I’ve been in a very active cycle of life, as is evidenced by my lack of written communication – I’ve been too busy doing it to write about it! It’s been a wonderful time of self expression – bringing into being, in the outer world, things that deeply matter to me – both in the healing arts and the performing arts realms. And, most delightedly, experiencing the overlap and interconnectedness of the two!
In the past year or two, I’ve had many wonderful opportunities for artistic expression, growth, and just plain fun in the theatrical world. Most recently, I assistant-directed and played a role in Julio Cho’s The Language Archive.
One of its central themes is that, despite our facility with languages, ultimately we can only express what is truly in our heart. The character I played, Alta, is from a fictitious country whose language, Elloway, is described as “the language of the heart.” She and her husband, Resten, explain that when they are angry with each other, they argue in English, because their language is too sacred for this kind of angry talk. Later, Alta explains that…
“...If you say something in Elloway, you can never take it back. But say something in English, and everyone knows you don’t really mean it – say it in English, and you can always take it back.” (The laughter these lines elicited every night is a sure indicator that it struck a note of truth in most audience members!)
Each character in this well-crafted play is very well written, and has a great deal of wisdom to share. Here’s a segment from a scene in which another character, Mary, has just left her husband. She is standing near the tracks at a train station, considering throwing her ring on the tracks. At this point in the scene, however, she has become more focused on convincing an old man she’s just met, not to jump in front of the next train.
“It’s like this: It’s like you’re in a room, and you think it’s the very last room. But there’s another, even further. There’s a door. Can you see it? Can you open it?…Do you know how when you close your eyes and can see nothing – it’s only then that there are sparks of light?…Go into that sadness further and maybe then…there can be light… All I know is sometimes you can feel so sad, it begins to feel like happiness. And you can be so happy that it starts to feel like grief. You can feel so alive, it starts to feel like death. And you can feel so dead that you start to feel alive. And some people – most people – live their whole lives without touching any of these places at all.”
What touches me so deeply about this scene is this foray into the realm of what I call Divine Paradox, in which seeming opposites exist at the same time. In the consciousness level of Divine Love, all things are possible. We become large enough to embrace it all.
In this state, even the most grueling life challenges are traversable. And here’s the thing: if we have the courage to fully be with whatever we’re experiencing, the absolute guarantee is this: It. Will. Change.
Whatever we resist, we give power to. So, if we allow whatever we are feeling to move through us, remembering that we are so much more than whatever it is that we are currently experiencing, we simultaneously begin to move through it. And in so doing, we create a tremendous opportunity for healing and awakening.
You might take a moment to ask, “What in my life am I currently resisting?”
What ‘other door’ or ‘other room’ might appear for you, if you simply allowed yourself to feel deeply into (and through) what is?
This is the realm where “the language of the heart” is spoken. No translation needed.