I Ching: the creative.

In what I hope will be a new regular feature, I'd like to share with you the I Ching reading I got the other day.

For those of you who don’t know, the I Ching is the Book of Changes, an ancient system of Chinese divination that offers various subtle descriptions of situations one might encounter in life and how best to handle them.


My Mom has always been really into the I Ching, and when I was a bratty 16-year-old I would grudgingly go along with her readings. Then one time in college I borrowed her book and the reading it gave me was so eerily, exactly appropriate to my situation that it gave me pause. Since then I’ve taken it pretty seriously. And lately I’ve started adding this to my morning routine (since I’m currently unemployed I have the luxury of crafting a morning routine that isn’t ‘jump in the shower and grab a bagel on your way out the door.’)

Critics might argue that the answer is not found in the book at all, but in yourself –- and to this I say: BINGO. The book is a tool for sorting through your perceptions and getting some perspective and figuring out what to do. Something you can’t always figure out for yourself.

Anyway. All of this is to give you some context for this bit of wisdom I received the other day. I got the hexagram “the creative” which is the very first one in the book of changes. (The second one is “the receptive.”) It told me this:

The course of the creative alters and shapes beings
until each attains its true, specific nature.

RIGHT ON, I Ching. This mantra has been sticking in my head. It makes me think of the things I’ve learned through creative projects –- things that taught me about performance, sure, but more importantly made me who I am. (And of course, the I Ching isn’t talking about the creative in terms of art but in terms of the most basic life-giving principles.)

Specifically, I immediately thought about these three creative experiences in the last five years, and what they taught me:

BLUE on tour in Poland, 2004 & 2005:

• How to sing and be heard outside. How to hold attention and throw focus.

• How to push past limitations. How to keep going when you are exhausted and the situation is fucked. (Like: there isn’t enough power for lights so we’re going to have people turn their car headlights on. Or, a dog has wandered onstage and is peeing on the set. Or, the set is on fire. I could go on and on.)

• Taking the sheen off the idea that skills can be transferred to you magically upon contact with a “master”. The real training, what makes you strong and reliant, is in doing difficult things.

• How to teach when you can’t rely on language. How to adapt exercises to meet my own needs and the needs of the group.

• How to be a good host. How to make soup in 15 minutes.

Undine (2008-2010) (this makes it seem like Undine is a short-lived friend of mine) (which maybe she is):

• How to withstand pure terror. How to withstand a panic attack. How to do something when you really, truly think you can’t do it.

• How my voice works, how to make it strong without pushing too hard.

• The curative properties of BEET BLAST.

• How to make decisions. Lots of them.

• Why sometimes the best thing you can do is be brutally honest with someone about what you think, and sometimes the worst thing you can do is be “nice” and gloss over the fact that you are not in agreement.

Repeat After Me (2007-present) (now it’s like I’m writing a resume):

• The strength of impure sources, impure training: the strength of a mutt.

• How to be super physical & vocal without hurting myself. (Of course this was only learned after a prolonged period of being super physical & vocal and hurting myself).

• The thrill of doing the thing you fear the most –- the liberation that results from doing it. That’s how you become fearless.

• The liberation in getting a truly bad review. The liberation didn't come right away, of course -- first there was the jaw dropping and the stomach churning. But later there was the sick pride that comes from being loathed for your work.

In general, the thread I see running through these three experiences is:

• Working with your body & voice, with strength and purpose, without pushing too hard

• Withstanding fear, panic, exhaustion and failure, and how this makes you stronger.

• Relying on yourself and trusting your gut when it comes to learning, teaching and growing.

• Learning how to do something by first learning how NOT to do it.

And that’s pretty interesting.

THANKS, I CHING!

Work in progress

Hello friends.

I am in the thick of it. Opening our new work in progress show on Friday, which is always a peculiar mix of terror and thrill and humiliation and pride -- clearly a mix of emotions I'm drawn to though every time we hit this part of the process I question my devotion to the art form, and question my judgment and mental health and clarity in general. You've got to be a bit of a masochist to embrace showing your work when it is purposefully -- nay, DEFIANTLY -- undone. I guess this fits in with my theme of late, thwarting perfectionism, but damn is it hard. And not for everyone.

Yesterday was actually not too bad -- we were all so tired we hit the slap happy zone which was a blessing. That's the only way to handle the extreme stress of a room full people all trying to weave their separate threads into a beautiful crazy quilt at light speed in 36 hours.

If only I could enter that slap happy zone every time I reached the exhaustion point! You just never know when your sleep deprivation will lead you down a path of giggling silly dancing stupor and when it will send you crashing into furniture or crying over a burrito that is not to your liking or snapping I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING in response to someone's concern over your mishandling of an electric drill.

All imaginary examples.

Anyway: we're always writing and rewriting the show constantly up to the last minute which means we never run it fully until 3-4 days before we open (which is pretty stressful for the actors and the director but REALLY stressful for all the designers and tech crew we work with). I've experienced this vertigo countless times in the last ten years, so at least when I feel that panic I can call it what it is instead of associating it with the show itself and with doom and failure and self-doubt.

I know that the day before we run the show in full (and sometimes the day after) I always ALWAYS have a crisis of faith (double meaning acknowledged) and think that this time we're going to crash and burn. And every single time it pulls together in the days after that, and the show may vary and we may want to change 75% of it, but it will be a show. And I can remember the worst case scenarios, and recognize that this scenario is a much better one and rationally know that it's going to be fine.

Still, every time that peculiar, gaping fear hits me: that we will stumble blindly about the stage in un-unified chaos until we shuffle and mumble off the stage leaving the audience in stunned, horrified silence. And every time I console myself by saying this has never come to pass. (Unless we wanted it to).

It's never come to pass... YET.

Because that is the thing: for all my confidence based on past experiences, every time the terror is fresh, because every time could be the first time it's ever happened. Maybe THIS is the one we can't pull off!

Anyway. I could go on all day about it. But we've pulled above the clouds now, we've reached cruising speed. I think this sucker can fly. I once was blind but now I see. I believe the children are the future. You gotta know when to hold em, know when to fold em. Etc.