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Archive Number 3607 | ||
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Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 20:55:43 -0500
X-cc: storyflute@hotmail.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable thank you Bobby!!!! your "rambling" (oh so worth it!) reminded me of the extraordinary=20 work of the Roy Hart theater with the voice. I've been doing this=20 work for the last 8 years (workshops once a year, and this summer I=20 did a workshop at their center in France). the work is based on the=20 life investigations into the voice/soul/mind connection of Alfred=20 Wolfson - an Austrian Jew, who after being wounded in world war I,=20 realized that the human voice had a much larger potential than we=20 actually use. or what we call 'the beautiful voice'. (among some of=20 his experiments - he worked with soldiers that lost their vocal cords=20 and actually had them produce sounds.) he later escaped the Naztis to=20 England and there his work was later continued and expanded by his=20 student, a South African actor - Roy Hart. (if anyone wishes to learn=20 more about this check out their web site=20 http://www.roy-hart-theatre.com/) ANYWAY - this long introduction is to say - that one of the things=20 that Alfred Wolfson said was that being human is not something we're=20 born with but something we have to become. we all have both Hitler=20 and a Jew inside us, he said, the question is what do you do with it.=20 if you don't acknowledge both forces, the perpetrator and the victim=20 give them voice, it will come out in the real world either as a=20 repressed illness or real horrific violence. Roy Hart Theater work=20 offers to give voice in a creative artistic way to all the forces=20 inside us, 'bad' included. I believe that stories carry the same=20 message. they are giving voice to those forces that are in all of us.=20 we need to embrace them as the voice, the path to show us how to=20 become human. and yes, when my son was a few weeks old I had a murderous urge to=20 throw him out of the window. more than once. today, there are days=20 when I know he would like to do the same to me... peace, Noa >I think this conversation is stimulating and fascinating. Thank you all! > >I'm a little behind on the list, but I read Christopher's post last night a= nd >had to send it on to Bobby Avstreih. He hasn't been on the list for a long >time, but I pass on bits that I know he might have a passionate=20 >response to and >I know he has been thinking about restorative justice and stories. Those of >you who remember his posts know that he can respond strongly and even offen= d >some people. He invited me to censor or rewrite this, but I didn't. I know = you >all are secure enough in your own thinking and values to hear differing >opinions, or will simply dismiss and delete what you don't wish to engage. > >If you want to reply directly to Bobby, his email is >storyflute@hotmail.com > >In a separate post, I will also send another piece Bobby wrote on restorati= ve >justice. >Gail > >Bobby's reply: > >As the non-resident Ancient Greek scholar of the group, let me add some > >clarification to Christopher's touching on Oedipus and his lusty cohorts. > >Greece is a 3-season country. The "winter" is maybe a bit warmer than > >London, but just as chill, damp and dreary. Imagine living in the condition= s > >of 2,000 years ago, with no distractions all winter but tending goats and > >staring at the other members of your family for interminable hours every > >day. Want to have sex with a parent? Want to tear your teenager apart in a > >sexual frenzy, or kill your babies, or visit endless fantasies of revenge? > >The plays were produced to coincide with the return of spring and the > >outside self. It was a great community coming-out party, and the > >spring-cleaning was psychic as well as dusting blankets and pillows. > >Everyone in the audience was healthy enough to identify with the urges of > >the characters. They didn't need the famous poem by Thich Nhat Hahn "Call M= e > >By My True Names". They were not afraid to see themselves over and over > >again. Their horrors didn't frighten them. Their horrors were part of what > >made them human beings. > > >We moderns take these stories much too seriously, as we treat so much of ou= r > >precious inner world. In the original days of these plays, the most > >delicious part is that after the tragedy was presented, and each on-looker > >mourned or stared in the identifying mirror of the tragedy ("the sins of th= e > >fathers visited upon the sons for generations"), the plays were reframed as > >Satyr plays enacted by satyrs carrying 6-foot bright pink phalluses and > >nymphs with huge "goddess" buttocks. Imagine the famous confrontation > >between Oedipus and his father in the narrow pass, only instead of swords, > >this time they are knocking at each other with massive erections. And, can > >you picture how randy his mom must have acted when, sexually frustrated by > >her husbands absence, this lusty young stud, so very well-endowed, rides > >into town brandishing his scepter for all to see. > > >Pity our poor modern, sensitive society. All we have left are sneaking dirt= y > >jokes and the non-stop cursing of stand-up comics who are still at the > >"dirty word" level of 8 year old shock humor. Is this part of Christianity'= s > >curse: our loss of our sense of humor about ourselves. Can we please have > >back the dirty, nasty old gods, or at least David and Bathsheba and Solomon > >and Sheba and drunken old Noah and those lying, cheating patriarchs and som= e > >real human beings instead of the insufferable power-play of that > >control-freak, Paul? > > >As long as I'm ranting, please consider some of the Native American > >traditions. In many special stories the abuser (father, uncle, husband, > >neighbor) is NOT punished, or even named publicly. The "victim" recognizes > >that he/she has achieved a special gift, a special connection to the natura= l > >world and thus to the tribal community, because of the suffering. The > >"perpetrator" is seen as the instigator of the gift-receiving journey. > >Without the action of the "perpetrator", the "victim" would not be opened t= o > >the gift. Unlike our modern thinking, there is neither "victim" nor > >"perpetrator". The perpetrator is merely the instigator. In this reframing > >'he' already loses much of his power to hurt or terrorize. I don't know if > >French existentialism is appropriate in understanding Native American > >stories, but Satre's "Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you." > >seems to fit pretty well in my mind. Maybe the theme of this discussion > >should be "Paths to Freedom" instead. > > >Of course, the other key in looking at this from a Native American > >perspective, is that there is a special place in the community for the > >return of the one who has suffered (there is no denial of the suffering ... > >only of the concept of "victim"). Restoration of balance, restorative > >justice, provides a community place for both victim and perpetrator. Healin= g > >cannot proceed without the community context. This is also true in some of > >our present concepts of "restorative justice". > > >The more we ourselves live without a messy but integrated community of work > >and ritual and play, and the more our community is made up of friends we > >only see and touch electronically, or only on special occaisions with > >special appointments made to fit our financial schedules, the more > >"precious" and "unique" our inner worlds become, and the more powerful we > >imagine our common-as-mud images and hidden thoughts and bad fantasies. Our > >modern world of as-if intimacy is causing us to regress to the ego-centric > >world of young children, afraid of our bad thoughts because they may come > >true. > > >And, if Ancient Greece is too high-falutin' for you, and Native American to= o > >'sacred' to mess with, then consider the Thai national trickster Sri > >Thanonchai. In his opening story he neatly eviscerates and boils his baby > >brother so he will be neat and clean and quiet when his parents return from > >a day > >in the fields. And what can they say against him? After all, he was just > >following orders. > > >Any parents out there want to testify to forbidden desires to throw their > >squalling babies out the window or in the closet? Any testimonies about > >"accidents" older kids suffered on their younger siblings? I know most of > >you women out there never really laughed or cheered at John Wayne Bobbit > >jokes? But how about fantasizing about remaking "Thelma and Louise" as > >"Dirty Harry"? Am I the only person with really bad thoughts out here? > > >Victims are "good". "Innocent". Then how can you be "good" and still want t= o > >shoot a rapists balls off? If you can't at least recognize in yourself the > >power trip of the perpetrator, how can you really help the victim do > >anything but split off from the experience. I certainly wouldn't believe > >you. I'd feel you were just trying to put on a band-aid and whisper the > >wound to go away. "Just kiss it and make it better" therapy. And, anyway= , > >only the community can restore balance. If there is no place in the > >community for the wounded, then there can be no healing. That's where the > >focus "should" be. The ancient Greek "heroes" placed themselves outside > >common humanity. That is why they suffered so terribly. That is why we > >suffer. Not because bad things happen, but because we lack a container, a > >context, in which to heal. > > >I find this statement particularly strange. ">I certainly agree that it is > >hard to hear/feel/see such outcomes as moving out from the family, or even > >dying as a fitting end for a tale worth telling." > > >I am no more a general storytelling expert than a Native American or Thai > >one, but in most, if not all, of the folk tales I've read the banished > >daughter or rejected-as-worthless youngest son returns to claim the kingdom > >AFTER the old king is dead. Cordelia's return for a teary farewell > >reconcilliation is about as good as it gets. My father and I definitely had > >a very real, nurturing reconcilliation. Its just that it was the traditiona= l > >form, not modern "touchy-feely" or "with eye contact". It happened > >separately for each of us. I didn't even know about it from his side until > >he had been dead for 6 months. But that does not in any way change or > >diminish the power of the transformations for each of us. Because it fit an= d > >made sense within my family context. > > >Healing, like scars, doesn't mean "pretty". Why do some of you storytellers > >reject story tradition in search for Chicken Soup answers? The coffin that > >the Grimm brothers built to contain our passionate humanity (with all its > >violent excess ... isn't that what passion is?) is being nailed shut by can= s > >of Chicken Soup psychology. Its burying us alive. > > >Wounds heal, but scars remain. In our modern society there is no place for > >scars. Every part of our body, inside and out, can and 'must' be made over, > >with titanium and botox and nutritional suppliments and tooth whiteners and > >endless exercise and diets and sex "how-to" articles, etc etc. Meanwhile, > >our popular culture in movies, biographies and fiction are filled with the > >most inhuman characters, from Hannibal Lechter and The Godfather to books > >about being raised in immigrant desperate poverty or by crazed, alcoholic > >and terribly abusive parents. Its as if our entertainment industry is "The > >Picture of Dorian Grey", Wilde's story of a man who maintained beautiful > >youth while his secret portrait became more and more hideous. And have you > >talked to any born-again fundamentalists lately. Man, are those "good" > >people revved-up for a "worse than the Holocaust" blood-letting. They can't > >wait to be saved while the rest of us burn in our "Left-Behind" > >hell-on-earth. > >I know the bad folks out there are really bad, one-on-one. But Lord save us > >from the folks who "know" they are good. They're the ones who will destroy > >the world. > > >This sad societal schizophrenia colors all our thinking. Maybe the first > >thing we have to heal is our own connection between our good selves and ou= r > >passionate selves. Yes, indeed, Christopher, here's to healing our > >dichotomies! (or at least whacking at them with giant bright pink phalluses > >once in a while.) > > >Smiles, > >Bobby > >In a message dated 1/18/04 12:16:12 PM, christopher@MOVING-STORIES.COM writ= es: > ><< I appreciate the sense of panic as we look to find literary examples > >(if not examples from our lives) of people who respond "well" (with > >virtue?" to the harsh family stories that rain down upon them. > >Whether the stories rain down upon us in being enacted around us or > >virtually enacted as they are told to us, we hope to know "=E1 quoi > >bon?" - to what good? What is the sense of this suffering of trying > >to be faithful to family, to love ones, to those who claim us, when > >they have more pain than they know how to handle alone? > > >I have an odd alternative. > >What if we weren't trying to "win" at life? > >What if we weren't searching for examples of lemonade made out of the > >lemons - positive tasty products that prove that the dark, the > >painful, the abusive can be transformed by our creative efforts into > >something opposite - light, pleasant, correctly or well-used. What > >then? > > >I certainly agree that it is hard to hear/feel/see such outcomes as > >moving out from the family, or even dying as a fitting end for a tale > >worth telling. Aristotle wrestled mightily with that question in his > >Poetics as he could see without a doubt that his community gained > >something powerful and perhaps even necessary, VITAL (that's a > >curious word in consider stories that end in death) from > >seeing/undergoing tragedy. That empathically undergoing the fate of > >Oedipus led to catharsis - a vital movement of the soul that gave it > >paradoxically more life! Think of the Oedipus Trilogy or the > >Orestia, or the Shakespearean tragedies. Not English literature > >majors but the entire community of the polis, the general public, > >thronged to hear such tragedies told again and again. > > >I guess I speak up here to remind us that audiences haven't always > >demanded to have "postive outcomes" to justify the worth of > >undergoing difficult stories. There is something beyond the rational > >mind that I trust finds meaning and value in such stories. "Though > >lovers be lost, Love shall not" says Dylan Thomas, "And death shall > >have no dominion." > > >Christopher Maier > > >Afterthoughts: And certainly I am not suggesting that it is "better" > >- more virtuous to stay than to leave if one is feeling abused by > >certain tellings of tales. By all means leave if one must. Perhaps > >I am hoping to split the apparent dichotomy of the two choices that > >we gravitate towards seeing as the only choices: either be abused by > >the harsh stories or else make "good" use of them. > > >The leap of faith is a letting go, letting life happen, sitting in > >the fire itself. That's one time that miracles happen. And miracles > >cannot be coerced to happen! >> > > > >Gail Rosen, storyteller >410-486-3551 >721 Howard Rd. >Pikesville MD 21208 >NEW website: www.GailRosen.com >Check out the Healing Story Alliance website: www.HealingStory.org >Burnout prevention workshops for hospice: www.HealThy-Self.net > >------------------------------- >To Unsubscribe from Healingstory send the message: unsubscribe healingstory >to: listserv@maelstrom.stjohns.edu >------------------------------- Noa Baum 13 Devon Road Silver Spring, MD 20910 (301) 587-3558 cell: (703) 244-1938 http://www.noabaum.com noabaum@earthlink.net ------------------------------- To Unsubscribe from Healingstory send the message: unsubscribe healingstory to: listserv@maelstrom.stjohns.edu ------------------------------- | ||