I am learning to love, learning to say yes to love even if it hurts. It’s a lifelong learning of course, and those of us willing to learn to love fully must also be willing to experience much heartbreak and death. Its been a long hard winter and spring for me – as some of you know – and, though convinced as I was that it was the end, love eventually came back – like a boomerang. Love came back in the in the form of a human being – a man, and forced me to work at telling a more Whole Story. Not just my side, but the other’s side, and the larger archetypal stories. This play – Flowers Falling – has everything to do with women and men – specifically how hard it is for us as women to trust men, and how hard it is for two people to love each other in the context of patriarchy – of hundreds, thousands of years of conditioning – of being taught who our enemy is. I believe that the origin of all war, all domination, exploitation and separation of any kind – finds its origin in patriarchy, in the split between genders and the false hierarchy constructed between them. It often feels almost impossible to me in partnership to “meet in the middle” as a man and woman. How can two his/er-stories so long-estranged from each other once again speak a common language – find coherence, resonance, peace? How do you make love with your enemy? I originally began writing this play from the place of my own heart-broken-ness, and over the months it remained a question: what IS this all about?! In the last couple weeks, the play has taken shape, has morphed, has surprised me and my own ignorance – into becoming a kind of elegy of hope for love and peace in our world. Hope – I don’t use that word lightly I mean hope in the deepest and most profound dreams of my and our own souls – the longing for love, for peace, for remembrance, for joy. The longing to be fully human again. The longing for an end to the seemingly eternal conflicts, wars, and displacements. The longing to see in the other – whether man or woman or whoever – the beloved, and not the enemy. What began in winter with death, now blossoms in summer as a radical offering of myself. An offering that each day deepens and finds more truth in the words and gestures I’ve chosen to speak. Words and gestures which I was not even ready to bring forth on opening night. Words which must be spoken though – both for my own healing, and because there’s so much more at stake. Because if I can’t make peace in my inner world, or with my beloved, how can there be peace in our larger world – between communities, nations, women and men? “How can I expect you – America – to make peace with the world, when – just like us – all you’ve ever known since your inception was war?”
I’m reminded again of that beautiful song that sings: “I ain’t gonna study war no more.”
Instead, we study peace, we study love and compassion. But what does that mean really? After all, we don’t get to peace through more separation. We create peace by seeing the other as a wounded lover, child, being – as wounded and estranged as we ourselves are. “Love and Compassion” is radical revolution, and its not always soft. Its surely ruthless. Both in this play and in in all of life, flowers are to me the most heroic symbol of love and compassion – the union of both/and. I am learning give up my weapons, my armaments. This play teaches me everyday. This play lives inside me. In that same way, Love teaches me everyday. Love is that benevolent but ruthless force that wants to break me open into being fully human. Compassion is what allows it all to happen.
For two more nights (tonight Monday, and now Tuesday as well) I’m offering up my inner world for friends and strangers to come watch me be a fool for love, be radically vulnerable, be present with my own wounds and ignorance, and commit to my own longing. I invite you to come not only to watch, but to participate – to receive and commit to the same for yourself – for your life, for our shared world, for all the war that’s happening now and that’s been happening. Like summer strawberries, its only alive for a short time.
7pm Sheffield Covered Bridge
photo by Krysia Kurzyca
I’m reminded again of that beautiful song that sings: “I ain’t gonna study war no more.”
Instead, we study peace, we study love and compassion. But what does that mean really? After all, we don’t get to peace through more separation. We create peace by seeing the other as a wounded lover, child, being – as wounded and estranged as we ourselves are. “Love and Compassion” is radical revolution, and its not always soft. Its surely ruthless. Both in this play and in in all of life, flowers are to me the most heroic symbol of love and compassion – the union of both/and. I am learning give up my weapons, my armaments. This play teaches me everyday. This play lives inside me. In that same way, Love teaches me everyday. Love is that benevolent but ruthless force that wants to break me open into being fully human. Compassion is what allows it all to happen.
For two more nights (tonight Monday, and now Tuesday as well) I’m offering up my inner world for friends and strangers to come watch me be a fool for love, be radically vulnerable, be present with my own wounds and ignorance, and commit to my own longing. I invite you to come not only to watch, but to participate – to receive and commit to the same for yourself – for your life, for our shared world, for all the war that’s happening now and that’s been happening. Like summer strawberries, its only alive for a short time.
7pm Sheffield Covered Bridge
photo by Krysia Kurzyca