The pain of the situation. Or the fact that the birthing being is not the head of her society at the moment.
The fact that the birthing is a mechanical job a LABOR requirment meant only for one type of being.
A choice but only for HER.
HE has NO Choice. He has no choice if HE births a baby. He will never ever ever birth a baby unless he becomes a SHE and perhaps then…magic and science will allow this new being to birth.
But till that time the time we have now is that
The Birthing Labor is a third class citizen. Below the machine and the men that need not stop in their track when A child is born. We have warped the world by asking men to become mothering.
As my Rabbi once warned
It is always CHRISTMAS VACATION bc if they change it to anything less polarizing you will come to think you are part of the majority.
And so by lassoing the men to our bedside we have aligned with them and not VISA VERSA…we are the men..now too…birthing and not birthing.
We sexualize ourselves
We charge ourselves through that sexualization
We fear not being sexually valid
And we file suit when we arrive there
on either side
Yet that is when I suppose and have become viscerally aware. That is truly when women are free.
Free to NOT be men. Free to not be in LABOR…Free to NOT be a birthing being…
It is a fascinating play we have written OURSELVES into.
The hero who becomes the villian to become the hero of WHAT.
What have we actually freed ourselves from?
I am finding that earth requires responsibilities. But too many taxes the system and shuts our purpose down.
This epidemic has re-quited us. Peeled away the bullshit. Re-set the goal lines and we are now squinting to see what that new goal exactly is.
Is it anything…at all
Have we denounced goals yet?
Have we realized that our conversation is out…not right our left.
Last sat a freind came over and yada yada yada we ended up going to my studio and doing a piece. She was able to relax with a little CBD oil and her work was intense and honest.
This week I happened to brng a few people to the room and she was able to play with Dana and even Philip. The class was really wonderful. A great warm up and a great release.
We ended the class doing a movement that was inspired by Philip that happened to look like a peace I was working on in my room.
I also have been playing with video and showed Philip the idea I had for the video. I like making film movie clips..days bleed into each other
Mason will go back to school this week…he is happy about it. Jaecon will remain online..he is also happy about that too.
I have been liking being part of the brainstorming aspect of things.
I am thinking of doing an event on the 16th but it stresses me more that it should…I think I will just wake up early on the 16th and do a piece in the water and film it. SUNRISE…
If it happens through divine inspiration I will let it but all day today I was sad. I took CBD finally.. but the fact is that a full moon class is amazing IF you can handled the energy transmutation that you get as an after affect.
This entire week I have been feeling super insecure. I have felt like I am walking away from parts of me and that I am sad to see her go for now. I wonder who I will be if I don’t obsess about a number on the scale, WHY why > do I worry about that? So i found a journal today that talked about October 16th circa 1997 ish and about being at an apartment that was 125 ne 4th street. The event I wanted to do was/is on 125th and October 16th is the new moon and I feel that will be a much better time to think about this vibe I want to offer up.
i felt class went amazing and the brainstorming session also that all happened in THE CREATIVE SHELTER on OCtober 3rd
The day I was married – the day I was engaged – Early October to me is always a VERY powerful time and the beginning of FEB is again…a time that seems to give GREAT gifts. Shark Tank, DIgital Risk…
My book is finished. My cover art my back cover my graphs my book. It was read by a freind who decided to take the class after. After I publish I think we will start to get the SEO all up and running and I will be FOUND. She is now texting me about a grant for working with women being released from prisons.
I went to the beach the other day. I may go tomorrow. in the morning.. it was yom kippor. I am not interested in doing weights on my legs…I am do feel as my mother said..that I gain weight in my legs..i saw that in a journal and i think she said it to me in my 20 and still I am like wow…what is the weight on the scale.
I don’t want to weight- weight for steve weight for me be a weight a number a scale..I want to be the scale not a person on the scale…I am the one that qualifies the worth of my self..my body..
I have released the male gaze and took it to me but even in me I have been tortured with perfection never to be achieved and so I again say goodbye..
I yearn for a time without scales…no weight to be won. A time without numbers that qualify one. I am so understanding that an amount is a weight and a weight is a thing that you attach to escape.
If I chose to undue it..not care what it said. I would also release myself from the connection deep in my head that yearn me to wonder what more do I need when the truth is that I am as free as free as can be.
it is hard and it usually starts with frustration, That is the feeling I can often associate to me about to say goodbye. I am annoyed or bothered on a regular basis about something and that is how I know it is phasing out of the future universe I am creating.
I have found that helping others in my personal life…supporting them in any way…is starting to annoy me. I mean trying to be a healer to my friends…it bothers me and it is impossible.
I can not heal a friend. I can only be their friend but I place myself so close and open myself so wide that the instinct to help and heal overtakes me…
As a friend of mine or anyone in my current path I would be so annoyed with me.
I have found that the reason for this helicopter healing …is that I don’t have a pure outlet for this pure part of me. I have hidden it in fitness and in acting and have not for some time or anytime given it a pure platform.
I am about to do that and in order to do that I will phase out what is blurring my lines. I will walk away from HELPING freinds and others and just stand by them and be open but not engaged.
I can’t force a person to act kindly to themselves or me…but I can force myself to treat my space that way and my time and my passion and my talents.
I yearn more for people to be well than for me to be seen or heard…but in order for that to happen I need to use the least amount of energy with the most amount of affect and that in truth in my class.
A Shelter where wellness, creativity, healing, and kind performance exist, Where stories end and dreams begin.
I transmute that frustration…and it is frustration… I am not a monk nor do I want to be. And, from what I have heard, Monks can also be very intense…warriors…all that pent up energy….-
I am so proud of myself…
Yes
I want to redirect –
Yes
I want to shake people and say wake up-
Yes
I want to turn the lights on…but…
What will that prove. That I can tell people something…Better to love and hold to my practice. Better to breath and dance and transmute that frustration into rocket fuel for finding a new piece of furniture my humble home so desperately needs.
Clean energy is NOT made from CLean energy…Clean energy is sometimes and very often made from 💩- but to insure the stench is gone it must also be transmuted….redirected….before it is sent back out to the world for fuel…Too often we skip this step.
and yes, even after it is cleaned and sent out and used to create brilliantly intensifying light, Yes, eventually that energy will yield 💩 again but perhaps create some LOVe in the inbetween.
WIthout the purification process…it is just 💩 to 💩 in my humble opinion
I hear a man on a piano last night…through a glass door. Third sighting through a glass door this week.
First was a meditating smiling man with eye open cross legged at his front door. Surrounded by hand made wooden signs painted in bright colors that read. Be 😀
The next was of a yoga studio owner in her studio. She was sitting against the wall head down. Her studio was partially undone. Years of work, patiently awaiting a road being redone out front and then sold out classes, overbooked on lobby only, and then…and then 2020…undoing it all. Nothing to do. An empty studio she has to say goodbye to. Helpless. She sat on the wall in her goodbyes- or perhaps it was what I felt for her….from her…I was driving by…it was a glimpse
and then last night as I walked the neighborhood with my dog and I hear the faint sound of a piano..music. I turn off my book on tape to witness a single father at a piano playing love songs.
A Matchmaker is patient…leading someone to their heart home is kind and torturous- ah a Sherpa….but the torture is not of pain…it is of anticipation…it is of inhales … not exhales….as you walk is as you are is how you move is how you create and from there…we find a pace, a path, a slow and turtle envied approach to life.
Yesterday morning I said something to Steve, my hubby, that rubbed him the wrong way. I was too motherly, too concerned, too critical too me…basically. I tried to text him and sort it out but in the end the more I said my peace the more annoyed we both got.
When he came home I said something else about something else and he barked at me again,….I was insulting him again. I was in one of those NO win situation. He was in a mood or I was and there was nothing to be done. I have said out loud many times that. I am so sick of us arguing over nothing. Nothing that is going to change.
I said ” I am just ging to stop talking.” Steve laughed, “you wouldn’t make it an hour.” And with that, I just shut up. I didn’t do it from anger, like the silent treatment. I did it from the monk standpoint. From taking a vow of silence. I just closed my mouth.
It started at 4:40pm in the afternoon and at first I could hear all the words trying to escape out my mouth. Tyrign to push my lips open. Struggling to be heard. And then I felt them resting on my tongue kind of softly mumbing themselves and then I heard nothing – they must have fallen asleep. …my mind went silient.
I was with my family eating dinner watching TV engaging but not saying anything…just MONKING OUT
I thought of not speaking verbally had NEVER ever crossed my mind. IT was a revalation!
I was in pure observation from love mode. I wasn’t even annoyed at my hubby. all that irritability of him barking at me just left.
Before he went to bed he said..”.I never thought I would say this but I prefer when you talk. OH, and I am sorry I was so moody today.”
Being silent will be my new FAST. So often we stop eating but what if we all just needed to STOP SPEAKING.
I highly suggest this. I will definitely be adding it into my routine….not sure how or when but the more I don’t have to talk…the more relaxed I am..
A part of Massachusetts that my parents have been coming to for 20 years. I love it here. There is a huge artistic community and days can be filled with creative observation.
But this summer of 2020 is more of an empty vessel for creativity. Nothing to go see or hear or watch.
Behind my Mother’s back porch, a home is being built. A saltbox home in black with a black tin roof and huge pane windows. A simple clean home being, with ladders and construction items finishing it up. I began to observe it as I would any other creative production the Berkshires offers, but this time I engaged.
I started to take photos of the process. The process of building a home
ladderLadders and storageHome in Construction
I was turned on creatively by this building – clean lines- nothing and everything- open and vulnerable.
I get this house. I am this house. And I began to move with it and even venture into the empty pool.
trespassing was not on my mind.
My mind was filled with swarming butterflies.
I have learned that I love architecture.
I love it…
vacentopen
I spent a week in this love affair.
Then I ran off to the basement of my Mother’s home. I found my movement class again and started recording pieces.
It had been months since I was able to move. My creative juices were desolate, dry and scorched.
My movement became me and I took my practice to the backyard and began to work out there.
I worked with a red lawn chair. a yellow Hammock and then …this tree.
I have looked this tree everyday but I had never truly seen it. It was planted 13 and a half years ago to mark honor of the birth of my youngest son, Mason.
It is, as I have learned, a loving, kind, open and playful tree. Just like Mason. I thought I’d just say hi but that hello has lasted several days
women in tree-changing her POV
Moving through a tree with sensual exploration.
inside
This tree it nature – the creator of all – mother earth – and I am her child learning to navigate her beauty and in that..owning my own.
I work with memories. New ones, old ones, false ones and forced ones.
As an actor I have come to understand the power of believing a thought.
if something “isn’t working” during rehearsal…it is usually traced back to a belief system that the actor has. Their belief is then tweaked until the actor gives the director the reaction they are looking for. ( pleaser)
I was recently in rehearsal for a HOT and CURRENT and RElATIVE play. I also believed it was a funny play and that I would enjoy the work. I went in with both feet.
As we began rehearsal via zoom and a I started working in the role…researching the role..I came to see that the funny part was for the audience…the role was much darker. I proceeded with caution.
I began brush shoulders with my character, but didn’t want to fully commit to her thought process. I know myself. I get stuck in character easily. I knew that as soon as I sat down with her belief system, my own personal belief system would be adjusted. We I had two months till the play even officially opened. I was cautious because in that that time I would be traveling with my family and I didn’t want this role one my family vacation and not me. THis has happened to me in the past and it wasn’t something i wanted to experience again.
After the director kept saying
“i see the role and then I don’t …you go in and out…”
I informed him of my decision to move slowly and take my time becomign the role. I told him my process, my weakness and why I needed to go in and out during the three hour rehearsals.
For him to speak to me as Susie when we were doing notes in between runs and not as the ROLE.
I said..”when we are in real rehearsal, a week prior to opening, she will be here.”
I felt we were in a good place and I trusted him and hoped he woudl trust me.
But, then he started doing the classic and very effective AS IF techniques..
this is where a director asks you to relate to the story from a aspect of your own story. As if STEVE your husband was the one dying…etc etc. It happens innocently but it is so effective tha tis hard for anyone to resist. Memory is easily manipulated when you believe you are in a trusting space.
I HAVE OFTEN SPOKEN TO MY STUDENT OF THIS.
Do not let someone destroy your healed stories.
Walk into a smokey bar you will get second hand smoke…it is hard to avoid if it is happening..
Do not allow directors to use family dynamics to activate your perspective of pain in order to relate to the character and then project that to the audience. Your pain in limited at best and vengeful and not conscious enough to artfully navigate. Image and be inspired by another’s pain..in order to empathise and create colors and depth…You are not the deepest well of emotions. Your imagination is. Trust it.”
That would be picking at a wound that has healed and has a scar..it is demonstrative to your core sense of self/family and hurtful to you as an artist.
Actors do not need to feed off their own personal pain in order to act
Rehearsal then became in person and eventually was in MY SPACE. That is where the very talented director began to associate my life and my characters. All of a sudden the scabs that were healing begin to be picked at. My healed family relationship I worked years on re-remembering for a kinder brighter present began to quickly unravel and to warp.
Memory is a game and it is easy to remember pain..pain is the easiest emotion to access. Especially of a person one you devoted much time in pertetruatin. It is essentially a HABIT
It was a huge lesson for me to experience…playing the most antithesis person I could. get my head around her story and then having the amazing experience of being in a room with a classic director that uses emotional recall.
I also felt it is almost impossible for a director to trust an actor will get there if they have never worked with them before and this was also part of it.
I tried to express the concept of trust but TRUST in elf is really the important part of this. I watched myself resist his technique. I knew so well but due to my familiarity with it…part of me secumbered. I wanted to please him after all and soon enough my anger for my past perpetuated family stories opened up
I have since had to let go of this role…in order to preserve both my perspective of my family and my respect for my own process of creating character. How an actor builds their story is i-personal. How they get needs to be visceral chosen and understood my the actor in order for them to get THEMSELVES out.
It is like a consciousness hypnosis we do to ourselves. we get in then we can get out…
If you are being told how to remember something…you can early loose your hold on your own version of the story.
This technique and all the issues it has is proved in the work of memory recall and even in police intvetigate. Being in a room long enough with someone who wants you believe something will force you to believe it. Especially if you feel you are safe, that they believe you…that they are not forcing their will on you.
However..most of us are always manipulating people. We are doing it to each other all the time. We believe that if you believe what I believe they we are seen and heard…connected..we exist…
( think first dates)
Memory is able to be manipulated.
So if you want a JOYFUL life…re-remember your past…recreate a loving perspective of your childhood. Search and find the LIGHT..WHY?
WHY NOT?
I don’t think we can ever truly be content with our present …unless we are content with the past.
This is NOT about finding the pain and perpetuating it…vilifying people….holding them accountable..
It is more about challenging yourself to see the light, changing your perspective on your present state in order to SURF in joy, and then grab that RAY of sunshine and view your past through it.
SO- I believe we are free to change who we are by changing what we have been told, sold and belief about our past. This works both ways, often flipping back and forth from pain to peace…Eventually one must win..
Lets choose peace
Therapist need us to remain in pain in order to sustain their business..
I am challenging you to rewrite a past story…
1)own your own ability to perpetrate other people..even and especially by your negative thoughts.
2) Choose joy
3) Release those that have perpetrated you from your negative hold by asking them to forgive you for holding them in a negative role for all these years…limiting their ability to heal.
Ho’oponopono Prayer
X ( name of the person you are holding as villian)
Please forgive me
I am sorry
I love you
Thank you
We are who we are because of the way we have formulated the story.
Science and research has proven that our memory is scattered at best.
Pain, real or imagined, is held in the body
Manipulate yourself to be joyful..release the pain for your own well being.
why not?
WHY THE FUCK NOT.
childhood bliss
THrough my SURF process we learn to trust and channel a foreign version of pain , one that will not hit up right against our recently healed stories and then UNHEAL them.
Being able to open your mind up to a conversation that is not yours is a risk. Once you’re open, you become vulnerable, able to be seduced into another way of thinking. You might find yourself doing and believing in things that go against who you are at your core. Following the shadow…. I like to say…instead of the light.
Shadow is easy to feel and thus follow. We like to feel things….be inspired…have that intensity…. but often that is a lure…a hook….
How do you really know KNOW if you are following a shadow?
To me, dance is my litmus test. It I don’t feel like I can move…then it is a BIG SIGN. If I can’t move to songs that used to bring me joy, songs in the key of love aka C, then I am most likely following a shadow…stuck in a character.
HOWEVER…
if I just can’t move.. to ANYTHING…and I don;t feel inspired by any song in any key, then I am possibly stuck in LIMBO… Two worlds fighting over me.
In my SURF process I am both in my story and in my future Self…at the same time.
To end the jammed feeling, I have to commit to a decision…one side or the other or I will start to get angry or emotional or irritated…I can be at a place of CD for a couple of weeks at the most……toying with the two versions of the stories. I use my imagination and let myself feel each version in my body. I ask myself…if I do that…what will I feel like?
Choosing one will feel like light and joyful…but then I question that feeling being right by wondering if that being chicken…is that me not challenging myself? Me not wanting to go THERE,,…and so I return to LIMBO and weigh my options again.
If I choose the other choice… I recognize the lack of joy in it. I see myself, in this situation, doing the play and I see it going well and I see my own heart being black…It is not fulfilling my soul…just my EGO. Just like Her…my character
At a time where the idea of serving and helping is more than needed, why would I not focus on that? As a person who feels called to help, why would I not be in that world right now?
That is interesting to me and I go back to LIMBO and sit a little. I Look for words to express my feelings a little… speak softly to confidents my “team”
Then I start to cry from the release of ONE of the choices…
The one that is actually holding me back…and I move toward the joy knowing how easily I could have and was being seduced by ego…empty gains that don’t fulfill me anymore. YET…still can seduce me.
I went into this with ROLE with a salivating tongue…that is the always a bad sign. How tricky seduction is…even when you know it is bad for you…. you sometimes have to go all the way in to unhook yourself from it.
I am undueing myself go from role. I hope it frees me to follow my own lightness.
Being able to open your mind up to a conversation that is not yours is a
risk. Once you’re open, you become vulnerable, able to be seduced into another
way of thinking. You might find yourself doing and believing in things that go
against who you are at your core. Following the shadow…. I like to say…instead
of the light.
Shadow is easy to feel and thus follow. We like to feel things….be
inspired…have that intensity…. but often that is a lure…a hook…. and
depending on how strong that shadow is to you at the time… how you are able
to battle it will be the determining factor. But how do you really know KNOW if
you are following a shadow?
To me, dance is my litmus test. It I don’t feel like I can move…then it is
a BIG SIGN. If I can’t move to songs that used to bring me joy, songs in the key
of love aka C, then I am most likely following a shadow…stuck in a character.
HOWEVER… if I just can’t move to ANYTHING…any song in any key, then I am
stuck in LIMBO… Two worlds fighting over me.
To end the jammed feeling, I have to commit to a decision…one side or the
other or I will start to get angry or emotional or irritated…I can be at a
place of CD for a couple of weeks at the most……toying with the two versions
of the stories. I use my imagination and let myself feel each version in my
body. I ask myself…if I do that…what will I feel like?
Choosing one will feel like light and joyful…but then I question that
feeling being right by wondering if that being chicken…is that me not challenging
myself? Me not wanting to go THERE,,…and so I return to LIMBO and weigh my
options again.
If I choose the other choice… I recognize the lack of joy in it. I see
myself, in this situation, doing the play and I see it going well and I see my
own heart being black…It is not fulfilling my soul…just my EGO. Just like
Her…my character
At a time where the idea of serving and helping is more than needed, why
would I not focus on that? As a person who feels called to help, why would I
not be in that world right now?
That is interesting to me and I go back to LIMBO and sit a little. I Look
for words to express my feelings a little… speak softly to confidents my “team”
Then I start to cry from the release of ONE of the choices…
The one that is actually holding me back…and I move toward the joy knowing
how easily I could have and was being seduced by ego…empty gains that don’t
fulfill me anymore. YET…still can seduce me.
I went into this with ROLE with a salivating tongue…that is the always a
bad sign. How tricky seduction is…even when you know it is bad for you….
you sometimes have to go all the way in to unhook yourself from it.
I am undueing myself go from role. I hope it frees me to follow my own
lightness.
Yes, I have figured out how to transmute energy in the micro second and although I often want to scream and yell like I used to…I smile and breath and take that energy and allow it to burn off more of my own ego.
My ego that thinks I know the right way about anything that is important to others. I only need to know what is right for me…the rest is NONE of my business. Thinking this way… is very detaching…but having come from the savior mentality where what I say matters and what you say equally affects me..
This version of….I have NO right to tell you how to feel or act …is actually much kinder…NO ONE IN AMERICA wants to be told how to be…
I have made peace with people who before I would avoid…becasue in the end…how someone lives or believes or eats or acts…is not my business…
I honor all people and all thoughts…I act as best as I can and I do what I feel is my DUTY …through my art.
I do not hate you for believing differently – i don’t want to waste my energy worrying about that…I believe you have your reasons – just like I do- I believe we are all different and have a choice to make about what we talk about, who we hang out with and how we make out points.
Wishing you love and light and softness….especially when the easier thing might be to do the opposite…
Transmutation of energy is a skill—- and yes I have changed…the way I handle my energy.
Working with a director that asks me to use my own personal past pains for a character is something I have often advised my students NOT to do. However, being in the situation myself it is not that easy to NOT do it.
The director wants me to associate myself with the character as much as possible. In the past I would have run from this but as I am working on my process where the whole point of is to know how to get out I have to do it.
Easy to get out of a character your don’t align with….but trickier to do it with one that bleeds into your own. From the start, willingly…not by chance…but by choice…this is something I have not wanted to do again. Claiming this work is dangerous…but if I have healed my stories…it shouldn’t be…it should be skillful and clear…the path in and most importantly the path OUT.
My SURF process is to both allow yourself to go into and then get out of a character, even if that character is your PAST self. IF- my past pains are healed…I know they are not current. I know that in my heart. I should and will be fine…THIS IS THAT TEST
I have been miserable for days. I have even thought to let go of the play. Walk away. Having been in rehearsal for several weeks. I was thinking NO. THis is not good for my soul. Look how sad I am….understanding her.
And then I thought of a MASTER dance class I was in and at the end when the entire class was putting the dance together…the last five minutes of the entire 2 hour class. I sat down. I bowed out. I was chicken and the teacher pointed it out to the whole group by celebrating those that didn’t sit. Those that dared to follow through till the end.
It was a subtle comment he made but it was pointed and it was felt. An arrow hit the mark. NOTE TO SELF… Dancing with a master company is ballsy- enough I was definitely taking the easy way less embarrassing way out by sitting down.
And so the idea of NOT doing this play because it is going to KICK MY ASS. it is going to show all my cards, it is dangerous. Hell…during rehearsal I was in a room with a guy who tested positive for COVID…this shit is SCARY…I want to run…I am sad and a mess and the idea that I am understanding TRUMP and MELANIA..is even MORE scary.
The idea that I am having conversations with my family about politics and I don’t have a side…the fact that MY opinion on all of this..even the book I spent the past 8 years writing is all being challenged…SCARES the hell out of me.
If I don;t do this show…A direct challenge to my work…it is like NOT wanting a deal on SHark Tank…backing out in a way.
I can see the pattern…get right to the finish line and stop to tie my shoe…looks legit but it is totally NOT FOLLOWING THROUGH.. totally a chicken move
I am not going to back down or back into this…I am going to go full speed ahead….
I know that my relationships with my family are healed…I am living proof here in their home…I know I am aware of where I am able to remember the past and where I can let it go.
I can totally tap into my pain…and then with very clear and defined music and method…get myself out. THAT IS WHAT ACTORS DO….
I am able to do this…or I will be..
Something I am implementing is that I want people to call me by my name. Hearing the name SUSIE is very important for me…it reminds me of who I am ..
