Saturday, February 26, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
fooling
What are you scared of? she said & I said, Nothing & then I said what are you scared of? & she said, people like you & it was such a relief to know I wouldn't be able to fool her for long
so relax
Hey, Andrew, don't you see? The "right" circumstances, people, and opportunities are just like "good" ideas - they come to you fastest, once you relax.
Zip, Zap, Zop,
The Universe
Zip, Zap, Zop,
The Universe
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
dancefloor
I met her on the dance floor of the student union bar when we were both just 19. I knew then that I had just met someone spectacular. We stayed close friends for ten years before we went out on our first date. Marriage followed soon after. These days, I’m inspired by the way she balances her career and motherhood.
signposts
Dear Andrew
There are times in our life where we recalculate our trajectory. This comes in simple ways, like taking a different route because of traffic and in big ways, where we change jobs or enter into a relationship. These times of adjustment are valuable and can offer us clues about our self and the life we came to experience.
The more conscious we become, the less surprised we are at these adjustments of our course and eventually, we participate consciously in these decisions. I have long thought of those events in life that seem 'negative' as being signposts on my path. Signposts that are pointing out a new road to me. Once seen like this, you can let go of the fear of change and then make these decisions before they come in the form of a 'tearing away'.
You are always in power, no matter what it seems. You are always creating your life, even when it seems like other people and circumstances are, and the first step in recognizing where this new change is taking you, is to acknowledge this. Acknowledge that you are in power and acknowledge that you are divine.
In Joy,
Mary and Neville
There are times in our life where we recalculate our trajectory. This comes in simple ways, like taking a different route because of traffic and in big ways, where we change jobs or enter into a relationship. These times of adjustment are valuable and can offer us clues about our self and the life we came to experience.
The more conscious we become, the less surprised we are at these adjustments of our course and eventually, we participate consciously in these decisions. I have long thought of those events in life that seem 'negative' as being signposts on my path. Signposts that are pointing out a new road to me. Once seen like this, you can let go of the fear of change and then make these decisions before they come in the form of a 'tearing away'.
You are always in power, no matter what it seems. You are always creating your life, even when it seems like other people and circumstances are, and the first step in recognizing where this new change is taking you, is to acknowledge this. Acknowledge that you are in power and acknowledge that you are divine.
In Joy,
Mary and Neville
unintentional craft
Life's so called "tests," Andrew, aren't really tests at all. And to dispel a common misconception, they certainly aren't given by me.
They're just the facts and circumstances one has unintentionally crafted with their focus, that, ever so conveniently reveal powers not yet claimed and understandings not yet grasped.
Amazing how these things work themselves out, huh?
The Universe
They're just the facts and circumstances one has unintentionally crafted with their focus, that, ever so conveniently reveal powers not yet claimed and understandings not yet grasped.
Amazing how these things work themselves out, huh?
The Universe
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
elizabeth gilbert
Sometimes people ask me for help or suggestions about how to write, or how to get published. Keeping in mind that this is all very ephemeral and personal, I will try to explain here everything that I believe about writing. I hope it is useful. It's all I know.
I believe that – if you are serious about a life of writing, or indeed about any creative form of expression – that you should take on this work like a holy calling. I became a writer the way other people become monks or nuns. I made a vow to writing, very young. I became Bride-of-Writing. I was writing’s most devotional handmaiden. I built my entire life around writing. I didn’t know how else to do this. I didn’t know anyone who had ever become a writer. I had no, as they say, connections. I had no clues. I just began.
I took a few writing classes when I was at NYU, but, aside from an excellent workshop taught by Helen Schulman, I found that I didn’t really want to be practicing this work in a classroom. I wasn’t convinced that a workshop full of 13 other young writers trying to find their voices was the best place for me to find my voice. So I wrote on my own, as well. I showed my work to friends and family whose opinions I trusted. I was always writing, always showing. After I graduated from NYU, I decided not to pursue an MFA in creative writing. Instead, I created my own post-graduate writing program, which entailed several years spent traveling around the country and world, taking jobs at bars and restaurants and ranches, listening to how people spoke, collecting experiences and writing constantly. My life probably looked disordered to observers (not that anyone was observing it that closely) but my travels were a very deliberate effort to learn as much as I could about life, expressly so that I could write about it.
Back around the age of 19, I had started sending my short stories out for publication. My goal was to publish something (anything, anywhere) before I died. I collected only massive piles of rejection notes for years. I cannot explain exactly why I had the confidence to be sending off my short stories at the age of 19 to, say, The New Yorker, or why it did not destroy me when I was inevitably rejected. I sort of figured I’d be rejected. But I also thought: “Hey – somebody has to write all those stories: why not me?” I didn’t love being rejected, but my expectations were low and my patience was high. (Again – the goal was to get published before death. And I was young and healthy.) It has never been easy for me to understand why people work so hard to create something beautiful, but then refuse to share it with anyone, for fear of criticism. Wasn’t that the point of the creation – to communicate something to the world? So PUT IT OUT THERE. Send your work off to editors and agents as much as possible, show it to your neighbors, plaster it on the walls of the bus stops – just don’t sit on your work and suffocate it. At least try. And when the powers-that-be send you back your manuscript (and they will), take a deep breath and try again. I often hear people say, “I’m not good enough yet to be published.” That’s quite possible. Probable, even. All I’m saying is: Let someone else decide that. Magazines, editors, agents – they all employ young people making $22,000 a year whose job it is to read through piles of manuscripts and send you back letters telling you that you aren’t good enough yet: LET THEM DO IT. Don’t pre-reject yourself. That’s their job, not yours. Your job is only to write your heart out, and let destiny take care of the rest.
As for discipline – it’s important, but sort of over-rated. The more important virtue for a writer, I believe, is self-forgiveness. Because your writing will always disappoint you. Your laziness will always disappoint you. You will make vows: “I’m going to write for an hour every day,” and then you won’t do it. You will think: “I suck, I’m such a failure. I’m washed-up.” Continuing to write after that heartache of disappointment doesn’t take only discipline, but also self-forgiveness (which comes from a place of kind and encouraging and motherly love). The other thing to realize is that all writers think they suck. When I was writing “Eat, Pray, Love”, I had just as a strong a mantra of THIS SUCKS ringing through my head as anyone does when they write anything. But I had a clarion moment of truth during the process of that book. One day, when I was agonizing over how utterly bad my writing felt, I realized: “That’s actually not my problem.” The point I realized was this – I never promised the universe that I would write brilliantly; I only promised the universe that I would write. So I put my head down and sweated through it, as per my vows.
I have a friend who’s an Italian filmmaker of great artistic sensibility. After years of struggling to get his films made, he sent an anguished letter to his hero, the brilliant (and perhaps half-insane) German filmmaker Werner Herzog. My friend complained about how difficult it is these days to be an independent filmmaker, how hard it is to find government arts grants, how the audiences have all been ruined by Hollywood and how the world has lost its taste…etc, etc. Herzog wrote back a personal letter to my friend that essentially ran along these lines: “Quit your complaining. It’s not the world’s fault that you wanted to be an artist. It’s not the world’s job to enjoy the films you make, and it’s certainly not the world’s obligation to pay for your dreams. Nobody wants to hear it. Steal a camera if you have to, but stop whining and get back to work.” I repeat those words back to myself whenever I start to feel resentful, entitled, competitive or unappreciated with regard to my writing: “It’s not the world’s fault that you want to be an artist…now get back to work.” Always, at the end of the day, the important thing is only and always that: Get back to work. This is a path for the courageous and the faithful. You must find another reason to work, other than the desire for success or recognition. It must come from another place.
Here’s another thing to consider. If you always wanted to write, and now you are A Certain Age, and you never got around to it, and you think it’s too late…do please think again. I watched Julia Glass win the National Book Award for her first novel, “The Three Junes”, which she began writing in her late 30’s. I listened to her give her moving acceptance speech, in which she told how she used to lie awake at night, tormented as she worked on her book, asking herself, “Who do you think you are, trying to write a first novel at your age?” But she wrote it. And as she held up her National Book Award, she said, “This is for all the late-bloomers in the world.” Writing is not like dancing or modeling; it’s not something where – if you missed it by age 19 – you’re finished. It’s never too late. Your writing will only get better as you get older and wiser. If you write something beautiful and important, and the right person somehow discovers it, they will clear room for you on the bookshelves of the world – at any age. At least try.
There are heaps of books out there on How To Get Published. Often people find the information in these books contradictory. My feeling is -- of COURSE the information is contradictory. Because, frankly, nobody knows anything. Nobody can tell you how to succeed at writing (even if they write a book called “How To Succeed At Writing”) because there is no WAY; there are, instead, many ways. Everyone I know who managed to become a writer did it differently – sometimes radically differently. Try all the ways, I guess. Becoming a published writer is sort of like trying to find a cheap apartment in New York City: it’s impossible. And yet…every single day, somebody manages to find a cheap apartment in New York City. I can’t tell you how to do it. I’m still not even entirely sure how I did it. I can only tell you – through my own example – that it can be done. I once found a cheap apartment in Manhattan. And I also became a writer.
In the end, I love this work. I have always loved this work. My suggestion is that you start with the love and then work very hard and try to let go of the results. Cast out your will, and then cut the line. Please try, also, not to go totally freaking insane in the process. Insanity is a very tempting path for artists, but we don’t need any more of that in the world at the moment, so please resist your call to insanity. We need more creation, not more destruction. We need our artists more than ever, and we need them to be stable, steadfast, honorable and brave – they are our soldiers, our hope. If you decide to write, then you must do it, as Balzac said, “like a miner buried under a fallen roof.” Become a knight, a force of diligence and faith. I don’t know how else to do it except that way. As the great poet Jack Gilbert said once to young writer, when she asked him for advice about her own poems: “Do you have the courage to bring forth this work? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say YES.”
Good luck.
I believe that – if you are serious about a life of writing, or indeed about any creative form of expression – that you should take on this work like a holy calling. I became a writer the way other people become monks or nuns. I made a vow to writing, very young. I became Bride-of-Writing. I was writing’s most devotional handmaiden. I built my entire life around writing. I didn’t know how else to do this. I didn’t know anyone who had ever become a writer. I had no, as they say, connections. I had no clues. I just began.
I took a few writing classes when I was at NYU, but, aside from an excellent workshop taught by Helen Schulman, I found that I didn’t really want to be practicing this work in a classroom. I wasn’t convinced that a workshop full of 13 other young writers trying to find their voices was the best place for me to find my voice. So I wrote on my own, as well. I showed my work to friends and family whose opinions I trusted. I was always writing, always showing. After I graduated from NYU, I decided not to pursue an MFA in creative writing. Instead, I created my own post-graduate writing program, which entailed several years spent traveling around the country and world, taking jobs at bars and restaurants and ranches, listening to how people spoke, collecting experiences and writing constantly. My life probably looked disordered to observers (not that anyone was observing it that closely) but my travels were a very deliberate effort to learn as much as I could about life, expressly so that I could write about it.
Back around the age of 19, I had started sending my short stories out for publication. My goal was to publish something (anything, anywhere) before I died. I collected only massive piles of rejection notes for years. I cannot explain exactly why I had the confidence to be sending off my short stories at the age of 19 to, say, The New Yorker, or why it did not destroy me when I was inevitably rejected. I sort of figured I’d be rejected. But I also thought: “Hey – somebody has to write all those stories: why not me?” I didn’t love being rejected, but my expectations were low and my patience was high. (Again – the goal was to get published before death. And I was young and healthy.) It has never been easy for me to understand why people work so hard to create something beautiful, but then refuse to share it with anyone, for fear of criticism. Wasn’t that the point of the creation – to communicate something to the world? So PUT IT OUT THERE. Send your work off to editors and agents as much as possible, show it to your neighbors, plaster it on the walls of the bus stops – just don’t sit on your work and suffocate it. At least try. And when the powers-that-be send you back your manuscript (and they will), take a deep breath and try again. I often hear people say, “I’m not good enough yet to be published.” That’s quite possible. Probable, even. All I’m saying is: Let someone else decide that. Magazines, editors, agents – they all employ young people making $22,000 a year whose job it is to read through piles of manuscripts and send you back letters telling you that you aren’t good enough yet: LET THEM DO IT. Don’t pre-reject yourself. That’s their job, not yours. Your job is only to write your heart out, and let destiny take care of the rest.
As for discipline – it’s important, but sort of over-rated. The more important virtue for a writer, I believe, is self-forgiveness. Because your writing will always disappoint you. Your laziness will always disappoint you. You will make vows: “I’m going to write for an hour every day,” and then you won’t do it. You will think: “I suck, I’m such a failure. I’m washed-up.” Continuing to write after that heartache of disappointment doesn’t take only discipline, but also self-forgiveness (which comes from a place of kind and encouraging and motherly love). The other thing to realize is that all writers think they suck. When I was writing “Eat, Pray, Love”, I had just as a strong a mantra of THIS SUCKS ringing through my head as anyone does when they write anything. But I had a clarion moment of truth during the process of that book. One day, when I was agonizing over how utterly bad my writing felt, I realized: “That’s actually not my problem.” The point I realized was this – I never promised the universe that I would write brilliantly; I only promised the universe that I would write. So I put my head down and sweated through it, as per my vows.
I have a friend who’s an Italian filmmaker of great artistic sensibility. After years of struggling to get his films made, he sent an anguished letter to his hero, the brilliant (and perhaps half-insane) German filmmaker Werner Herzog. My friend complained about how difficult it is these days to be an independent filmmaker, how hard it is to find government arts grants, how the audiences have all been ruined by Hollywood and how the world has lost its taste…etc, etc. Herzog wrote back a personal letter to my friend that essentially ran along these lines: “Quit your complaining. It’s not the world’s fault that you wanted to be an artist. It’s not the world’s job to enjoy the films you make, and it’s certainly not the world’s obligation to pay for your dreams. Nobody wants to hear it. Steal a camera if you have to, but stop whining and get back to work.” I repeat those words back to myself whenever I start to feel resentful, entitled, competitive or unappreciated with regard to my writing: “It’s not the world’s fault that you want to be an artist…now get back to work.” Always, at the end of the day, the important thing is only and always that: Get back to work. This is a path for the courageous and the faithful. You must find another reason to work, other than the desire for success or recognition. It must come from another place.
Here’s another thing to consider. If you always wanted to write, and now you are A Certain Age, and you never got around to it, and you think it’s too late…do please think again. I watched Julia Glass win the National Book Award for her first novel, “The Three Junes”, which she began writing in her late 30’s. I listened to her give her moving acceptance speech, in which she told how she used to lie awake at night, tormented as she worked on her book, asking herself, “Who do you think you are, trying to write a first novel at your age?” But she wrote it. And as she held up her National Book Award, she said, “This is for all the late-bloomers in the world.” Writing is not like dancing or modeling; it’s not something where – if you missed it by age 19 – you’re finished. It’s never too late. Your writing will only get better as you get older and wiser. If you write something beautiful and important, and the right person somehow discovers it, they will clear room for you on the bookshelves of the world – at any age. At least try.
There are heaps of books out there on How To Get Published. Often people find the information in these books contradictory. My feeling is -- of COURSE the information is contradictory. Because, frankly, nobody knows anything. Nobody can tell you how to succeed at writing (even if they write a book called “How To Succeed At Writing”) because there is no WAY; there are, instead, many ways. Everyone I know who managed to become a writer did it differently – sometimes radically differently. Try all the ways, I guess. Becoming a published writer is sort of like trying to find a cheap apartment in New York City: it’s impossible. And yet…every single day, somebody manages to find a cheap apartment in New York City. I can’t tell you how to do it. I’m still not even entirely sure how I did it. I can only tell you – through my own example – that it can be done. I once found a cheap apartment in Manhattan. And I also became a writer.
In the end, I love this work. I have always loved this work. My suggestion is that you start with the love and then work very hard and try to let go of the results. Cast out your will, and then cut the line. Please try, also, not to go totally freaking insane in the process. Insanity is a very tempting path for artists, but we don’t need any more of that in the world at the moment, so please resist your call to insanity. We need more creation, not more destruction. We need our artists more than ever, and we need them to be stable, steadfast, honorable and brave – they are our soldiers, our hope. If you decide to write, then you must do it, as Balzac said, “like a miner buried under a fallen roof.” Become a knight, a force of diligence and faith. I don’t know how else to do it except that way. As the great poet Jack Gilbert said once to young writer, when she asked him for advice about her own poems: “Do you have the courage to bring forth this work? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say YES.”
Good luck.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Mozart said...
Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of a genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.
Friday, February 18, 2011
thanks Ijeoma
you have to let go of your fears and follow your dreams - I was randomly watching Sex & the City and the part of the episode was about Charlotte not being afraid of love and going after her dreams!!!
You are spot on. Keep your motion mister!
<3
I
You are spot on. Keep your motion mister!
<3
I
dreams and fears
The trick with courage, Andrew, is realizing that it isn't so much about overcoming fear, as it is about not settling for less. And then, it comes as effortlessly as a midsummer's night breeze.
Whhhhhhhhhhhhhh-a-a-a-a-a-a, who-o-o-osh -
The Universe
Whhhhhhhhhhhhhh-a-a-a-a-a-a, who-o-o-osh -
The Universe
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
oh santi, santi
Wouldn't it be nice to know, and I do mean REALLY, REALLY know, that everything - absolutely everything - is going to turn out just fine? Really fine. Outrageously so.
Andrew, you can know this right now, as I do, if you just see yourself right now, as I do: a part of me.
Santi, Santi, Santi -
The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars
Andrew, you can know this right now, as I do, if you just see yourself right now, as I do: a part of me.
Santi, Santi, Santi -
The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
Jorge Ali Triana & Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Jorge Ali Triana brings Gabriel Garcia Marquez tale to GALA Hispanic Theatre
By David Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 11, 2011; 4:22 PM
The irrepressible Colombian director Jorge Ali Triana scoots off his stool during a break in rehearsals at GALA Hispanic Theatre on 14th Street NW to re-create the scene of when he once vexed Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and thus learned a little lesson about art.
It was Bogota, Colombia, the early 1990s. Triana was unveiling his production of "La Candida Erendira," which he had adapted from Garcia Marquez's novella "The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Erendira and Her Heartless Grandmother" - the same work that Triana is directing this month at GALA.
Triana by then had established himself as a significant Latin American director, working voraciously in theater, film and television. His award-winning film from a Garcia Marquez script, "Tiempo de Morir" ("Time to Die"), had been admired by the writer. And he was embarking on what would turn into a two-decade odyssey of adapting monuments of Latin American literature for the stage. The most admired writers, including two Nobel laureates - Garcia Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa - entrusted their work to him. "Erendira," with co-adaptor Carlos Jose Reyes, was one of his first attempts.
"Hey," growled Garcia Marquez. "How come Erendira doesn't say the dialogue about the diamonds?" He was referring to the scene in the play during which diamonds are revealed growing inside oranges being transported by smugglers.
"Because it's not in the novel," Triana replied.
"Of course it's in the novel!"
"No, it's not!"
"I'm going to get the book."
Garcia Marquez thumbed to the page in question and discovered that, in fact, the dialogue he had thought was there was not. Something about Triana's stage version had tricked and triggered the writer's imagination.
"Well," said Garcia Marquez, "now it has to be there." On the spot, he dictated lines for Triana to add to the play.
Alas, Triana confesses, chuckling as he retakes his stool, he can't remember now what lines the master dictated, nor whether they are in the script of the current production. That's not the point.
The lesson, Triana says, lay not in the specific words that flashed in the Nobel laureate's imagination that day in the Bogota theater. The episode taught him to always be ready to recognize and embrace the perishable magic of the moment.
"Fortunately, I don't have a very good memory," he says. "Because it would be very boring to copy yourself. The interesting thing in theater, in the exercise of making art, is the adventure and the surprise and the encounter with the unknown."
Triana is bringing that adventurous spirit to one of the showcase productions marking GALA's 35th anniversary. The play, in Spanish with English surtitles, runs through Feb. 27.
"What I like from him, as a director, is that he's still trying things, discovering things, investigating, exploring," says Hugo Medrano, the Argentine-born director and actor who started GALA in 1976 with Rebecca Read, a dancer from New York City. (The couple married soon after founding the theater.)
The play revolves around beautiful Erendira, who, when scarcely a teenager, is forced into prostitution by her grandmother in order to repay the debt of having accidentally burned down her grandmother's house. Erendira finds passing happiness and a chance at escape with her angelic lover, Ulises (played by Ignacio Meneses), whose father grows those oranges.
The drama is set in la Guajira, a surreal golden desert landscape near the Colombian frontier with Venezuela, where today's smugglers are more likely to be hauling coca leaves than diamond-seeded oranges.
Squarely built and improbably energetic at 68 years old, Triana likes to join his actors onstage during rehearsals, slipping into the roles to demonstrate his idea of a character. He's the first to throw himself to the boards of the painted-desert set to incarnate a pratfall called for in the script.
"When he comes onstage, he becomes like a little kid," says Paola Baldion, who plays Erendira. "When you see him outside the theater, he has this very intense look, so maybe you would think he's kind of angry. But he's not the angry director. He's the opposite."
"He is Marcus Welby transliterated to the world of 2011 Latino director - the patient, indulgent, wise, paternal figure you would hope for," says Gil Pimentel, a vice president at National Geographic Television, who plays the father of Ulises.
The actors and managers at GALA report no game-changing thunderclaps of improvisation as evidence of Triana's lesson in spontaneity from Garcia Marquez. But in countless smaller ways, they say, his openness to inspired experimentation has lent this production of "Erendira" notes and nuances that it did not possess before and probably won't again.
This would come as no surprise back home in Bogota, where Triana founded the Teatro Popular de Bogota in 1968 and has grown into something of a cultural celebrity. Last July, he was artistic director for the bicentennial bonanza in Bogota's Plaza de Bolivar - that's almost like Quincy Jones being tapped to co-produce the millennium festivities on the Mall in 1999.
When Baldion was an aspiring teenage actress growing up in Colombia, she says, "one of my first dreams was, I wish I could act in a play with Jorge Ali."
Strife and magic
When Triana was about 10, his father, a painter, took him to la Guajira to sketch landscapes. It was a bewitching, savage setting. The windswept coastal desert, inhabited by an ancient indigenous tribe, hardly needed a magical realist like Garcia Marquez to render it supernatural. The boy never returned, but he never lost his enchantment, and many years later, far away in Washington, he would revisit la Guajira through "Erendira."
In 1954, a couple years after the trip to la Guajira, television arrived in Colombia. At first there were only 300 sets in the country. (Triana would learn these facts much later, when he made a documentary about Colombian television.) A neighborhood boy's family had one of the first sets. Triana visited and saw his friend on the little screen, acting in a kids' television show. Spellbound, Triana joined this local troupe, appearing himself on those 300 sets and also onstage. His first role was the wolf in "Little Red Riding Hood."
Fifty-seven years later, he enthusiastically recites his first lines, with appropriate lupine ferocity.
"I pursued theater my whole life," he says, chatting for about 90 minutes in Spanish before an evening technical rehearsal, occupying a stool in the theater's intermission snack area. "I never did anything else."
His life span almost exactly coincides with the spasms of political, economic and drug violence that still grip sections of Colombia and which can be traced to a political assassination in Bogota in 1948.
"I'm from a generation that has not known one day of peace," he says.
Themes of national strife appear in his work, buried at varying depths of subtext.
"Art can't offer solutions, but it can ask a lot of questions," he says. "One of my motivations to do this work is my anguish for my society."
His 1996 film "Edipo Alcalde" ("Oedipus Mayor") recasts the Sophocles tragedy with a Colombian mayor trying to promote peace among the guerrillas and the paramilitaries.
That project was the occasion for another lesson from Garcia Marquez, who drafted the building blocks of the script. After the script had been fleshed out and polished by other writers, Garcia Marquez took a last look and invented a new character: a magnificent horse, possessed of an unsettling intelligence, galloping through several scenes.
"All at once, with this horse, the script acquired another dimension," Triana says. "It became strange, it became magical."
He's a continental chauvinist when it comes to narrative fiction. He thinks the Latin American stuff is about the best in the world.
Not so much when it comes to theater. He'd rather direct, say, "Death of a Salesman" - which he presented in Bogota not long ago - than a lot of the plays that have come out of his part of the world.
So when he's on the hunt for new material for the stage, which is often, he'll dive into a good book. He aims high: Garcia Marquez, Vargas Llosa, Jorge Amado, Sergio Ramirez and lesser-known rising stars.
"It's almost like talking about why do you fall in love with this woman and not that one," he says about how he selects works to adapt. "What strikes the heart, touches the conscience, moves the sentiments and awakens the imagination and desire. It's a lot like love."
Theatrical language
The novels he falls in love with provoke playful experimentalism in him and satisfy a latent political preoccupation.
He brought his adaptation of Garcia Marquez's "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" to the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater in 2001 and set the murder drama in a bullfighting ring. In New York, he staged Vargas Llosa's "The Feast of the Goat," about the Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo, in 2003; and a musical version of Vargas Llosa's "Pantaleon and the Visitors," a sendup of military bureaucracy, in 2009.
Vargas Llosa - who, according to Triana, initially had been reluctant to grant permission to the adaptor - pronounced himself "very pleased" with the results.
"He succeeded in translating the essence of those stories into a theatrical language," with a staging that was "agile, original and intelligent," Vargas Llosa said in an e-mail from Lima, Peru. "Besides being a magnificent adapter, Jorge Ali Triana is a very good director of actors, with an alert sense of dramaturgy."
What attracted Triana to "Erendira," besides the hallucinatory setting, was the theme of exploitation, which Triana posits is present in many human relationships.
"Maybe 15 years ago I understood Erendira more than the grandmother," he says. "Now I understand the grandmother more than Erendira."
The challenge of bringing a novel to the stage, he says, is to not make the mistake of trying to "illustrate" the work, but rather to "translate" it into the language of theater.
As the rehearsals for "Erendira" proceeded, Triana felt a familiar ache and insecurity - part of his creative process. Was the translation from page to stage succeeding? Did he need to invent a horse to make the production more strange, more magical?
"There is a moment of encounter between the imagination and reality," he says. That's the moment when the director's vision becomes tethered to an actual production.
"Sometimes the reality surprises," he says. "It's better than the imagination."
With another rehearsal set to begin, he considers what exactly the adaptor, the director, must do each time out to make that happen.
"I don't have the formula," he says after a pause. "I have the aspiration."
La Candida Erendira runs through Feb. 27, Thursdays to Saturdays at 8 p.m.; Sundays 3 p.m. Tickets: www.galatheatre.org, 202-234-7174.
By David Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 11, 2011; 4:22 PM
The irrepressible Colombian director Jorge Ali Triana scoots off his stool during a break in rehearsals at GALA Hispanic Theatre on 14th Street NW to re-create the scene of when he once vexed Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and thus learned a little lesson about art.
It was Bogota, Colombia, the early 1990s. Triana was unveiling his production of "La Candida Erendira," which he had adapted from Garcia Marquez's novella "The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Erendira and Her Heartless Grandmother" - the same work that Triana is directing this month at GALA.
Triana by then had established himself as a significant Latin American director, working voraciously in theater, film and television. His award-winning film from a Garcia Marquez script, "Tiempo de Morir" ("Time to Die"), had been admired by the writer. And he was embarking on what would turn into a two-decade odyssey of adapting monuments of Latin American literature for the stage. The most admired writers, including two Nobel laureates - Garcia Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa - entrusted their work to him. "Erendira," with co-adaptor Carlos Jose Reyes, was one of his first attempts.
"Hey," growled Garcia Marquez. "How come Erendira doesn't say the dialogue about the diamonds?" He was referring to the scene in the play during which diamonds are revealed growing inside oranges being transported by smugglers.
"Because it's not in the novel," Triana replied.
"Of course it's in the novel!"
"No, it's not!"
"I'm going to get the book."
Garcia Marquez thumbed to the page in question and discovered that, in fact, the dialogue he had thought was there was not. Something about Triana's stage version had tricked and triggered the writer's imagination.
"Well," said Garcia Marquez, "now it has to be there." On the spot, he dictated lines for Triana to add to the play.
Alas, Triana confesses, chuckling as he retakes his stool, he can't remember now what lines the master dictated, nor whether they are in the script of the current production. That's not the point.
The lesson, Triana says, lay not in the specific words that flashed in the Nobel laureate's imagination that day in the Bogota theater. The episode taught him to always be ready to recognize and embrace the perishable magic of the moment.
"Fortunately, I don't have a very good memory," he says. "Because it would be very boring to copy yourself. The interesting thing in theater, in the exercise of making art, is the adventure and the surprise and the encounter with the unknown."
Triana is bringing that adventurous spirit to one of the showcase productions marking GALA's 35th anniversary. The play, in Spanish with English surtitles, runs through Feb. 27.
"What I like from him, as a director, is that he's still trying things, discovering things, investigating, exploring," says Hugo Medrano, the Argentine-born director and actor who started GALA in 1976 with Rebecca Read, a dancer from New York City. (The couple married soon after founding the theater.)
The play revolves around beautiful Erendira, who, when scarcely a teenager, is forced into prostitution by her grandmother in order to repay the debt of having accidentally burned down her grandmother's house. Erendira finds passing happiness and a chance at escape with her angelic lover, Ulises (played by Ignacio Meneses), whose father grows those oranges.
The drama is set in la Guajira, a surreal golden desert landscape near the Colombian frontier with Venezuela, where today's smugglers are more likely to be hauling coca leaves than diamond-seeded oranges.
Squarely built and improbably energetic at 68 years old, Triana likes to join his actors onstage during rehearsals, slipping into the roles to demonstrate his idea of a character. He's the first to throw himself to the boards of the painted-desert set to incarnate a pratfall called for in the script.
"When he comes onstage, he becomes like a little kid," says Paola Baldion, who plays Erendira. "When you see him outside the theater, he has this very intense look, so maybe you would think he's kind of angry. But he's not the angry director. He's the opposite."
"He is Marcus Welby transliterated to the world of 2011 Latino director - the patient, indulgent, wise, paternal figure you would hope for," says Gil Pimentel, a vice president at National Geographic Television, who plays the father of Ulises.
The actors and managers at GALA report no game-changing thunderclaps of improvisation as evidence of Triana's lesson in spontaneity from Garcia Marquez. But in countless smaller ways, they say, his openness to inspired experimentation has lent this production of "Erendira" notes and nuances that it did not possess before and probably won't again.
This would come as no surprise back home in Bogota, where Triana founded the Teatro Popular de Bogota in 1968 and has grown into something of a cultural celebrity. Last July, he was artistic director for the bicentennial bonanza in Bogota's Plaza de Bolivar - that's almost like Quincy Jones being tapped to co-produce the millennium festivities on the Mall in 1999.
When Baldion was an aspiring teenage actress growing up in Colombia, she says, "one of my first dreams was, I wish I could act in a play with Jorge Ali."
Strife and magic
When Triana was about 10, his father, a painter, took him to la Guajira to sketch landscapes. It was a bewitching, savage setting. The windswept coastal desert, inhabited by an ancient indigenous tribe, hardly needed a magical realist like Garcia Marquez to render it supernatural. The boy never returned, but he never lost his enchantment, and many years later, far away in Washington, he would revisit la Guajira through "Erendira."
In 1954, a couple years after the trip to la Guajira, television arrived in Colombia. At first there were only 300 sets in the country. (Triana would learn these facts much later, when he made a documentary about Colombian television.) A neighborhood boy's family had one of the first sets. Triana visited and saw his friend on the little screen, acting in a kids' television show. Spellbound, Triana joined this local troupe, appearing himself on those 300 sets and also onstage. His first role was the wolf in "Little Red Riding Hood."
Fifty-seven years later, he enthusiastically recites his first lines, with appropriate lupine ferocity.
"I pursued theater my whole life," he says, chatting for about 90 minutes in Spanish before an evening technical rehearsal, occupying a stool in the theater's intermission snack area. "I never did anything else."
His life span almost exactly coincides with the spasms of political, economic and drug violence that still grip sections of Colombia and which can be traced to a political assassination in Bogota in 1948.
"I'm from a generation that has not known one day of peace," he says.
Themes of national strife appear in his work, buried at varying depths of subtext.
"Art can't offer solutions, but it can ask a lot of questions," he says. "One of my motivations to do this work is my anguish for my society."
His 1996 film "Edipo Alcalde" ("Oedipus Mayor") recasts the Sophocles tragedy with a Colombian mayor trying to promote peace among the guerrillas and the paramilitaries.
That project was the occasion for another lesson from Garcia Marquez, who drafted the building blocks of the script. After the script had been fleshed out and polished by other writers, Garcia Marquez took a last look and invented a new character: a magnificent horse, possessed of an unsettling intelligence, galloping through several scenes.
"All at once, with this horse, the script acquired another dimension," Triana says. "It became strange, it became magical."
He's a continental chauvinist when it comes to narrative fiction. He thinks the Latin American stuff is about the best in the world.
Not so much when it comes to theater. He'd rather direct, say, "Death of a Salesman" - which he presented in Bogota not long ago - than a lot of the plays that have come out of his part of the world.
So when he's on the hunt for new material for the stage, which is often, he'll dive into a good book. He aims high: Garcia Marquez, Vargas Llosa, Jorge Amado, Sergio Ramirez and lesser-known rising stars.
"It's almost like talking about why do you fall in love with this woman and not that one," he says about how he selects works to adapt. "What strikes the heart, touches the conscience, moves the sentiments and awakens the imagination and desire. It's a lot like love."
Theatrical language
The novels he falls in love with provoke playful experimentalism in him and satisfy a latent political preoccupation.
He brought his adaptation of Garcia Marquez's "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" to the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater in 2001 and set the murder drama in a bullfighting ring. In New York, he staged Vargas Llosa's "The Feast of the Goat," about the Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo, in 2003; and a musical version of Vargas Llosa's "Pantaleon and the Visitors," a sendup of military bureaucracy, in 2009.
Vargas Llosa - who, according to Triana, initially had been reluctant to grant permission to the adaptor - pronounced himself "very pleased" with the results.
"He succeeded in translating the essence of those stories into a theatrical language," with a staging that was "agile, original and intelligent," Vargas Llosa said in an e-mail from Lima, Peru. "Besides being a magnificent adapter, Jorge Ali Triana is a very good director of actors, with an alert sense of dramaturgy."
What attracted Triana to "Erendira," besides the hallucinatory setting, was the theme of exploitation, which Triana posits is present in many human relationships.
"Maybe 15 years ago I understood Erendira more than the grandmother," he says. "Now I understand the grandmother more than Erendira."
The challenge of bringing a novel to the stage, he says, is to not make the mistake of trying to "illustrate" the work, but rather to "translate" it into the language of theater.
As the rehearsals for "Erendira" proceeded, Triana felt a familiar ache and insecurity - part of his creative process. Was the translation from page to stage succeeding? Did he need to invent a horse to make the production more strange, more magical?
"There is a moment of encounter between the imagination and reality," he says. That's the moment when the director's vision becomes tethered to an actual production.
"Sometimes the reality surprises," he says. "It's better than the imagination."
With another rehearsal set to begin, he considers what exactly the adaptor, the director, must do each time out to make that happen.
"I don't have the formula," he says after a pause. "I have the aspiration."
La Candida Erendira runs through Feb. 27, Thursdays to Saturdays at 8 p.m.; Sundays 3 p.m. Tickets: www.galatheatre.org, 202-234-7174.
Wanting more
If I can handle plate tectonics... if I can wrap Saturn in rings... if I can hurl planets into place, and design Milky Ways, moths, and millipedes... just think what I can do for you.
Andrew, want more.
A lot more.
It opens doors.
Tallyho,
The Universe
Andrew, want more.
A lot more.
It opens doors.
Tallyho,
The Universe
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Stacy Keach
In 1972, Stacy Keach received acclaim with his breakthrough role as a boxer in John Huston's Fat City. Some four decades later, the actor's career seems to have come full circle. The actor stars as "Pops" Leary, a far-from-retired boxing trainer and father of two boxers, on the new acclaimed F/X show Lights Out.
Ring return aside, Keach's career always seems to be in déjà vu mode. The roles are always different, but the actor has enjoyed six decades of doing what he does best: performing no matter what medium it is. In 1964, he began his stage career with the New York Shakespeare Festival and he's been a staple in the theatre world ever since. He's currently starring alongside Stockard Channing, Linda Lavin and Elizabeth Marvel in Other Desert Cities at Lincoln Center. Similarly, "Lights Out" marks a return to the small screen for Keach, who has made guest appearances on Two And A Half Men, Prison Break, and is arguably best known as 1980s private dick Mike Hammer.
When not in front of the screen or stage, Keach's voice can be heard on countless documentaries and television shows. The Pixar Story and CNBC's American Greed are just two projects you can hear Keach's voice resonate. I spoke with the versatile actor last week, and went down memory road with him. I also asked him if Lights Out, a knockout of a show, can survive somewhat low ratings. Let's hope so.
Q. Was it appealing to join the cast of Lights Out, because of your work on Fat City?
A. To a certain degree, yeah. It was great to get back to that world. I had a great time doing Fat City. I loved training with Jose Torres. It was a real eye opener for me. I had no real perception on the world of boxing, and it really opened my eyes. Boxers are very gentle people. They get all their aggression out in the ring and work very, very hard. I remember the first time I was shadow boxing, it was for three minutes and I thought I was going to die. Having had that experience, it helps getting back into that world.
Q. You have consistently dabbled in television, film and theatre. Do you have a preference?
A. It really doesn't matter. I mean if you had a gun to my mouth and I had to make a choice, I'd say theatre. With live theatre, it's more immediate and you tell a story beginning, middle and end. But, I love all mediums. This particular show has a vary special cache. First of all, FX is giving us higher material that the networks are not. By virtue of higher standards, they're able to attract better actors and writers. FX is a great place to be right not in spite of our ratings.
Q. That's very frustrating for me as a viewer. I love the show, and hope it finds an audience.
A. There was some talk before the show came on that the movie The Fighter would help us, but it may actually have hurt us. I'm not sure. I'm very optimistic. I think we'll find an audience as the season goes on. I'm very proud of it and am [hopeful] FX will give us a shot at a second season to prove ourselves.
Q. Getting back to stage work, what's the experience been like working on Other Desert Cities? You have a solid cast around you with Stockard Channing, Linda Lavin and Elizabeth Marvel...
A. It's just so great. It's a great coincidence too that Elizabeth is playing my daughter on the series and on stage as well. I worked with Linda Lavin some years ago -- I love working with her. Stockard, I've known for years, but we've never worked together. Thomas Sadoski is an extraordinary young actor. It's my second play with Jon Robin Baitz. He's a wonderful writer and he's really matured as a playwright.
Q. Screen and stage work aside, you also do a lot of voice over work. Do you get the same reward with that as you do in other mediums?
A. Yes and no. It always comes down to the story. It's that old adage "if it ain't on the page, it won't make it to stage." It's relative to that. Many documentaries I've done it was like a paid education.
Q. What are you currently working on?
A. I'm still in the midst of King Lear. I've done it in Chicago in 2006 and in DC in 2009. I'd love to continue to do it and make it to New York. Derek Jacobi is bringing it to BAM this season so it won't happen this year. I'd love to continue with that. I've always wanted to play Teddy Roosevelt. Doug McIntyre, a great writer, has written a script about a trip he took with his son on the Amazon toward the end of his life. We're trying to get it financed. I'm also working on putting a book together finally. And, my daughter and I are also working on comedies. I'm also working with Jon Cryer again on a new Pixar incarnation called Planes.
Q. I'm amazed at how often you work. Do you ever take time off?
A. Oh, I do but I've got two kids in college so I have to keep punching the clock. Even if I didn't have that financial obligation, I'd continue to work. I love theatre specifically but it pays the soul... it doesn't pay the rent. So I have to move around and maintain a balance.
Ring return aside, Keach's career always seems to be in déjà vu mode. The roles are always different, but the actor has enjoyed six decades of doing what he does best: performing no matter what medium it is. In 1964, he began his stage career with the New York Shakespeare Festival and he's been a staple in the theatre world ever since. He's currently starring alongside Stockard Channing, Linda Lavin and Elizabeth Marvel in Other Desert Cities at Lincoln Center. Similarly, "Lights Out" marks a return to the small screen for Keach, who has made guest appearances on Two And A Half Men, Prison Break, and is arguably best known as 1980s private dick Mike Hammer.
When not in front of the screen or stage, Keach's voice can be heard on countless documentaries and television shows. The Pixar Story and CNBC's American Greed are just two projects you can hear Keach's voice resonate. I spoke with the versatile actor last week, and went down memory road with him. I also asked him if Lights Out, a knockout of a show, can survive somewhat low ratings. Let's hope so.
Q. Was it appealing to join the cast of Lights Out, because of your work on Fat City?
A. To a certain degree, yeah. It was great to get back to that world. I had a great time doing Fat City. I loved training with Jose Torres. It was a real eye opener for me. I had no real perception on the world of boxing, and it really opened my eyes. Boxers are very gentle people. They get all their aggression out in the ring and work very, very hard. I remember the first time I was shadow boxing, it was for three minutes and I thought I was going to die. Having had that experience, it helps getting back into that world.
Q. You have consistently dabbled in television, film and theatre. Do you have a preference?
A. It really doesn't matter. I mean if you had a gun to my mouth and I had to make a choice, I'd say theatre. With live theatre, it's more immediate and you tell a story beginning, middle and end. But, I love all mediums. This particular show has a vary special cache. First of all, FX is giving us higher material that the networks are not. By virtue of higher standards, they're able to attract better actors and writers. FX is a great place to be right not in spite of our ratings.
Q. That's very frustrating for me as a viewer. I love the show, and hope it finds an audience.
A. There was some talk before the show came on that the movie The Fighter would help us, but it may actually have hurt us. I'm not sure. I'm very optimistic. I think we'll find an audience as the season goes on. I'm very proud of it and am [hopeful] FX will give us a shot at a second season to prove ourselves.
Q. Getting back to stage work, what's the experience been like working on Other Desert Cities? You have a solid cast around you with Stockard Channing, Linda Lavin and Elizabeth Marvel...
A. It's just so great. It's a great coincidence too that Elizabeth is playing my daughter on the series and on stage as well. I worked with Linda Lavin some years ago -- I love working with her. Stockard, I've known for years, but we've never worked together. Thomas Sadoski is an extraordinary young actor. It's my second play with Jon Robin Baitz. He's a wonderful writer and he's really matured as a playwright.
Q. Screen and stage work aside, you also do a lot of voice over work. Do you get the same reward with that as you do in other mediums?
A. Yes and no. It always comes down to the story. It's that old adage "if it ain't on the page, it won't make it to stage." It's relative to that. Many documentaries I've done it was like a paid education.
Q. What are you currently working on?
A. I'm still in the midst of King Lear. I've done it in Chicago in 2006 and in DC in 2009. I'd love to continue to do it and make it to New York. Derek Jacobi is bringing it to BAM this season so it won't happen this year. I'd love to continue with that. I've always wanted to play Teddy Roosevelt. Doug McIntyre, a great writer, has written a script about a trip he took with his son on the Amazon toward the end of his life. We're trying to get it financed. I'm also working on putting a book together finally. And, my daughter and I are also working on comedies. I'm also working with Jon Cryer again on a new Pixar incarnation called Planes.
Q. I'm amazed at how often you work. Do you ever take time off?
A. Oh, I do but I've got two kids in college so I have to keep punching the clock. Even if I didn't have that financial obligation, I'd continue to work. I love theatre specifically but it pays the soul... it doesn't pay the rent. So I have to move around and maintain a balance.
Liz Taylor
Asks the E! reality star to legend Liz Taylor:
"You are my idol. But I'm six husbands and some big jewels behind. What should I do?"
"I never planned to acquire a lot of jewels or a lot of husbands,” replies Elizabeth Taylor. "For me, life happened, just as it does for anyone else. I have been supremely lucky in my life in that I have known great love, and of course I am the temporary custodian of some incredible and beautiful things. But I have never felt more alive than when I watched my children delight in something, never more alive than when I have watched a great artist perform, and never richer than when I have scored a big check to fight AIDS. Follow your passion, follow your heart, and the things you need will come."
"What's your advice on how to be a queen?" she asks Taylor.
"I have never wanted to be a queen! Cleopatra was a role, and I am an actor, so it was fun to play one, but it's not real," says Taylor.
Favorite looks on or off screen?
"I loved the Edith Head lavender dress that I wore to the Oscars in 1970. It was designed around the Taylor-Burton diamond. Some of the Cleopatra costumes were fun—they even had real gold threads—and I wore them as evening dresses afterward!" Taylor says. "I also loved some of the great caftans that I wore in the '60s and '70s with big sunglasses and major jewelry. I love to be casual and comfortable, but I also love the easy glamour of wearing jewelry all the time."
Would she wed Richard Burton again if he were still alive?
"It was inevitable that we would be married again, but it's not up for discussion," Taylor says.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Peace Is Every Breath
A Practice for Our Busy Lives
By Thich Nhat Hanh
“Among Buddhist leaders influential in the West, Thich Nhat Hanh ranks second only to the Dalai Lama.” —New York Times“Thich Nhat Hanh is a holy man…. His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity.” —Martin Luther King, Jr., nominating Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967.In this much-anticipated follow-up to his bestselling classic, Peace Is Every Step, Thich Nhat Hanh—one of the most revered spiritual leaders in the world today—offers an insightful guide to living a fuller life. In this deeply insightful meditation, the world-renowned Vietnamese Zen Buddhist master, poet, scholar, and peace activist illuminates how each of us can incorporate the practice of mindfulness into our every waking moment. In the tradition of The Art of Happiness and Living Buddha, Living Christ, Thich Nhat Hanh’s Peace Is Every Breath opens a pathway to greater spiritual fulfillment through its patient examination of how we live our lives.
Book Description
In his travels around the country and the world, Zen master and international best selling author Thich Nhat Hanh witnessed a growing unhappiness among the many people he encountered. He saw the hectic pace of our day-to-day lives taking a toll on our health and well-being. In response, the renowned teacher sat down to write Peace Is Every Breath, a book that makes the core teachings of Buddha accessible for everyone. In this jewel of a book, Thich Nhat Hanh does not suggest that we escape from reality and put our busy lives on hold. Far from it. Instead, he provides the insight and tools we need to incorporate the practice of mindfulness into our every waking moment. Thich Nhat Hanh shows us how we can transcend the mad rush of our days and discover within the here and now our own innate ability to experience inner peace and happiness.
Offering personal anecdotes, meditations, and advice for mindfully connecting with our present experience, Thich Nhat Hanh guides us around potential pitfalls along the way. We do not need to escape reality to harness the joy and peace that is possible with every breath we take—the power of mindfulness can heal us from the suffering caused by the many stresses that surround us. Including original calligraphy by Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Breath is a timely book filled with timeless wisdom and practical advice that is destined to become a classic.
A Practice for Our Busy Lives
By Thich Nhat Hanh
“Among Buddhist leaders influential in the West, Thich Nhat Hanh ranks second only to the Dalai Lama.” —New York Times“Thich Nhat Hanh is a holy man…. His ideas for peace, if applied, would build a monument to ecumenism, to world brotherhood, to humanity.” —Martin Luther King, Jr., nominating Thich Nhat Hanh for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967.In this much-anticipated follow-up to his bestselling classic, Peace Is Every Step, Thich Nhat Hanh—one of the most revered spiritual leaders in the world today—offers an insightful guide to living a fuller life. In this deeply insightful meditation, the world-renowned Vietnamese Zen Buddhist master, poet, scholar, and peace activist illuminates how each of us can incorporate the practice of mindfulness into our every waking moment. In the tradition of The Art of Happiness and Living Buddha, Living Christ, Thich Nhat Hanh’s Peace Is Every Breath opens a pathway to greater spiritual fulfillment through its patient examination of how we live our lives.
Book Description
In his travels around the country and the world, Zen master and international best selling author Thich Nhat Hanh witnessed a growing unhappiness among the many people he encountered. He saw the hectic pace of our day-to-day lives taking a toll on our health and well-being. In response, the renowned teacher sat down to write Peace Is Every Breath, a book that makes the core teachings of Buddha accessible for everyone. In this jewel of a book, Thich Nhat Hanh does not suggest that we escape from reality and put our busy lives on hold. Far from it. Instead, he provides the insight and tools we need to incorporate the practice of mindfulness into our every waking moment. Thich Nhat Hanh shows us how we can transcend the mad rush of our days and discover within the here and now our own innate ability to experience inner peace and happiness.
Offering personal anecdotes, meditations, and advice for mindfully connecting with our present experience, Thich Nhat Hanh guides us around potential pitfalls along the way. We do not need to escape reality to harness the joy and peace that is possible with every breath we take—the power of mindfulness can heal us from the suffering caused by the many stresses that surround us. Including original calligraphy by Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Breath is a timely book filled with timeless wisdom and practical advice that is destined to become a classic.
my hero
Backstage: 'An Almost Holy Picture' playwright Heather McDonald
By Jane HorwitzWednesday, February 9, 2011; C02
Heather McDonald has long moved on from her prize-winning 1995 play for one actor, "An Almost Holy Picture." The character, Samuel Gentle, is a former Episcopal priest whose life and faith have been shaken and shaped by tragedy, and he recounts the story aloud to make sense of it. The play premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse and was produced here by Round House Theatre in 1996, starring the company's artistic director at the time, Jerry Whiddon. Kevin Bacon starred in a Broadway production in 2002.
"I get calls from theaters that do it around the country and even outside the country," McDonald says. "I'm always happy to talk about it, but I really don't want to have much influence on how they choose to do it. . . . My journey with that play feels complete."
Still, McDonald and her family plan to attend a local revival of the piece at Rep Stage in Columbia on Sunday. "An Almost Holy Picture" runs there through Feb. 20. This time, Rep Stage's artistic director, Michael Stebbins, plays the troubled man of faith.
In the play, Samuel recalls hearing the voice of God as a child, urging him to "follow." But the path his life took as an adult led to a horrific accident and a daughter born with a rare birth defect that causes hair to grow over her entire body.
"You wonder where is the hope. But the thing that I really appreciate so much about the piece is that . . . [Samuel] is waiting for - is convinced - that a fourth experience will happen in his life that will make things better for all involved," Stebbins says.
McDonald, he continues, "taps into faith. She taps into spirituality. She taps into the wonder of having the chance to live each day, even if it's painful.''
McDonald teaches playwriting and screenwriting at George Mason University and recently became co-artistic director of Theater of the First Amendme nt , a professional company in residence there. Her plays "Dream of a Common Language" (Helen Hayes Award for outstanding resident production) and "Faulkner's Bicycle" were produced there in the mid-1990s. Arena Stage did her early play "The Rivers and Ravines" in 1988.
As a single mom raising older teens, teaching and still writing, McDonald finds it harder to get full productions of her newer work nowadays. However, last month she did see a workshop at Arena Stage of an older piece, "When Grace Comes In," and Woolly Mammoth hosted a workshop of a new collaborative work, "Stay," which McDonald is creating with choreographer Susan Shields and others. "I'm so hungry to be in a rehearsal room," she says. "It's harder as you get older to make stuff happen."
McDonald admits to being "kind of cranky" about this. "There's so much available if you're young, emerging, new. . . . People say, well, why don't you apply for this or that grant? [But] it's for people under 35. I'm 50 now. . . . I have kids. I have bills. . . . And the shame is that once you have some craft and you've got something to say and you've got some experience in you . . . it dries up. I was produced way more in my 30s than I am now, and I think I'm a better writer."
By Jane HorwitzWednesday, February 9, 2011; C02
Heather McDonald has long moved on from her prize-winning 1995 play for one actor, "An Almost Holy Picture." The character, Samuel Gentle, is a former Episcopal priest whose life and faith have been shaken and shaped by tragedy, and he recounts the story aloud to make sense of it. The play premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse and was produced here by Round House Theatre in 1996, starring the company's artistic director at the time, Jerry Whiddon. Kevin Bacon starred in a Broadway production in 2002.
"I get calls from theaters that do it around the country and even outside the country," McDonald says. "I'm always happy to talk about it, but I really don't want to have much influence on how they choose to do it. . . . My journey with that play feels complete."
Still, McDonald and her family plan to attend a local revival of the piece at Rep Stage in Columbia on Sunday. "An Almost Holy Picture" runs there through Feb. 20. This time, Rep Stage's artistic director, Michael Stebbins, plays the troubled man of faith.
In the play, Samuel recalls hearing the voice of God as a child, urging him to "follow." But the path his life took as an adult led to a horrific accident and a daughter born with a rare birth defect that causes hair to grow over her entire body.
"You wonder where is the hope. But the thing that I really appreciate so much about the piece is that . . . [Samuel] is waiting for - is convinced - that a fourth experience will happen in his life that will make things better for all involved," Stebbins says.
McDonald, he continues, "taps into faith. She taps into spirituality. She taps into the wonder of having the chance to live each day, even if it's painful.''
McDonald teaches playwriting and screenwriting at George Mason University and recently became co-artistic director of Theater of the First Amendme nt , a professional company in residence there. Her plays "Dream of a Common Language" (Helen Hayes Award for outstanding resident production) and "Faulkner's Bicycle" were produced there in the mid-1990s. Arena Stage did her early play "The Rivers and Ravines" in 1988.
As a single mom raising older teens, teaching and still writing, McDonald finds it harder to get full productions of her newer work nowadays. However, last month she did see a workshop at Arena Stage of an older piece, "When Grace Comes In," and Woolly Mammoth hosted a workshop of a new collaborative work, "Stay," which McDonald is creating with choreographer Susan Shields and others. "I'm so hungry to be in a rehearsal room," she says. "It's harder as you get older to make stuff happen."
McDonald admits to being "kind of cranky" about this. "There's so much available if you're young, emerging, new. . . . People say, well, why don't you apply for this or that grant? [But] it's for people under 35. I'm 50 now. . . . I have kids. I have bills. . . . And the shame is that once you have some craft and you've got something to say and you've got some experience in you . . . it dries up. I was produced way more in my 30s than I am now, and I think I'm a better writer."
Monday, February 7, 2011
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Bob Wills & his Texas Playboys
I'm throwin' a goin' away party
A party for a dream of mine
So put me somewhere off in a corner
With a glass and bottle of your party wine
Don't worry it won't be a loud party
I feel too low to get too high
It's just a sad goin' away party
For a dream I'm telling goodbye
I'm throwin' a goin' away party
A party for a dream of mine
Nobody's coming but a heartache
And some tears will drop in now most anytime
Don't worry it won't be a loud party
Dreams don't make noise when they die
And so since it's a goin' away party
Go away and let me cry
Hey it's just a sad goin' away party
For a dream I'm tellin' goodbye goodbye
A party for a dream of mine
So put me somewhere off in a corner
With a glass and bottle of your party wine
Don't worry it won't be a loud party
I feel too low to get too high
It's just a sad goin' away party
For a dream I'm telling goodbye
I'm throwin' a goin' away party
A party for a dream of mine
Nobody's coming but a heartache
And some tears will drop in now most anytime
Don't worry it won't be a loud party
Dreams don't make noise when they die
And so since it's a goin' away party
Go away and let me cry
Hey it's just a sad goin' away party
For a dream I'm tellin' goodbye goodbye
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Cairo
Christian Egyptians stand in a human chain to protect Muslims as they pray, on Jan. 25th http://yfrog.com/h02gvclj
It should be noted that during Christmas there were wide spread attacks on Coptic Christians in Egypt that were fueled by the government fear factory. Moderate Muslims were outraged and formed bands across Egypt to protect their Christian neighbors during their services, and these social networks (formed largely on Facebook) were the same networks that would later be used to start the protests.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Spirit of Jaguar
Shamanism
The Jaguar carries with him/her a long history in the lore and mythology of several indigenous cultures. In particular, the Mayans held the Jaguar in high esteem, viewing this spotted panther as the Totem Spirit of the Sky God.
Many who have heard of the Mayan Jaguar Priests (Shamans), may have images of gruesome human sacrifices as their only frame of reference for what was a highly complex and intricate belief system. Although it is true that the teaching of the Sky God became perverted and twisted by subsequent generations, to see the Mayan spirituality of centuries past as nothing more than savagery or barbarism is (at best) an ill-informed view.
It is said that a Great Being came to the Mayan people from the stars, and taught them that the greatest of all virtues was integrity. He instructed the people in the beauty of unconditional love, forgiveness, peace and to be honorable and trustworthy. The teachings were of the sacrificial heart, the willingness to give freely of one’s self and one’s material belongings in order to benefit both the individual and the collective ~All.~ Generations later, it is believed that the sacrificial heart became literal (to those who would twist the Sky God’s teachings) as a bloody sacrifice wherein the heart of the victim would be taken from the body and given to the Jaguar Spirit in the hopes of appeasing the Sky God.
The sacrifices had the opposite of their desired effect and, instead of pleasing the Sky God, angered him. To instruct the people that such ways were not a part of hs teaching, the Sky God then sent the Jaguar Spirit to prowl the dreams of the two-leggeds. Where the Jaguar found hearts blackened with hatred, greed or dishonesty, he would haunt those unfortunate souls, relentlessly stalking them until they embraced the wisdom of integrity and transformed their lives. Those who resisted, were met with the vengeance of the Jaguar, and the Animal Totem’s relentless pursuit during the Dreamtime would often cause the human to transition from fright.
***For the two-legged beside whom Jaguar walks, the Earthwalk will be a process of reconnecting to the ~Shaman Within.~
Although born with a heightened sense of awareness and a powerful gift of extrasensory perception (ESP), the Jaguar Soul will generally only come to embrace his/her “gifts” after many years of struggling with the benefits and responsibilities associated with these gifts. This is because there is still much stigma attached to the arena of ESP and associated abilities.
When first emerging on the Red Road of Physical Life, the Jaguar individual will be a wide-open vessel through which Great Mystery may flow. These souls will hear, see or feel things that are non-physical in nature. Not knowing that they may be looked upon with great suspicion for the things that they are able to perceive which others may not be able to, the one beside whom Jaguar pads will convey their experiences freely at first. Yet due to lack of awareness and out-dated belief systems that might be present on the behalf of parents, care givers or teachers, the child with these special abilities soon learns to keep such arcane knowledge and insight to him/herself. This guardedness (and eventual rejection of their psychic talents), is usually precipitated when the adults that are a part of the young Jaguar’s life, react in fear, disbelief or anger. The youngster learns that sharing their insight often leads to being scolded for “imagining things,” reprimanded for “lying,” or perhaps worst of all, being treated with fear as the adult either believes the child to be “evil” or even mentally ill for seeing or hearing things that “aren’t really there.”
Yet because the Role of the one beside whom Jaguar journeys is that of Shaman, the destiny of their ~calling~ cannot be denied indefinitely. Eventually, events in the life of the Jaguar soul will force him/her to confront, embrace and integrate the gifts they have been given by the Original Source.
Shamans serve as a bridge between the Blue Road of Spirit and the Red Road of Physical Life, and as such, hear, see and/or communicate with the “Spirit World.” A Shaman fulfills the Role of priest/priestess, healer, spiritual advisor, teacher of arcane wisdom, outspoken sage and silent observer.
As healer, the Shaman assists the healing process (be this spiritual, emotional, mental or physical in nature), via the application of Medicine. This Medicine is gathered from the Plant People (herbs), the Standing People (trees), the Animal Totems, the Stone People (crystals and other “rocks” such as turquoise, etc.), as well as from their own personal Medicine.
Often just as difficult (and of equal importance) for the Jaguar to embrace, is the ability to communicate freely with the Totems, the spirits of the Ancestors, or those who walk the Blue Road. Whether this ability takes the form of seeing into the future, reading the aura of others, or channeling knowledge from the “other side,” these souls must eventually embrace the ability to see/feel/hear beyond what most others are able. Only by owning and expressing the abilities that have been gifted them, may the one beside whom Jaguar strides fulfill their assignment which they have agreed to prior to taking up the Robe of Physical Life.***
Integration
It is in looking at the Jaguar’s beautiful coat of tan speckled with black
rosettes that we witness an example of the Medicine of Integration in ~visible~ form. When studying the Creature Beings in either their physical or spiritual form, it is important to notice the color(s) of that Creature’s skin/feathers/hide, for much will be revealed in so doing. Where/when we observe a Totem whose skin, feathers or hide has dual or multiple coloration, this bespeaks of the Medicine of Integration. An other example (aside from that of Jaguar) of this principle would be Orca, whose skin is black and white. In the instance of Leopard, Clouded Leopard and Jaguar, the base color of the fur is tan with an overlaying of black spots or rosettes, hence all three of these spotted cats will have Integration as one of the Keywords to their Medicine.
***The human blessed with Jaguar as a primary Animal Spirit, will be
presented with a series of lessons structured to teach him/her the process of integration. In order that the two-legged may more fully embrace this aspect of Jaguar Medicine, he/she will experience a variety of scenarios created to facilitate the absorption of this complex principle. Integration is the key element in learning any lesson, and then applying that lesson to our life, yet it is also the Medicine of embracing perceived opposites.
Chaotic events will be much in evidence in the life of the Jaguar Soul,
events that will necessitate that the human counterpart go within in order to sift through the chaos and painful lessons, so that clarity and higher vision may be attained. The challenge here is frequently found under the guise of a sense of isolation, as the Jaguar individual quickly learns that he/she can only rely on the Self. This is a component that assists these souls in the process of self-actualization, for the Jaguar must first accomplish a requisite level of this Medicine him/herself.
Earth Medicine recognizes life as a continuous circle, or a Sacred Hoop.
The acknowledgment is made that our journey in the physical realm is equal parts darkness and light, experiences of both joy and pain, bitter and sweet. While we might perceive these elements as opposites, the are in reality merely two halves that constitute the Whole, each representative of the experiences necessary for our soul’s evolution.
When examining any totem with the Medicine of Integration, we witness individuals that are journeying around the Wheel of Life to first learn, then teach, that separation is but an illusion. Often, the one beside whom Jaguar prowls will feel separate from the rest of humanity. A loner as a child, who may initially relate more easily with the creature beings than their fellow two-leggeds, these souls will mature into extreme individualists as adults. These will be the members of society that will feel as though they are on the outside looking in . . . on family, friends, society and even life itself.
The aforementioned sense of “not belonging” or fitting in, is a reflection of the Jaguar’s attunement to other realms of existence, for there is always an aspect of the two-legged with whom Jaguar walks that hears, sees or feels the presence of non-physical energy (spirits, totems, etc.) Such heightened awareness of other planes and dimensions (while living in a very material/physical world), can often create a dilemma for these individuals, as he/she struggles to integrate the realms of pure energy with that of the physical, the seen with the unseen.
Once the Jaguar soul comes to understand and embrace the awareness that one existence does not negate the validity of the other and the illusion of separatism is dissolved, these souls come to recognize that they are here to serve as a conduit between realms . . . then the Jaguar Mission has been embraced and the Medicine of Integration is beautifully learned, to be shared and passed along to those taking their first steps on the Beautiful Journey.***
Shapeshifting
From the earliest of recorded histories, numerous cultures and societies have passed along the belief in shapeshifting. Shamans of all spiritual beliefs have practiced shapeshifting (also known as transmorphing) for millennia. Holy men and women from cultures as diverse as the Druids of ancient Ireland and Britain, to nearly every tribe of North and South American Indian, have ceremonies and rituals designed to elicit the shapeshifting experience.
Shapeshifting will generally be sought in one of two different forms, that of spiritual shifting, or that of shifting the actual physical shape, yet it is physical shapeshifting that most Shamans will spend a lifetime learning and striving to attain.
Spiritual transmorphing is the process of seeking to merge with a particular Animal Totem on the soul level, so that a complete union of souls might be experienced. The purpose behind this form of ~shifting~ is multifarious, as the participant seeks to both honor the Creature Being with whom the shifting is sought, as well as to align with the Medicine of that particular Animal Spirit. Equally, guidance may be received from the Totem whilst the spiritual transmorphing takes place, that may assist the two-legged through their journey around the Sacred Hoop of Life.
For the Shaman who has been taught (and has the innate ability) to physically shapeshift, the experience is not only one of a spiritual nature, but culminates in the two-legged physically transforming his/her body into that of a chosen Creature Being. Lifetimes are often devoted to this practice, and often without reaping the sought for result. Yet when one has truly attained the Gift of Shifting Shape, thanks and honor are always offered to the Creature Being whose shape the Shaman assumes. Physical shapeshifting brings the participant into complete alignment with the Medicine of the Totem. The shapeshifter is then able to see all dimensions and realms experientially through the eyes of a particular Totem, or is able to hear with the ears of the Jaguar, the sounds of the Ancestors voices as ~They~ guide and instruct humanity.
***The human counterpart of the Jaguar Spirit, will carry with him/her the Medicine of shapeshifting. This may mean the inherent ability to shapeshift in the manner listed above, or this ability may manifest as the drive and ability to continually reshape the conditions, experiences, psychology and reality of their existence.
From early childhood, the Jaguar individual will exhibit the desire for near constant change. An innate desire to understand the mysteries of life will be much in evidence with the young Jaguar cub and they may be some of the youngest students of earth medicine, astrology, witchcraft or other arcane studies. Whilst their peers are busy with sports and socializing, the Jaguar cub will be immersed in understanding mysteries that others may perceive as “dark” or dangerous.
For some young Jaguars, the exploration of the metaphysical can sometimes include dabbling with “black magic.” When operating from lower personality center as an adult, the interest in the destructive side of magickal knowledge and practice will continue and intensify, with these individuals becoming amongst the most powerful of sorcerers and sorceresses. In this instance, the inheritance of Jaguar Magic is distorted and misused as a tool to manipulate, harm or intimidate others, to achieve worldly success at the expense of their own soul’s development, or to control matter for willful or selfish purposes. A Jaguar soul operating from such contrary Medicine may initially meet with their desired goals, yet at some stage in their spiritual development, they will be required to shapeshift into channeling their unique talents as they were intended when gifted . . . for the benefit of the All and from unconditional love, else their abilities will be stripped from them. When operating from “positive” Medicine, the Jaguar soul will utilize their magical talents for the benefit of others and will be amongst the most accurate psychics, seers, shamans and healers.
Throughout their journey around the Sacred Hoop of Life, the Jaguar soul will encounter numerous scenarios set up by the psyche as a means to facilitate transformation. Yet shapeshifting in the early stages of Jaguar development is never easy. These are the individuals that will drive themselves to the point of physical, mental or emotional exhaustion until the breaking point is reached. Then, once they have burned themselves to the ground, they will arise much like the Phoenix of legend, in a new form with new eyes and a new cycle awaiting them.
Until the lesson of conscious change is thoroughly embraced, the human with Jaguar as a Primary Totem will experience chaotic events and emotional traumas that have been brought about by their own unconscious effort to force the change their soul recognizes is necessary. Yet once the Jaguar soul comes to awareness of this tendency and learns to create the necessary change consciously, and without the high drama that was indulged in earlier in life, the power of the transformation is splendid to behold. Then, the shapeshifter may emerge in the light of conscious awareness, an teacher by example to others of the beauty of a soul unfolding.***
Integrity
When the Sky God came to the Mayan People, he brought with him the Universal Principle of Integrity, and instructed the people to operate always from a center of unconditional love, honesty and compassion. He taught the people that they must live by a code of conduct that would be impeccable, and that they should seek to benefit and care for one another, to live in harmony with the planet and all other life forms.
Just prior to his departure from Earth (when he felt that the people had been thoroughly instructed in the principles of integrity), the Sky God told the people he would return from the stars one day to see if they were living by those principles in order that they may become a part of the Universal Tribe. He further informed the people that he would leave behind his Animal Spirit, the Jaguar, that it would watch over them and keep him informed as to their conduct and behavior toward one another and all other living things.
As mentioned previously, the generations following the Sky God’s
departure witnessed a distortion of his teachings so that the sacrificial heart came to be literal, with the Mayan Jaguar Priests making human sacrifices in which the human heart was offered up to the Jaguar Spirit. So displeased with the actions of cruelty and the warping of the pure and honorable principles that had been given them, the Jaguar began to prowl the dreams of the people in search of those who had twisted the teachings of the Sky God, those whose hearts were blackened with lust for power, irreverence for life, or who were otherwise dishonorable. Upon finding one who was thus depraved, the Jaguar would relentlessly stalk them in the Dreamtime until the perpetrator would either re-align him/herself with the principles of integrity, or until the soul of that two-legged departed the Earth plane for retribution in the spirit world.
***There will be a large emphasis on Integrity in the life of the two-legged beside whom Jaguar strides. The Jaguar Soul’s life will be lead from a standpoint of a moral belief system that is structured to remind the human counterpart of the necessity of operating from truth, valor, honor and respect for the All.
A palpable purity of essence to these individuals will be felt by others who come to know the Jaguar Spirit. The Jaguar individual him/herself will not think about their character or moral fiber, but will merely follow the instruction of an inner voice that is constantly guiding them to operate from a place of fidelity and ~decency.~
In order that the one beside whom Jaguar journeys may successfully
integrate mind, body and soul, their life will be structured in such a way as to develop an inner core of honor, valor, probity and reliability. The lessons in integrity will frequently arrive in the form of relationships with others who may be operating from double-standards. In these instances, the Jaguar’s partner will expect complete faithfulness and commitment from the Jaguar individual, yet will then demand that no such similar “restrictions” be placed on themselves. Or the lesson may surface as experiences with friends, co-workers or siblings who may either take the credit for the Jaguar soul’s work, ~good deed,~ ideas, or selfless acts, or whom may shuffle off responsibility for their own “misdeeds” or wrong doings onto the Jaguar individual.
Trusting by nature, such illustrations of dishonesty and lack of moral
character as mentioned above, will deeply sadden the human counterpart to Jaguar Spirit, and teach him/her the importance of standing by their personal beliefs and taking responsibility for their own actions, choices and decisions. In this way, the lesson is learned that one must be comfortable with facing one’s self in the mirror.
Yet the greatest lesson for the Jaguar soul, may often come in the guise of conflicting desires within their own Self. As a highly sensual individual, these are souls who are enthralled with the beauty and diversity of life, from the brilliant colors, patterns and hues of a sunset, to the aroma of a rose in bloom, to the physical attractiveness of a potential mate. This high degree of sensuality can create deeply felt stimuli that can at times be in contradiction to the best interest of the soul’s growth and can serve as temptation to divert the Jaguar from his/her soul’s path. An example of this principle would be the Jaguar individual who is already in a partnership, being attracted to one outside of his/her present relationship and following the attraction to consummation. Another example may be the one beside whom Jaguar journeys following the instructions of a supervisor to “swindle” a customer in order to receive a financial gain. In both instances, the Jaguar is operating contrary to his/her belief system of integrity. In so doing, the guilt, sense of self-betrayal, and the call of the soul to realign with the character of the Higher Self, will be such as to create an indelible imprint on the psyche to remain within the parameters of their personal integrity.
When the Jaguar soul remains true to his/her moral convictions, and is able to do so from a point of non-judgment and with no hint of self-righteousness, then the wholeness of the integrative process may be experienced. In those moments, the splendor of the mind, body, soul integrity is witnessed and serves as an inspiring example to others.***
Contrary or Shadow Jaguar Medicine
Each Animal Totem may also fill the Role of Shadow Totem, its presence to teach us our most significant life lessons via the vehicle of pain. The Shadow Totem is the guide to our subconscious, the repository of all our unresolved issues, pain, hopes and desires. When we are operating opposite of the higher purpose of a particular totem, we are said to be operating from Contrary Medicine, or from our ~Shadow~ side. To learn more about the Shadow Totem, please click here.
As a Shadow Totem, or for one whose Power, Theme, Mission or Astral Totem is Jaguar yet is operating from Contrary Medicine, the ~Shadow Side~ to this beautiful cat can be quite complex.
One who is operating from Contrary Jaguar Medicine, or who has Jaguar as a Shadow Totem, will be highly unpredictable, unreliable and untrustworthy. The impeccable principles by which a Jaguar soul will conduct his/her life when operating from the higher vibration of Jaguar Medicine, will be nearly non-existent in the behavior of the Shadow Jaguar. It isn’t that the inner voice of “proper conduct” and integrity isn’t present in the soul of Shadow or Contrary Jaguar, but merely that the human counterpart is choosing to block out the guiding voice in favor of material, emotional or physical gains.
Such resistance to the proper use of Jaguar Medicine, will create great havoc and chaos in the life of one beside whom Jaguar walks. Plans that have been carefully plotted and strategized, will fall through at the last moment. Emotional partnerships that were initially achieved through seduction, deceit or manipulation will be severed abruptly when the partner of Shadow Jaguar comes to realize the one they have fallen in love with is not who/what they have presented themselves to be.
Only once the Jaguar soul steps into alignment with his/her personal integrity and the higher vibration of Jaguar Medicine, will the pattern of chaos and pain transform. In understanding the temptation to control or dominate others for what it is, lack of faith in the Self, can the life lessons represented by the Shadow manifestation of this Totem Spirit right itself. Yet if these lessons are learned, absorbed and integrated, the Shadow energy transforms itself as the two-legged shapeshifts into a new form . . . one that is filled with compassion and integrity.
Support Football
brilliant!
http://www.hbo.com/real-time-with-bill-maher/episodes/0/200-episode/article/new-rules?cmpid=ABC127
http://www.hbo.com/real-time-with-bill-maher/episodes/0/200-episode/article/new-rules?cmpid=ABC127
not for everyone
True, Andrew, not everyone is "meant to" have their own pair of sexy, euro-style pants..
For many, even dreaming of such things is virtually impossible.
Fortunately, you're neither of those people.
And it's no coincidence,
The Universe
For many, even dreaming of such things is virtually impossible.
Fortunately, you're neither of those people.
And it's no coincidence,
The Universe
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