Hey I remember this place! I dreamed of something just like it once. There were words and stories. Friends dropped in to visit. I used to have a place like this. It's all coming back to me.
And then I was inarticulately pregnant, for months on end. No words to spare except for the ones needed for work, and that was a stretch. I was teaching applied drama, up in an airy sunlit room on the 15th floor of a building in town. I barely turned my computer on, for, well months, really. A heavy teaching schedule. A sweet collection of young facilitator-dramatists in the making. We played games and had earnest chats about theatre for development and character development and visual metaphor. And they watched my belly grow. And the games got less energetic. And the distance from sitting cross legged on the floor to standing on the feet got further and further. And the struggle to find parking close enough to my teaching venue made me more and more foul-mouthed.
Until one day it was over. It stopped, just like that. No more teaching. At 36 weeks, I believe it was. Though the pile of marking still scowls at me from my desk. But here I am, 38 weeks pregnant and a lot of blogs to catch up on, aside from my own. (Why did I start another one? What was that all about?) And a big restless baby twisting and turning like a twisty turny thing within me, trying to trampoline off my bladder to kick my solar plexus.
And there it is, the dull desire to write, which was thudding against my cortex like a Should knot, suddenly untangling into actual words again. Even sentences. Even in a sequence and everything.
Hello everyone. Are we still friends?
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Readiness is all (Part II)
So much of what we call good theatre these days is polished and slick. Performances that display impressive emotional virtuoso, sets that are tricky and conceptual, interpretations of the classics that leave you nodding sagely and going 'hmmm', because its all so clever. This is what we want to see, right?
Or is it? Sometimes, I go to an opening night of a new offering and I think its like the Emperor's New Clothes. Everyone's saying how marvelous it all is and everyone's all sweetie dahling and congrats but I can't shake a deep feeling that its just not quite enough. I want something more - dangerous. More raw, more naked. Not so pat and rehearsed. I'm talking about a particular kind of theatre - the kind that fills the mainstream theatres in this country. And don't get me wrong. Much of South African theatre is moving and transformative, very alive and very very innovative. But even so, why does it always feel so.... safe? Maybe I'm just hard to please.
But now something has come along that really rocks my boat, lights my candle and peels my onion.
My friend James told me about it first - he'd seen The Seagull in London, performed by The Factory theatre company, and put through the cauldron of their unique method. What they do is they take a classic text, and everyone in the company learns several parts, really really well. There are no sets, no costumes, no character as such, and certainly no clever conceptual interpretation (as in, "I'm setting my Macbeth in a despotic African country and its, like, its going to be a comment on dictatorship and ambition in a postcolonial context..." blah. None of that.) On the night, in front of the live audience, they flip a coin to see who will play who. You may have prepared Hamlet, Claudius and Messenger, but you won't know which part you'll play, or which Ophelia you'll be up against, until seconds before you do it.
Then James spoke to Lucy and Lucy had seen them too and she thought they were pretty cool too and the Next thing we knew, we had a group of talented gung-ho passionate big hearted actors in Jozi ready to give it a go. We're doing Hamlet. Lucy managed to persuade the goodly boys from the Factory in London to come and teach us how they do it. They spent a week with us, and we all swooned at how delicious and gung-ho and marvelous they are. (Come on boys, you know you did too). And then, armed with a set of exercises to apply to iambic verse and a whole new philosophical outlook on our craft, we gave up every Saturday morning this year to mess around with Shakespeare.
Oh my word, it has been fun.
So the thing is, in a way, to undo the training that taught you to create a character. ("I think Ophelia is anorexic. She's a Virgo...") To resist what the goodly Factory people call being "on the bus" - what actors do when they feel a particular emotional choice has worked and so they stay there for longer than they should. ("Oh, it worked to play that bit angry. Angry works, lets stay with angry...") To strip everything that is acting and just live the truth of each moment, of each offer you receive from your fellow actor. Be a vessel for the story, and let all your acting be about the other person, not about you. To be utterly and faithfully and generously and ego-lessly in the moment, every moment.
Oh my word, it is so much fun.
We'll be having our first public showing in Grahamstown at the National Arts Festival. Not a performance as such, coz we're not ready. But a demonstration, sort of master class, directed, or facilitated by Tim Carroll in front of a live audience. I've prepared Gertrude, Ambassador and Francisco. It is going to be So Much Fun.
Terrifying? Well, why? Because so much can go wrong? But that is the point. That is the fun. That's what the audience gets out of it, too. Things do go wrong, will go wrong. And that's ok. And there will also be moments when you will look at this text with the newest eyes ever, coz you just never saw such sparks happen between a bunch of actors and these words before.
Its a dream come true. And the best part is, each show is totally unrepeatable. By definition.
Read more about The Factory's Hamlet here.
or check out their Facebook page.
The South African group is called the Framework.
Or is it? Sometimes, I go to an opening night of a new offering and I think its like the Emperor's New Clothes. Everyone's saying how marvelous it all is and everyone's all sweetie dahling and congrats but I can't shake a deep feeling that its just not quite enough. I want something more - dangerous. More raw, more naked. Not so pat and rehearsed. I'm talking about a particular kind of theatre - the kind that fills the mainstream theatres in this country. And don't get me wrong. Much of South African theatre is moving and transformative, very alive and very very innovative. But even so, why does it always feel so.... safe? Maybe I'm just hard to please.
But now something has come along that really rocks my boat, lights my candle and peels my onion.
My friend James told me about it first - he'd seen The Seagull in London, performed by The Factory theatre company, and put through the cauldron of their unique method. What they do is they take a classic text, and everyone in the company learns several parts, really really well. There are no sets, no costumes, no character as such, and certainly no clever conceptual interpretation (as in, "I'm setting my Macbeth in a despotic African country and its, like, its going to be a comment on dictatorship and ambition in a postcolonial context..." blah. None of that.) On the night, in front of the live audience, they flip a coin to see who will play who. You may have prepared Hamlet, Claudius and Messenger, but you won't know which part you'll play, or which Ophelia you'll be up against, until seconds before you do it.
Then James spoke to Lucy and Lucy had seen them too and she thought they were pretty cool too and the Next thing we knew, we had a group of talented gung-ho passionate big hearted actors in Jozi ready to give it a go. We're doing Hamlet. Lucy managed to persuade the goodly boys from the Factory in London to come and teach us how they do it. They spent a week with us, and we all swooned at how delicious and gung-ho and marvelous they are. (Come on boys, you know you did too). And then, armed with a set of exercises to apply to iambic verse and a whole new philosophical outlook on our craft, we gave up every Saturday morning this year to mess around with Shakespeare.
Oh my word, it has been fun.
So the thing is, in a way, to undo the training that taught you to create a character. ("I think Ophelia is anorexic. She's a Virgo...") To resist what the goodly Factory people call being "on the bus" - what actors do when they feel a particular emotional choice has worked and so they stay there for longer than they should. ("Oh, it worked to play that bit angry. Angry works, lets stay with angry...") To strip everything that is acting and just live the truth of each moment, of each offer you receive from your fellow actor. Be a vessel for the story, and let all your acting be about the other person, not about you. To be utterly and faithfully and generously and ego-lessly in the moment, every moment.
Oh my word, it is so much fun.
We'll be having our first public showing in Grahamstown at the National Arts Festival. Not a performance as such, coz we're not ready. But a demonstration, sort of master class, directed, or facilitated by Tim Carroll in front of a live audience. I've prepared Gertrude, Ambassador and Francisco. It is going to be So Much Fun.
Terrifying? Well, why? Because so much can go wrong? But that is the point. That is the fun. That's what the audience gets out of it, too. Things do go wrong, will go wrong. And that's ok. And there will also be moments when you will look at this text with the newest eyes ever, coz you just never saw such sparks happen between a bunch of actors and these words before.
Its a dream come true. And the best part is, each show is totally unrepeatable. By definition.
Read more about The Factory's Hamlet here.
or check out their Facebook page.
The South African group is called the Framework.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Readiness is all (Part I)
Ever since I can remember I have had dreams about theatre. There's a recurring dream with variations:
I am prepared. I know all my words. I step onto the stage and open my mouth to say my line, only to realise that I am in the wrong play. This is not the one I prepared for. Everyone else is performing a different script.
Or
The audience is gathered. They are waiting outside the venue. I go inside to where the actors are. We have no play. We have only minutes to put something together. I sort frantically through ideas surging through my head, and issue some hasty improvisation instructions to the cast and we are off. We somehow pull it off, usually with the help of some beautiful colourful cloths and cast members who really know how to move.
In these dreams my roles change. Sometimes I am director. Sometimes I am performer. Sometimes I am designer (fantastic sets, great big clam-shell sails and reticulated carriages that can traverse the stage and collapse in on themselves - but then the director doesn't want them).
In my patchy career I have toyed with these three alternating roles, and also experienced the lung-crushing anxiety of feeling hopelessy underprepared.
There was a turning point though. About a year ago I had one of those dreams - big festival venue, big cast, big audience gathered outside, including my mentor-gurus from varsity days. Play not ready. So I say to the cast - its ok, we'll each have a copy of the same text (from the Jungle Book, apparently. I hand out copies) We can work from this and do our thing. But the text is wonky and blurred and the lights too dim. So I do something I have never done. I go outside and I cancel the show. I tell the waiting audeince that sorry, we are not ready and there will be no performance tonight.
The show does not have to go on if it means that it may wreck your constitution, or may be really really bad.
I think that turning point dream was the day I grew up.
Now, I've had to do it for real. I applied for my show to be on the fringe of the National Arts Festival in January. This is the blurb that's the in the booking kit for Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth:
Goddess of many names: Inanna, Ishtar, Queen of Heaven and Earth. This rare production takes an ancient Sumerian myth and transforms it into a powerful healing journey for the 21st century. Part therapeutic workshop, this ritual theatre experience will transport you into a shadowland of image, poetic text, movement and story.
Dreamed up before falling pregnant (why do we say falling? Is it really a fall?), before the trauma of Seka Theatre's trip to Cape Town and all the funding disasters that accompanied that. Before many other other potholes that have loomed at me since January. I know its the best decision, to withdraw this show from the programme and wait til it has "come to term" and has been deeply worked by the goddess-hands that will collaborate with me. I know there's no time to do the proper job it requires, to realise the gorgeous visions that have arrived here everytime I apply my dreaming mind to this project. I know all that. But it still hurts to see Cancelled Show next its name on the website. Before, I would have stubbornly clenched my jaw and ploughed on anyway, despite not having the right team together yet, the right funding together yet, etc. Just because I said I would. I can't do that now. And that's fine. Even though part of me is panicking that "its my last chance!"
However, there is something else afoot. Something so frantically, furtively exciting, so in keeping with all the dreams I have about the stage and being ready, or not. Something dangerous and sexy: the kind of theatre where everything can go wrong, and that's ok, coz that is just the point. I'll tell you about it in the next post.
I am prepared. I know all my words. I step onto the stage and open my mouth to say my line, only to realise that I am in the wrong play. This is not the one I prepared for. Everyone else is performing a different script.
Or
The audience is gathered. They are waiting outside the venue. I go inside to where the actors are. We have no play. We have only minutes to put something together. I sort frantically through ideas surging through my head, and issue some hasty improvisation instructions to the cast and we are off. We somehow pull it off, usually with the help of some beautiful colourful cloths and cast members who really know how to move.
In these dreams my roles change. Sometimes I am director. Sometimes I am performer. Sometimes I am designer (fantastic sets, great big clam-shell sails and reticulated carriages that can traverse the stage and collapse in on themselves - but then the director doesn't want them).
In my patchy career I have toyed with these three alternating roles, and also experienced the lung-crushing anxiety of feeling hopelessy underprepared.
There was a turning point though. About a year ago I had one of those dreams - big festival venue, big cast, big audience gathered outside, including my mentor-gurus from varsity days. Play not ready. So I say to the cast - its ok, we'll each have a copy of the same text (from the Jungle Book, apparently. I hand out copies) We can work from this and do our thing. But the text is wonky and blurred and the lights too dim. So I do something I have never done. I go outside and I cancel the show. I tell the waiting audeince that sorry, we are not ready and there will be no performance tonight.
The show does not have to go on if it means that it may wreck your constitution, or may be really really bad.
I think that turning point dream was the day I grew up.
Now, I've had to do it for real. I applied for my show to be on the fringe of the National Arts Festival in January. This is the blurb that's the in the booking kit for Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth:
Goddess of many names: Inanna, Ishtar, Queen of Heaven and Earth. This rare production takes an ancient Sumerian myth and transforms it into a powerful healing journey for the 21st century. Part therapeutic workshop, this ritual theatre experience will transport you into a shadowland of image, poetic text, movement and story.
Dreamed up before falling pregnant (why do we say falling? Is it really a fall?), before the trauma of Seka Theatre's trip to Cape Town and all the funding disasters that accompanied that. Before many other other potholes that have loomed at me since January. I know its the best decision, to withdraw this show from the programme and wait til it has "come to term" and has been deeply worked by the goddess-hands that will collaborate with me. I know there's no time to do the proper job it requires, to realise the gorgeous visions that have arrived here everytime I apply my dreaming mind to this project. I know all that. But it still hurts to see Cancelled Show next its name on the website. Before, I would have stubbornly clenched my jaw and ploughed on anyway, despite not having the right team together yet, the right funding together yet, etc. Just because I said I would. I can't do that now. And that's fine. Even though part of me is panicking that "its my last chance!"
However, there is something else afoot. Something so frantically, furtively exciting, so in keeping with all the dreams I have about the stage and being ready, or not. Something dangerous and sexy: the kind of theatre where everything can go wrong, and that's ok, coz that is just the point. I'll tell you about it in the next post.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
branching out
For those of you that may be interested, I'll be blogging about the belly over here.. There's one up at the moment, and the usual transmissions will resume here shortly, as I feel the block may be shifting.
But for now I am in Lusaka, relishing a few days of sun and family time. Back to the bright lights tomorrow.
Until then.
But for now I am in Lusaka, relishing a few days of sun and family time. Back to the bright lights tomorrow.
Until then.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Underground
At first, the words dried up completely. Or I thought they had.
Two pink lines in a tiny window on a plastic stick splattered with wee. Watching them darken.
Nodding. Smiling. Not telling.
I'm an iceberg now. If an iceberg can have a molten centre. The bit everyone can see is still sticking upright into the world, trying to get stuff done. Teaching, driving, shopping, organising painters, paying bills, organising actors to travel from Zambia to Cape Town for a festival, taking sick cat to and from the vet. But underneath, this growing bulk, still invisible to the untrained eye. A creeping, cumulative other consciousness that even I'm barely able to access, let alone share.
No, the words didn't dry up. Or freeze. They just went underground. Banking down into the earth, rooting, delving. Seeking some other place of renewal that I won't see or understand til they filter up again.
And until then I'm a sporadic blogger.
Two pink lines in a tiny window on a plastic stick splattered with wee. Watching them darken.
Nodding. Smiling. Not telling.
I'm an iceberg now. If an iceberg can have a molten centre. The bit everyone can see is still sticking upright into the world, trying to get stuff done. Teaching, driving, shopping, organising painters, paying bills, organising actors to travel from Zambia to Cape Town for a festival, taking sick cat to and from the vet. But underneath, this growing bulk, still invisible to the untrained eye. A creeping, cumulative other consciousness that even I'm barely able to access, let alone share.
No, the words didn't dry up. Or freeze. They just went underground. Banking down into the earth, rooting, delving. Seeking some other place of renewal that I won't see or understand til they filter up again.
And until then I'm a sporadic blogger.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
No, Minister
Dear Minister
Many of my blogmates have taken to letter writing as a quiet form of protest lately. For example, Shiny, who writes to correct certain undesirable forces in her universe, or Mud, who gently questions the strange things she finds in her new home.
I too have decided to take up this form. I have a few things to say to you. Actually they are quite serious things and I do hope you are listening.
Dear Ms Xingwana, you have been appointed as the Minister of Arts and Culture. Clearly they didn't brief you properly. Your job is not to censor artists. Your job is not to take your petty puritan morality and project it onto the works of art that cause you discomfort.
Minister, your job is to take the pair of scissors and cut the ribbon, to open the exhibition. Not pass your judgement and tell artists that their work is 'against nation building.' I may have to check my facts here, but I think another aspect of your job may be to protect our constitution. Remember? The one so many people died trying to uphold. I don't think they gave you licence to decide that some people were more free than others to express themselves. That would be going backwards a bit.
Minister, we artists have a rule of thumb to ascertain whether our work is effective or not. Its to do with the function of art in society. If a work has the effect of making people talk, or causing a little discomfort, (I know this will seem strange to you) we generally see that as a good thing. It means we have made people think about an aspect of society that needs thinking about. There is a word for works of art that confirm or impose ideologies espoused by powerful ruling agenda. That word is propaganda. Mostly, artists are not so comfortable being a mouthpiece for the state. They like to interpret the world around them for themselves. They like to create and celebrate beauty, or turn the mirror on ugliness when necessary, so that they can provide a balance against the misery they see in the world around them.
Minister, perhaps you are concerned about the high rates of rape, sexual abuse against children and women in this country. For this reason you are uncomfortable about public exhibitions of pornography. This is what you have said. Minister, allow me to explain how to recognise pornography. Usually, it is an image where there is an uncomfortable level of dominance or a power imbalance in the sexual act. Minister, tell me, in the images below - do you see anything violent? Do you see anything other than love, tenderness, sensuality?
Minister, is it because, as some have suggested, there are black African women displaying love and tenderness towards one another? Dare we use the word, lesbian? Minister, I know this may come as a shock to you but there is quite a lot of evidence to suggest that lesbianism has been alive and well on this continent for centuries, and that it was the coming of the white man, bearing Queen Victoria's flag and the Christian Church's moralities, that brought this prurience and intolerance to your continent.
Minister, allow me to draw to your attention some real concerns that you can get busy with. It is 100 days until we become the Fiefdom of the World Cup. Artists, theatre-makers, musicians and cultural activists are wondering why there has been so little invitation to share their works on public platforms so the world can see how talented we are. And what of those rumours about the R150 million that kind of disappeared, that was supposed to be for World Cup arts projects?
Minister, a friend of mine, a well respected choreographer received a grant from the National Arts Council recently. Two weeks before her work was due to be showcased, she still had not received the money in her bank account. This was a great threat to the integrity of her work. When artists get grants, generally they need the money before the work, you see, because unlike government officials they are not using that money to reward themselves or buy nice cars, they are using it to actually buy materials in order to make the work. I can't quite understand why it took the administrators of this important national institution so long to process a small bit of paperwork. Its not like there was a very long list of grantees. Please could you facilitate some sort of forum so that we the artists can communicate to those the bureaucrats what our needs actually are? We really don't want to fight with you.
Minister, every year we lose a national treasure, an artist of great talent and brilliance. We are losing these people not to old age, but to common preventable diseases of poverty, or to crime. We have actors and musicians who have worked their entire lives listening to the Muse, unmotivated by wealth or fame, who cannot afford medical care, who have no form of unemployment insurance. Make no mistake Minister, these are real 'nation builders.' We have graduates with artistic training, young people of great promise who are working as administrators and car guards because there is no vision from your department on how these creative minds could feed into the economy.
Minister, while I am at it, and I know I am going on a bit now, would you consider talking to the Ministers of Education (both of them, please) about how to improve creativity training in schools. I know there is an Arts and Culture lesson in the curriculum, but do you know how many teachers use this period to clean their classroom? I know maths and science are important, but consider the value of enabling young minds to be creative and literate as well. It has been well documented that this kind of education is essential in producing well rounded learners, and even in helping them to develop that much vaunted sense of morality that your people keep talking about. Let's not go back there.
Minister, audiences in Paris, Oregon, London, New York, are being wowed by South African artists. When these artists return to theatres in their home country, they struggle to cover their costs. Please, help to build an environment in which artists can just do their jobs. Don't tell them what they should be creating.
There is that small matter of the Constitution to uphold.
Thank you, Minister, for taking the time out of your busy schedule to read this. If you would like any other reading matter that could point you in the right direction and help you carry out your public duty, please let me know, I would be happy to assist.
yours sincerely concerned,
Hungry Nation Builder.
Many of my blogmates have taken to letter writing as a quiet form of protest lately. For example, Shiny, who writes to correct certain undesirable forces in her universe, or Mud, who gently questions the strange things she finds in her new home.
I too have decided to take up this form. I have a few things to say to you. Actually they are quite serious things and I do hope you are listening.
Dear Ms Xingwana, you have been appointed as the Minister of Arts and Culture. Clearly they didn't brief you properly. Your job is not to censor artists. Your job is not to take your petty puritan morality and project it onto the works of art that cause you discomfort.
Minister, your job is to take the pair of scissors and cut the ribbon, to open the exhibition. Not pass your judgement and tell artists that their work is 'against nation building.' I may have to check my facts here, but I think another aspect of your job may be to protect our constitution. Remember? The one so many people died trying to uphold. I don't think they gave you licence to decide that some people were more free than others to express themselves. That would be going backwards a bit.
Minister, we artists have a rule of thumb to ascertain whether our work is effective or not. Its to do with the function of art in society. If a work has the effect of making people talk, or causing a little discomfort, (I know this will seem strange to you) we generally see that as a good thing. It means we have made people think about an aspect of society that needs thinking about. There is a word for works of art that confirm or impose ideologies espoused by powerful ruling agenda. That word is propaganda. Mostly, artists are not so comfortable being a mouthpiece for the state. They like to interpret the world around them for themselves. They like to create and celebrate beauty, or turn the mirror on ugliness when necessary, so that they can provide a balance against the misery they see in the world around them.
Minister, perhaps you are concerned about the high rates of rape, sexual abuse against children and women in this country. For this reason you are uncomfortable about public exhibitions of pornography. This is what you have said. Minister, allow me to explain how to recognise pornography. Usually, it is an image where there is an uncomfortable level of dominance or a power imbalance in the sexual act. Minister, tell me, in the images below - do you see anything violent? Do you see anything other than love, tenderness, sensuality?
Minister, is it because, as some have suggested, there are black African women displaying love and tenderness towards one another? Dare we use the word, lesbian? Minister, I know this may come as a shock to you but there is quite a lot of evidence to suggest that lesbianism has been alive and well on this continent for centuries, and that it was the coming of the white man, bearing Queen Victoria's flag and the Christian Church's moralities, that brought this prurience and intolerance to your continent.
Minister, allow me to draw to your attention some real concerns that you can get busy with. It is 100 days until we become the Fiefdom of the World Cup. Artists, theatre-makers, musicians and cultural activists are wondering why there has been so little invitation to share their works on public platforms so the world can see how talented we are. And what of those rumours about the R150 million that kind of disappeared, that was supposed to be for World Cup arts projects?
Minister, a friend of mine, a well respected choreographer received a grant from the National Arts Council recently. Two weeks before her work was due to be showcased, she still had not received the money in her bank account. This was a great threat to the integrity of her work. When artists get grants, generally they need the money before the work, you see, because unlike government officials they are not using that money to reward themselves or buy nice cars, they are using it to actually buy materials in order to make the work. I can't quite understand why it took the administrators of this important national institution so long to process a small bit of paperwork. Its not like there was a very long list of grantees. Please could you facilitate some sort of forum so that we the artists can communicate to those the bureaucrats what our needs actually are? We really don't want to fight with you.
Minister, every year we lose a national treasure, an artist of great talent and brilliance. We are losing these people not to old age, but to common preventable diseases of poverty, or to crime. We have actors and musicians who have worked their entire lives listening to the Muse, unmotivated by wealth or fame, who cannot afford medical care, who have no form of unemployment insurance. Make no mistake Minister, these are real 'nation builders.' We have graduates with artistic training, young people of great promise who are working as administrators and car guards because there is no vision from your department on how these creative minds could feed into the economy.
Minister, while I am at it, and I know I am going on a bit now, would you consider talking to the Ministers of Education (both of them, please) about how to improve creativity training in schools. I know there is an Arts and Culture lesson in the curriculum, but do you know how many teachers use this period to clean their classroom? I know maths and science are important, but consider the value of enabling young minds to be creative and literate as well. It has been well documented that this kind of education is essential in producing well rounded learners, and even in helping them to develop that much vaunted sense of morality that your people keep talking about. Let's not go back there.
Minister, audiences in Paris, Oregon, London, New York, are being wowed by South African artists. When these artists return to theatres in their home country, they struggle to cover their costs. Please, help to build an environment in which artists can just do their jobs. Don't tell them what they should be creating.
There is that small matter of the Constitution to uphold.
Thank you, Minister, for taking the time out of your busy schedule to read this. If you would like any other reading matter that could point you in the right direction and help you carry out your public duty, please let me know, I would be happy to assist.
yours sincerely concerned,
Hungry Nation Builder.
Monday, March 1, 2010
elephant whisperer
[photos by Freya Reder]
And then in this other dream, I had discovered the ancient secret of communicating with elephants.
Oh my, it was a beautiful space to be in.
I'm busy reading Caitlin O'Connell's The Elephant's Secret Sense, which along with Silent Thunder by Katy Payne, goes into the whole thing of how elephants pick up infrasound using spongy pads in their toes. That low rumble that just sounds like the earth curdling underfoot, rumbles they can hear for kilometres.
Its a fascinating document - some stuff I didn't know, and lots that I had just kind of guessed, having spent a lot of my younger life in the presence of these enormous ghosts. But this was different.
This was me sitting with a cache of actual manuscripts: ancient, paleolithic translations of elephant speech. Oh, and I was the chosen one who was going to be able to transmit to the world the messages of these wise old beasts, and what's more, teach people how to talk to them so that we could solve this so-called 'elephant problem' once and for all. Oh so that's what I'm here for.
And I did it. I had full on conversations with a wrinkle eyed old elephant mama crone. Words of such wisdom and depth. Not words, no, just - thoughts. Bytes of knowledge, transmitted not through the brain but the heart.
It was so cool.
I can't remember a bloody thing she told me.
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