to be less selfish with time, money or emotional commitment.

In this situation, I’m prepared to step away and move on because I know I can’t fulfill the expectations of the other person without trying to change, and I’m not prepared for that right now.   At the moment I’m still grounding myself to my decision to be a writer, a writer who works at a full-time job, and the regular paycheck supports the habit.  But this job does take its toll on my energy, and that’s the price I pay.

I had spent the past four years supporting the artistic pursuits of another artist, a musician, and I put my artistic aspirations on the backburner hoping that when his music career takes off then I can be the playwright. 

(In hindsight, if there is a calling to do creative work then pay heed to that voice right away, because it is a calling that leads to your fulfillment as a human being.  When you quiet down that voice then you also kill that living spirit, and your life becomes a dull routine of working to consume without fulfillment.  Empty consumerism like popcorn and high-fructose syrup.)

Career aspirations and expectations did not match reality on many levels, and this tumbled into the relationship which fell apart.  Statistically, my situation wasn’t unique, but on a personal level – it sucked.  The breakup, though anguishing and nearly breaking me, also awakened me. I found strength, and I woke up: To make my dream come true, I had to be true to my dream.

Being true to my dream means that I am conscientious of how I spend my time and energy.  So when someone takes offense to me being busy then I can’t apologize.  I won’t do it, because that would negate my affirmation to organize my life around the art I am purposefully making.  My belief system has evolved that I am consciously aware that my creation of writing is the center of my universe.  The imagery includes nourishing my wellbeing by surrounding myself with supportive individuals who feels empathy with my purpose. 

It’s not selfish to do what you want to do.  If you examine at a deep level the most kind and giving acts of the “Mother Teresa’s” of the world then it’s possible to see that they are doing what they need to do in pursuit of their own happiness.  

~ There exists only one aloneness, and it is great, and it is not easy to bear.  To nearly everyone come those hours that would gladly exchange for any cheap or even the most banal camaraderie, for even the slightest inclination to choose the second best or the most unworthy thing.  But perhaps it is exactly in those hours when aloneness can flourish.  Its growth is painful as the growing up of a young boy and sad as the emergence of springtime~ 

~But that should not confuse you.  What you really need is simply this – aloneness, great inner solitude.  To go within and for hours not to meet anyone – that is what one needs to attain~ 

~Your innermost happening is worth all your love.  You must work on that.  Do not expend too much courage or time to clarify your position to others ~

Rainer Maria Rilke, “Letters to a Young Poet”, translated by Joan M. Burnham

While making an Indian style pulau for breakfast I savored the fragrance of the spices toasting together on the hot pan.  In the mix were: cardamom seeds, cinnamon bark, clove, coriander and cumin.  It struck me then that the bouquet from the heating spices was a form of alchemy.  The catalyst was the flame.  It allowed for the spices to release their unique essences and blend with the others.  I like to call it:  Greet and Meet. 

How can I apply this magic to my writing?  What is the magic that good writing needs to be fulfilling?  I think it’s simple, but so hard to get at.  And this simple magic is truth. 

 Have you ever gone to a comedy show and the material and delivery just isn’t funny?  What makes a joke funny I wondered?  Analysing it, I came up with – it’s the exposure of the subtexts beyond the words.  It’s identifying the moment that resonates in each one of us, and transforming this moment to words and action.  To the writer it is the transformation in the story and also what change happens to the story teller in going through it.

 Last night I was reworking a situation, one which I’ve been laboring on for quite sometime.  It’s an important situation in which the key players are together.  In rewriting this situation I felt there was not any flavor and substance to the dialogue.  It was flat.  What’s the matter? I asked.  What am I hiding?  And what should I do to get unstuck?  I stepped back and got busy with nervous habits – eating and drinking lots of caffeine.  Well this is not going to help me get unstuck.  Get back in there and face the situation.  What do these people really want to say?

 Now, the mystery in the process started to unravel.  I, as the writer, needed to check-in my ego at the door and leave it behind with its agenda and my idea of the story.  Though I have the omniscient point of view, I am not the god creating this situation.  I am the channel for these people trying to tell each other something important to them.  Trust Analyn.  Learn to trust the players in the game.  Know that they know what they want to say.

 So the magic was ignited when I learned to express some compassion towards my players.  I stopped dictating what I think he should say, and how she should respond.  I just let them express, and I got further along in the story.  The alchemy of the story was happening at many levels:  in the story, in my players, and in me.  It was liberating.

 “The role of a writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say.” 
– Anais Nin