Puisque tout est politique.

Un texte pouvant peut-être sembler un peu décousu.
C'est que le fil est transparent.
N'hésitez pas à commenter!

Une amie me racontait: ''Pour moi tout est politique.  Des fois... ça devient un peu fatiguant.''

Je me dis, en effet:
J'aimerais, par exemple, savoir comment prendre le temps
de prendre soins de jeunes plantes

Parce que 1) prendre le temps est un geste radical, à contre-courant du mode compétitif effréné dans lequel se vautre notre culture économique; et parce que  2) prendre soins est un geste radical et trop peu valorisé: ça ne fait pas partie du PIB!
S'appliquer, s'engager, s'efforcer à faire émerger la vie, à fournir la juste dose de tout ce qu'il faut pour que prennent racines: c'est radical. Imaginer une production alimentaire significative à même nos milieux urbain, faire respirer la cité-bitume, semer sur les toits de nos appartements, dans les craques des trottoirs, dans nos bacs à double-fond et nos jardins grimpants...
Ça requiert tout un engagement.

Cultiver.

Naturer.

Arrêtons de prétendre que nous ne comprenons pas ce qui nous arrive. Certes, encore aujourd'hui, tous les angles ne sont pas visibles.  Mais ne pourraient-on pas rendre compte de ce qu'on a appris et de ce qu'on continue d'apprendre? Je continue de croire qu'il nous faut créer des espaces dans lesquels on se permettrait d'explorer, c'est-à-dire de ressentir, les sentiments qui se rattachent à l'Histoire.

Reconnaître notre ignorance et notre vulnérabilité en tant qu'espèce. Intégrer ce que nous avons appris depuis Nietzsche, Freud, Fromm, etc. Célébrer le chemin parcouru. Considérer les motivations psychologiques derrière la tendance réactionnaire et la puissance grégaire. Expliciter le phénomène et se donner les outils pour ne plus commettre de telles violences.  Car c'est nous-même qu'on continue de mutiler.



Des outils comme le discours critique, ou comme la compassion! Nous sommes en train d'apprendre à nous émanciper.  Nous y oeuvrons maladroitement depuis 2500 ans (avénement de la philosophie occidentale. Le processus émancipatoire tient sans doute de bien plus loin...) L'apprentissage est là, étape par étape.

Ce qui me fait penser... aux Lumières!


Par exemple, pourquoi ne pas outrepasser la philosophie des Lumières? Questionner le libéralisme, la science moderne, le capitalisme industriel... l'État!  La philosophie des Lumières, ce n'était pas l'aboutissement de l'histoire, la ligne d'arrivée!  Pourquoi ais-je l'impression que ''la société en générale'' en est demeurée avec les idôles de ce temps? ''Liberté, raison, ... égalité''.  Le culte de l'individu et de sa supposée raison!  Démocratie?  ''Droit fondamental''?  Pourrait-on seulement continuer de porter une pensée critique sur ces Idées ?

Je ne suis pas la première à dire vouloir rappeler le lien qu'il existe entre l'État moderne et nos pires cauchemars: holocauste, hiroshima, génocide au Rwanda, corruption, violence policière, etc.  La justice et la liberté n'existent qu'en Idée. C'est autre chose qu'on choisit, il faut arrêter de se leurrer.  J'appellerais ça le Sentiment de Sécurité?

On le voit bien qu'il faut questionner!  On le sent, et c'est pour ça qu'on s'entre-mêle dans des tirades émotives et des rassemblements de peuple - tant de phénomènes que nous le savons voués à nous faire perdre la raison.

Rassemblons-nous alors!  Je sais que plusieurs philosophes contemporains sont derrière moi, entre autre parce pour ce qu'ils ont influencé ma vision du monde : Le sauvage, le non-ordre, le courant libre et créatif.. tout ça se doit d'avoir une place dans nos vies!
C'est dommage que la société québécoise du spectacle ait co-opté tout ça.



Le carnaval existait bien longtemps avant le cirque du soleil, le festival de Jazz de Montréal. Le carnaval existait avant Jésus-Christ, avant les Romains, avant Gilgamesh! Peut-être parce que l'être humain a bel et bien besoin de ces rites (de purification?), de cette intoxications, de cet ex-stasie (hors d'état).  C'est nécessaire, pour l'équilibre des choses.

Il y a une charge, une énergie, qui coure et constitue le flot des choses.  On ne perçoit que les presq'équilibres; on n'en sent que la tension, que la réverbération d'un mouvement minuscule qui devient séisme dès qu'on arrête de se tenir occupé.

Pourquoi, à quoi résister?
Quand on s'arrête de bouger, le cosmos lui tourne encore.
Résister au changement? Résister au status quo?
Les deux forment un tout.
(Y aurait-il un tierce élément à considérer?)

Bref.

Notre sensibilité est palpable.

Alors pourquoi nier?  Pourquoi tout enfouir?  Nos déchets et nos échecs, notre incapacité à gérer l'affaire. Les dépotoirs comme l'ombre de nos Lumières. Du matériel inconfortable à gérer, dont on préfère rester inconscient. Un barrage mental - qui a servi sa fonction - prêt à exploser.

''Je ne pense pas que je sois si politisée que ça''.
Mon amie était surprise.
 - ''Toi? Une fille qui étudie et qui va enseigner la science politique... et qui n'est pas politique!...Ah!''
On a bien rit.

Les cégeps existent depuis 46 ans.
Avant, la grande majorité des francophones du Québec
ne poursuivaient pas d'études au-delà du secondaire. Qu'est-ce qu'on a appris ?

Bien sûr que je suis politique.  Comme toi, je vois un système et je suis curieuse de le comprendre. C'est seulement qu'il y a quelques années j'ai aussi compris que mon intellect et mes efforts de logique servent d'abord à apaiser un feeling.  Je ne suis pas la seule.  Il faut en parler.

Tout est politique.

Alors je choisis de vivre en communauté et de chercher à définir le sens du terme, de créer des espaces de croissance et d'émancipation, d'enrichissement et de résilience.

Qu'il est sublime de voir un plant de haricots spiralé son chemin vers la lumière!

etc. Weekend du Monde, etc.

wWe have seen many rainstorms since the solstice.  The weather here is simply fabulous.  The way one feels the air charging up, the clouds forming and moving across the sky, the sun, getting up with the birds to then dance his arc-dance... zenith, burning white sun.  In the evenings winds awake as our light slowly goes to rest.  

This ain't Istanbul,
 but it's not bad either!

I don't know where to start!
I need to write about a thousand things:

- Reflections on the bûto workshop I took last week with Mario Veillette and Lucie Betz, in Québec city.

- The ''Symposium de Land Art de Bellechasse'', which was organized by a woman who's the mother of an old friend (and who gave me a wonderful contract as an event coordinator, this past winter).  She'd caught my interest a few months ago.  I wanted to participate, and I still see it happening in the future.  So, I wanted to check it out.  Photos in a following blog.

A spinning spire, buzzing with breakfasts of all of our guests.  Visitors from the West, across Canada on trains and bikes, crashing at our place for a pair of nights.  7... 9 of them.

Or: today.

Today I was opening up at Touski.  Got up and went.  Had a slow day, but still.  I was tired from so much going on over the past two weeks.  I thought I was going to work a double shift today - that's another story - but then found out I had my evening... so I decided to go see my friend N. perform with a Congolese ensemble (they're from Ottawa) at the Festival ''Les Weekends du Monde''!!
First of all,
I CANNOT BELIEVE THE NUMBERS OF FESTIVALS THAT ARE TAKING PLACE IN THIS CITY !!!

Week-ends du monde provides the entire population with the chance to come and see the riches of 60 different cultures through their music and dance performances and their culinary specialties. The event is free and it runs over two weekends: July 7-8 and July 14-15, 2012.

I biked across the Pont Jacques-Cartier and actually met P. on the bridge.  We got on site just on time for N. performance... except that the schedule had changed ! Easy to kid around and say: ''African time'' (or I could as well say, ''non-European'', that regimented, regulated form of time consciousness we've inherited from monks and later adopted by our dear factory owners...)

Old Montréal.
Mixing History with fine dining.

But I disgress. (It's what I like best!)
I spent on the Saint-Hélène Island - where the Parc Jean-Drapeau- is located.  The sun was hot.  The people... were... so diverse and magnificent!

Very interesting choice..

The highlight of my day was perhaps the Ceremony of Purification that was performed by an elder of the Huron-Wendat nation (who mainly live near Québec city, in Wendake.)

She didn't seem like an expert in public speaking.  Her countenance was ... how to say... extremely laid back and candid.  She said whatever came to her mind, while leading us spectators, through a bit of a closing and cleansing ritual.

She gave her prayer while briefly presenting the elements the First Nations' worldview.  the six directions.  The guides.

''We have to understand,'' she said, ''that whether you pray to a series of saints from your church, or whether these guardians reside in nature,  it's all the same.''

Her prayer addressed our commonalities.
We stood there, spectators,
black, yellow, white, and red...

with only one Mother Earth for us all.  And the Great Creator, the animating Spirit of Life, the One with three.. or ten thousand names!

My favorite moment of all day, was to watch around the circle and witness such different faces, hearing the words of this Native American elder woman.  In prayer.

Flip side.  The spectacle is always with us.  Photo cameras.  For we want to seize the day.

 

 

In the end, I didn't stay for N.'s show.  I biked back right before sunset.  I climbed up the hill only to be told by a girl-police that the bridge was closed.
There's some huge International fireworks festival going on!  See what I mean?  On the same weekend: the Jazz Festival, ''Montréal complétement cirque'', and the other festivals I'm not even aware of!  What!?  These people sure know how to maximize a summer!

I was directed to take Pont Champlain instead.  That meant riding to the opposite side of the Sainte-Hélène island to take the bridge, and landing in the Old Port of Montréal.  What a detour!!

But hey... blessing in disguise.  I saw a completely new face of the city, again!  Sunset on a boardwalks and old narrow streets, ice creams and cold drinks, terrasses.. so many people!

Biked across town and finally got home.  But not before one last happening: a small peaceful protest, a hundred people of so still raising their voice against tuition hikes.. and capitalism.

Booyah.

Bus ride with Allah

23:30, I step on the bus and walk to my seat: the very last row, the one that doesn't recline. Oh well.  I almost didn't get a ticket in time, so I guess I can't complain.  Sitting next to me is a young woman.  She's wearing a hijab, and a beautiful smile.

"¿Adonde te vas?" she asks with a sweet voice.

"Hasta Barcelona."

"Pues, que lejos!" she says.  "¿Vives allá?"

"No.  Soy de Canada."

"Oh! No eres Espanola?"

I'm flattered.  

We exchange names and more background information.  I tell her the same story I've carried with me around the old continent:

"No estoy de vacaciones como de transición.  Por que soy de Canadá, pero viví en los Estados Unidos por los diez años pasados.  Y después d'este viaje yo regresso para vivir en Montreal."

She tells me she's from "Al-Jazeer", or something like that, close to Cadiz.  Al-Jazeera? I heard that word before.  I did a bit of research and didn't find an Andalusian city by that name, but the point is that it's in the South of Spain, and obviously has that wonderful arabic influence.

She tells me she's originally from Marrueco (Morroco).  She has seven siblings; six brothers and one sister.  Two live in France, one in Deutschland, two (including herself) in Spain, and two in England.  (Who knows where the other one is!)  She asks if I'm married.  I smile.  I guess at this point it's not so much a cultural difference.  I know a lot of folks my age, who are getting married.  "No."

"Por que?"

"Por que... por que viajo mucho y quiero buscar mi proprio camino ante de casar me."

"Tu no quieres casar con alguien de otro país?  Por que?"

I explain that it's quite the opposite.  I tend to fall for foreigners.  And that creates a bit of a conundrum because I'm left with my family and my native land on one side, and a potential future and family of my own, that would be far away from them.  I find that very problematic.

She does have a husband.  She tells me he's much older than her.  She's thirty-one; her husband is fifty-six!  She says love knows no age, no race, no language.  Fifty-six!?  I gotta admit that I find that hard to imagine for myself... but she's got my respect.  Her presence is so sweet and loving.  I like her.

The bus is making its way North-East in the dark night; we are chatting away.  She asks about Canada.  She depicts her home in Morocco, her home in Spain.  She's in love with life and with the beautiful landscapes she's daily surrounded with.  She says I have a place to stay when I come to Morocco.  (I should have asked her if there's an expiration date on the offer or if I can show up in, let's say, five years?!)

  

She asks what I do for work in Canada.  I remind her that I haven't lived there in a decade, and tell her I worked as a nanny in San Francisco.  "Una kangaroo", as they say here.  She is a cook in a Moroccan restaurant.  Her husband is the chef.  She asks if I like to cook and what I like to eat.  "Comiste carne?"

"Pues.  No puedo decir que soy vegetariana... pero yo quería ser.  Es que, aquí, quiero probar la comida de las diferentes culturas."

She's silent.  I'm wondering where she stands on the issue.  I explain, "para mi, no es necesseramente que no quiero comer animales, pero a mi es una pregunta de la manera que los tratan.  Por que no se como es la industria aqui, pero en America, hay muchas fincas muy grande y industriales donde que les tratan los animales de una manera súper inhumana, sabes?"

Still silent.  "Para mi, es importante tener respecto.  Y si comio carne, yo digo gracias ante."

"Y comes puerco?" she finally utters.

"Eso no."

"Yo no comió puerco tampoco.  Y tu fumas?"

"Pues. As veces, si."

"Bebes?"

"Eso también.  Me gusta tomar, pero no para estar borracha.  Y tu?  Bebes?"

She tells me she has never had a drink, or a smoke... "por causa de la religion."  She says with a big smile and pointing at her headscarf.  "Lo hizo todo, el hijab, el Ramadan, todo."  She has the most radiant and pure look on her face.  She looks proud, but in a calm, humble way.

I'm so interested in this conversation!  I've been wishing to interact with an arabic woman for some time.  I had given up on that wish, actually.  But here it is now.  I have so many questions and I want to be careful... respectful.  I ask if she prays five times a day?  What time is the first call to prayer?  Do she go to the Mosque for all of them?  I tell her that I like the idea of stopping everything you're doing, five times a day, to remember and bow down to something greater than you."

"Y es bueno ejercicio también!" she says half serious.

I had never seen it that way!

She tells me that Islam is a very healthy religion.  Pork is very fatty, and it apparently contains some hormone, which is cancerous to humans.  That's why muslims don't eat it.  She says the holy book is full of recommendations that are targeting health.  She tells me about Ramadan.  The first two days are the hardest: no eating, no drinking, no sex.  But then, one gets used to it and the rest of the month gets easier.  She's been doing it her whole life, since she was eleven.  I learn that women begin to take part in Ramadan when they have their first menstruations.  Boys start around fourteen or so, when their voice begins to chance and they are becoming men.  When a woman has her period, she can eat normally.  Same thing when she's pregnant, or when she's breastfeeding.  Old and sick people also can eat.  It's important to remain healthy.

ablution facility

I guess ablutions can be seen in this light as well.  It's good to wash your hands and face, and feet, five times a day!

Prayer Hall
Blue Mosque, Istanbul

Our connection is very good and I feel that I can ask her the question that's burning me.  I want to know why women sit on the sides during prayer at the Mosque.  She smiles and explains to me... The woman's body has these... curves... (I see!!)  With the set up and proximity of congregants in the prayer hall, and with the multiple getting up and bowing down that is muslim prayer, it would certainly be very distracting to men!!

From what I understand, it's the same thing with the veil.

I've come to think that, in a big way, I've developed this tom-boyish attitude and dress as a way to protect myself from the other sex.  Sometimes I think wearing the hijab would be so liberating.

It's about two in the morning now and my being is filled with a peaceful kind of love and gratitude.  "Eres cansada?" she asks.

"Si. Un poco. Y tu?"

"Si. Descansamos un poco, si?"

These non-reclining seats are uncomfortable, but I think I shouldn't have a problem falling into that altered state of consciousness, between sleep and awareness.  I've gotten used to it.  I kinda like it.  She is trying to find a way to rest her head.  I tell her she can use my shoulder.

And I sit straight up, close my eyes, and thank God for this beautiful encounter.

Alhamdulillah! 

"One Love.
Let's get together and feel alright!"

living politically (Toulouse)

Sitting at a long table in the dinning room of my hosts, in Toulouse.  I am taking to the road once more, boarding the midnight bus in direction of Spain.  Final stop: Sevilla.

Time here in Toulouse has been quite rich.  Meeting more new people, facing more parts of me, witnessing moods, expectations, ephemeral moments of communions.

First of all let me state it: I finally experienced a little bit of a life in a squat; a real one.  And not any one, for I am told it's perhaps the oldest one still standing in the city!  Indeed, the house has been inhabited for eleven years now.  No rent, no mortgage.  This beautiful big building used to belong to a crew of university researchers that worked at the observatory around the corner.  Then the observatory closed down and the building was left unattended for about five years before a group of students decided to come in and make it their home.

Political posters placarding the walls, an impressively clean and well-stocked kitchen, a ''ballroom'' (also used for self-defense and other community classes), a fumoir (keeping most of the house smoke-free, for the kids), and of course, several bedrooms for residents and guests (I had my own)… This place is huge!   And it is perfectly equipped for an experience in community living.

The food supplies are everybody's; and whoever decides to cook on any given meal generally asks who else might be around to partake.  Every month, a bunch of them goes to work on an organic farm for a day, and they are given boxes full of fresh vegetables.  The rest is supplied from a few selected dumpsters, and from regular grocery stores, of course.

Lately the squat has become the base of operation for the organization of a demonstration to take place in a couple of weeks, denouncing the pernicious mechanisms of the prison-industrial complex (as we'd call it in the USA) and demanding the liberation of six friends who have been incarcerated a few weeks ago.  

(Back in July, they went and caused a ''bit of a mess'' in the offices of the child ''protection'' agency in order to protest against the incarceration of minors.  On November 15th, dozens of policemen broke into their houses to take computers, books, and a few activists with them.)

Makes me wonder.  

I support the cause...  even though I prefer not to think about the injustice, about the repression and the brutality that is committed daily against the people our wonderful political-legal-economical power structures make sure to keep stigmatized and struggling.  

Thinking about prisons... Asking... is this really the only solution?  Is this an ethical solution?  What else do we have to offer, when it comes to maintaining the "good functioning" of society.  (One might ask: which society?)

One can point to the long tradition of many civilizations, to isolate, reject, and shun antisocial individuals who betray the social ethics of the community.  Yet what are the intentions?  There's retribution, and there's rehabilitation. ?

I remember reading about a native american tribe, which considers the whole community to be guilty if an individual misbehaves.  They sit together and perform rituals to heal the whole of society.

A concept that makes so much sense to me... for aren't we all products of our environment?  Aren't we caught in such a tangle of historical, racial, economical mess of a system, that it is actually quite absurd and impossible to speak of "justice" at this point?

Let us not be fooled.

It just doesn't seem to me like modern prison system isn't meant to heal society.

Anyway.  (I just found some very interesting historical information about ostracization in ancient Athenian democracy... check it out:  here.)  

It's good to be in such a politicized place.  A bit stressful and heavy, but good.

Cafe at the University of Toulouse

Humming with Allah

The sun came out today!! The sun came out!!
I mean, I finally saw Istanbul in the sun!

It's been an interesting time here.  I've been having mixed feelings and I notice that it's been easier to write about the rougher parts, i.e. the politics, the sociological, the economy, the loneliness (wait, I didn't really write about that did I?)... Yet, I know that, if these things are bothering me it's because they reflect some shadows in my consciousness... but I'm not going to go there right now :)


I do want to say, that it's been good: this fullness of feeling, this getting lost (I walked for over an hour in Kadikoy by myself last night, nonchalantly but so very lost!!), this facing the reality and implications of my place in a foreign society as a nomad and as a stranger.


But I have also had powerful moments of being with/in All-ah.  I did end up visiting the Blue Mosque yesterday.  It was a powerful experience.


Funny how I've grown to seek out and enjoy churches.  I never thought I'd feel this way when I was a teenager, and into my early twenties.  I do remember the first time I let myself be touched.  It was in Cuba, in the church of La Caridad del Cobre (the santeria goddess Ochun in Cuban syncretism).  Since then, I've had my own personal relationship with "houses of God".  I could focus on the wrong-doings of many religious institutions, but I'd rather see those temples as places where people gather to remember, to celebrate, to reinforce the connection between them and what's greater than us.




I had that feeling in the Blue Mosque.
It was a different set up: no benches, no tabernacle, no crucifix, no high standing priest!  Instead, there was only a huge carpeted floor space (we didn't have to do ablutions, but everyone had their shoes off) underneath a dazzling dome.  Visitors were not allowed in the center of the mosque where muslim men go to pray.  (Muslim women have their own section, which is on the side.  I'm not sure how I feel about that part but I'll let it go for now.)



I walked slowly, my eyes fixed on the exquisite calligraphy on the high vaulted ceiling.  I listened to the sound of space, the silence of awe, and the laughter of a few young children who ran around.  Then I sat on the ground and closed my eyes for a while.  I breathed, I smiled... I imagined a large group of muslims answering the call for prayer and gathering in that glorious temple, kneeling down shoulder to shoulder, reciting the Q'ran in unison... And suddenly a song grew inside my body.  I was humming, feeling the likeness of my body and this mosque... sound, vibration... spirit vibrating inside matter.
My body is a temple.

Ritual, per-form-ance

I am writing from a different kitchen table today.  I left the room I had been renting for the past month, in Prenzlauerberg, where I was perhaps starting to get a bit too comfortable.  I am now staying at the outskirt of Berlin, in a flat with - once again- seven roommates.  I cannot get over how wonderful the Couch Surfing community can be.  I got here last night, and already I have had the most interesting conversations with my hosts.  But more about this later.





What is more urgent for me is this dance project I have joined.  I got an email from my ex-flatmate Jakob (the Butoh dancer) last week, calling for women dancers and performers.  I sent a CV and two photos of myself, and showed up for an "audition" at Tachales, on Thursday evening.
First, a few words about the famous Tachales.  Well in fact, let us ask the almighty (I am not saying this without a tone of irony, let me assure you)... wikipedia:

The Kunsthaus Tacheles (Art House Tacheles), is an art center in Berlin, a large (9000 square meter) building onOranienburger Straße in the district known as Mitte. Huge, colorful graffiti-style murals are painted on the exterior walls, and modern art sculptures are featured inside. The building houses an artists collective which is threatened with eviction.

Originally called "Friedrichsstadtpassagen", it was built as a department store in the Jewish quarter (Scheunenviertel) of Berlin, next to the synagogue.^[2] After serving as a Nazi prison for a short while, it was later partially demolished. After the Berlin Wall had come down, it was taken over by artists, who called it Tacheles, Yiddish for "straight talking."^[2] The building contained ateliers and workshops, a nightclub, and a cinema.

This is, to me, the most astonishing and fascinating thing about Berlin: there have been so many turns - within the last century only - in the constitution of the urban environment.  All over the city giant buildings have served a rotating bases for Jewish people, for Communists, for Nazis, and today, for Anarchists.  The evidence is everywhere.  Systems change.

Tachales is filled with graffiti.  It is also a bit filthy.  There are metal sculptures planted all over the back yard and inside the main part of the building, artists turn recycled materials into pieces of art while leaving the doors open for the general public - herds of tourists - to come observe the phenomenon.
There is something profoundly inspiring in this: Reclaiming (and opening up) spaces.


The audition was more like a deliciously-crafted workshop.  Our director, Paulina, is a choreographer and an "author of socio-cultural animation programs".  She is from Poland.  On the first day she introduced us to her friend and assistant, Mikki, who would be in the "more witchy"  aspect of the work...
Delight.
Soon we began to dance, twenty-or-so women coming from the seven corners of Europe.  I knew two of them; Iaro, a French Butoh Dancer who is staying now with Jakob and with whom I've had the pleasure to share in one delicious pasta dinner and precious conversations on the subjects of Butoh, life, and relationships.  The other woman I had encountered on the floor of Ecstatic Dance.  And that had been a silent communion, so I hadn't caught her name.  We both recognized each other with a big smile.
I wondered how many of these girls were "professional" dancers.  How many of them are in their early twenties.  How many of them have injuries.  What are their dreams?  What are their fears?

A sculpture in the yard, which
is a true museum.

After warming up we were split in different groups, according to... the look of our hair!  "We are going to work with some cliches" had explained Paula.
"Short hair" she said, and pointed to three of us to form a subgroup.  "Tall, long hair," was another group, along with "Blond hair", and "Dark hair." Funny how I have been so mindful of my hair recently.  Funny how I was placed in the "short hair" clan, but didn't quite feel it.
Anyway.  We each created a short choreography and were then asked to present it on stage.  Soon, we were also improvising solo bits, and groups intermingled to create, already then, a powerful series of moments and performance.
At the end of the session, Mikki gathered us around a circle of Tarot cards she had spread on the floor.  We stood shoulder to shoulder and closed our eyes.  We listened to the breath we shared, and the heart beating in each one of our chest.  We vocalized together in this sacred space, re-discovering how perfectly connected we fundamentally are.
Amen.


Then we each picked a card.  I thought about the many questions mine could potentially pertain to.  I couldn't quite structure a concrete sentence, but I thought I heard my heart say that it had to do with "art... and especially physical theater."  More specifically perhaps, It was about my future in relationship to those things.  For I cannot help it: what I worry about is the future.

Cold, industrial, bare dance-theater. 

I picked the Goddess Sige: "Take some quiet time alone to rest, meditate, and contemplate."
What?
I didn't want that answer.  I couldn't quite hear it.  I felt angry, et désemparée.  What is this supposed to mean?  I thought of my foot, because it is true that it still hurts me a lot.  It is true that perhaps I should not be dancing so much.  I should get some acupuncture, I should, I should, I should.
But I want to dance!  I thought I had finally found a way to express my most essential self.  I thought I had the perfect formula; being, after all, a former athlete with the soul of an artist.  Being after all, spirit in matter, having so much electricity to channel into form, through my body.
"Take some quiet time alone to rest."  Rest?  Why now?  How?  I swear I want to listen to the universe, but I just don't understand this one.  So I got home that night - on Thursday - and did a bit more research.  This is what I read on a blog I found:


 Shhh, dearest one. Quiet your mind. Breathe and let go of words, worry, and plans. Go into that space of silence deep within you, that vortex of peace where the world doesn't enter. Now is the time to retreat in silence and spend time alone. I'll lovingly help you rejuvenate and recenter yourself. Don't try to make any decisions now. Just allow your mind to be at rest. You'll know soon enough when it's time to take action. But for now, quiet your mind. Rest."


Well I do like that.  In fact, it sounds a lot like what I've already been doing on some level.  I have been observing myself wanting to make plans.  But I have also sat with it...


My foot hurts, but I truly madly deeply do want to be part of this project.  Twenty plus dancing witches creating a performance at Tachales over the span of four intense days?  No "workshop fees"?  Are you kidding me?!


I have come up with a "working hypothesis", as I meditate on the message of this card I picked.  (Perhaps this is mere "rationalization", or some form of cognitive dissonance; but it's the best I can handle right now.)  I like to believe that Sige is simply enjoining me to honor the part of me, which is Butoh.  She is offering me an opportunity to slow down while I do what I love.  There is no need to push my physical body beyond her current limitations.  There is no need to try and prove that I can dance.  I am a woman in a woman's body, my soul ready to overflow with love, wisdom and power.  This is Berlin, and it is Samhain season.  The Mayan calendar has ended for some, magic is upon and within us.  We are practicing the art of manifestation.  I am on a path to learn how to hold my energy, rather than mindlessly releasing and dispersing it.  I am on a path to become more conscious of my impulses and desires, and to be gentle with myself, and concentrate.
Con-centrate: "to centrate with".
:)

On a building near Tachales,
Oranienburger Tor

ShameNoShame: special edition!

Harvey have an "added scene" in tomorrow's show.  It is going to be quite unique, not in the sense of never-been-done-before, but in the sense of the impossibility of reiterating the scene again.  I don't know why I wouldn't tell you what is going to happen.  I kinda want to.  After all, I suppose that most of the people reading this blog (thank you so much!) are not going to be at the event, so why not break the silence now?

I am going to have my head shaved.  Not all of it, actually, because I do want to give my new dreadlocks a chance.  But I'm gonna loose a lot of hair, and its going to happen on stage.

Let me just say, first, that I am grateful for Harvey in my life.  Our relationship has been filled with a good amount of tensions and feelings recently, which makes sense if you take into account everything we are each individually dealing with.  She's a strong woman who's undertaking a great adventure: She's in the process of getting herself an artist visa, here, in Germany!  Such a goal is no easy process to achieve; I am so well able to understand her situation!  I have been there myself: Immigration kinda sucks!

I, for my part, am in the middle of my saturn return and in between two homes, hanging loosely in the middle of a gentle storm.  Thus I am also in a big transition.  It's not hard to understand how our professional relationship might be under a bit of stress.  In the work that we do together as clowns, we need to be able to trust each other deeply.  And with all the feelings involved on each side, sometimes the tension builds a little bit.

I actually appreciate the fact that my work involves feelings.  I have never been one to labor for a cause I do not support, and I come to realize that my main criteria has been "humanity", and just as being a nanny might not be a "real job", it meant the world to me because it was about love, and relationship, and deeply connecting with (an)other human beings.

But I digress. (What's new?!)

I was saying that I am about to have Harvey shave my head as part of our performance, on the night of my twenty-ninth birthday.

I was saying that I love Harvey, because I have found in her someone who's been mirroring a lot of great parts of myself… being a freak, being an artist, being queer and crazy, and being willing and able to work very hard and seriously to make the dream come true.  We have met and we have played and built this act together, and we have crossed the Atlantic ocean (acknowledged by both of us, however, was the fact that we were to be on our individual journey).

I love how we can communicate through all the steps we take together.  We go through life, and through art, needing each other for this act meanwhile each one committed to our own path.

I call that polyamory.

But I disgress again.

I have been thinking about shaving my head for some time.  In fact, I find hair to be something very... significative... and symbolic.  Hair is identity.  Sometimes it's individuality, or subculture, or nationality, often it's religious.  Throughout the ages, people have considered their hair to hold such symbolic value.  (Examples  here.)

So I've been thinking about this "urban pilgrimage" I am on.  As a clown, as a woman, as a citizen of the world… I am thinking about my role in society, and my place also.  I have been re-membered how much I love writing.  I have made a practice of it.

I have found it hard to "be a clown".  It's not that I don't think I'm a clown.  That is something so deeply philosophical and metaphysical in me; I do not doubt the overarching presence of the clown/trickster in my life.  

I'm just not sure what form it takes!

Thus the hair ritual, I guess.  That's what having [almost] all my hair shaved represents.  To me.

I have had other such rituals before.  First when I got my dreadlocks done at the Anarchist Conference, Vermont.  Later when I got them cut off.  That time, my friend Natalie had offered to make it an explicit ritual (!).  She had lit a candle, and we had talked about what it meant to cut my rastas… Since then, I have done a few more "conscious haircuts"- which basically means using the opportunity to speak about the change happening at the greater level in one's life, and then setting some intentions.

I just love the principle!

Now this time, I am doing it on stage.  I don't really know what that means, but I like the idea.  It's not something I was attached to - I would probably have shaven my head anyway… or would I have?  But I like the idea of a ritual performance.  I hope people like it.  Of course, it will be up to Harvey to read the audience and go as long with it as keeps them involved.  We'll see what happens!  But I know, that the way it is incorporated in the show,  (and for those who have seen it and know our characters, you can picture this better, should create a nice effect!

I also like the fact that it perfectly matches the unfolding of our show.  My hair is my power.  When she cuts my hair, she gets a piece of it for herself.  In the end, her character still has her resolution, and I, have been her sounding board for the journey.

I love it.