Prescribing Metaphor--For What Ails Our Culture

This spring I have been attending a rather large number of lectures, reading, and classes given by some diverse and entertaining storytellers and poets. It wasn't intentional on my part. Some seasons I hang around art galleries and artists. This seemed an unusually high concentration of poets and storytellers--even for me. Some came in a spiritual bent, from church or meditative groups. Others I saw through schools or the Lancaster Literary Guild. Add into that the fact that I travelled abroad this spring and heard many stories that have been passed down for hundreds of years told through tour guides. These experiences have made for a rich stew in my mind.
I have started to contemplate the importance of story in our lives, what it gives us, what our minds do with it. As a culture, so much of our story life comes through television and the movies. A former soap opera junkie (serious addiction--years of my life, gone), I am not immune to the television. I have to be careful with my time in front of it, and its competitor the computer. I wonder what all of this media is doing to my brain, the brains of my kids. Searching around the Internet, I found some articles on TV and brain development. What I found was the left-side of the brain which houses our language centers is under-stimulated. Combine that with the attention deficit problems that television causes, and we have children who are not reading or reading below grade level. We are losing our power of language, not just in reading, but in the way we orally communicate with one another. A child who is used to visual flashes and constant change of "scenery" is not going to be able to listen and absorb the nuances of language in a story. Kids also have difficulty making pictures in their mind for the stories they are told. The inability to create our own images is a poverty of imagination. Time spent in front of a television is a poverty of play. And that equals a deficit of creativity among our youth.
So what happens to a society that loses imagination and the nuances of verbal communication? I am talking about the loss of metaphor, simile, parable, and allegory. We become literal. We become fundamentalists. (So many of the world's religions hail from story-telling cultures that it is a little hard for me to figure out religious fundamentalists. What do these people do when they encounter parable? But that is another story.) The point is, that without creativity, imagination, and nuanced language, we get rid of the gray shades and need everything spelled out for us in black and white. We become a group of people who can follow only simple straight-forward directions but cannot create new directions and forward thinking.
Our society isn't going to get rid of television. We've just now started carrying them in our pockets. But we can supplement our TV habits and make our left-brain language centers happy. This is especially important for children. Make summer reading a priority. Take them to story hour at the library. Borrow some audio books--for yourself and any children you know. And here is a good one--I challenge you to read one new poem, something you have never read before and figure out what the poet is trying to say. It is better for your brain than Sodoku.

Country Poet

This weekend started off at the Lancaster Literary Guild with a poetry reading from Barbara Buckman Strasko, Lancaster's Poet Laureate. Sam Atlee also read some of his shorts stories. I ended the weekend by going to a country music concert with many artists and headlined by JoDee Messina.
Poetry and country music. Makes me want to get dressed tomorrow in a black turtleneck accessorized with a rhinestone belt.

Gentle Yoga

I was zipping around the universe trying to get working papers for my 10-year-old daughter so she could perform in dinner theater. Apparently, the school district where we reside has never seen such a beast as this form. There were calls to the state. I had to visit two schools to obtain signatures from unsuspecting school administrators. What is this for again? Then I needed to get my signature notorized in another place entirely. The notary happens to be in a little grouping of shops that includes a yoga studio,The Yoga Place. I have been eyeing this studio for years--it is the one closest to my house. Considering my kids' needs, in units of both money and time, I never signed myself up. But this time, I was frustrated by the run-around and felt the need to reward myself for the valiancy of my effort on behalf of my daughter's dream of summer stardom. This time, I saw a chunk of time between the end of school and our summer vacation that I could manage a short class. The only class that truly worked into my schedule was the Monday night Gentle Yoga class, but I was going to do it. Why else would my treasure hunt have ended at this little cluster of businesses? I would trust the flow.

I have always been physically active in some form or another. I have taken a smattering of yoga classes over a twenty year period and own quite a few yoga videos. Had my schedule allowed for the full choice of classes, I would have picked something like the aggressive yoga with the hot studio and endless sun salutations done in rapid fire succession. Or maybe I would have chosen another class that hinted at a goal--restoration or mindfulness, perhaps. This is quite funny. I have never had flexibilty or grace. I possess some strength and, thanks to my large flat feet, balance. And the idea of stillness? If ever one needed remedial yoga--it would be me. First night out--I rushed to the studio-- getting there late and having to find a place in the dark. Relax. Relax. Relax. What I was hoping would come off as a mantra was more like my inner drill seargent commanding me to do 100 pushups, but I made it through the beginning meditative stillness. When the lights came up, I saw the room I was in, and the beautiful shade of raspberry paint on the wall. It was both tranquil and enlivening at the same time. A huge stained glass artwork of lotus flowers hung illuminated at the front of the studio space. This was my kind of place. Maybe I didn't have to try so hard.

And so became my weekly June ritual. I have done three classes so far. Gentle Yoga seems made for me. Suzanne leads the class so I never feel as though I am exerting greater effort than rolling over in bed, but by the time the class is over, I am like a putty creature. Claymation Jill. My spine is a slinky. My ride home feels as though I am traveling by hover craft over a meadow instead of by minivan over potholed roads. I quite honestly feel like I've just had a full body massage and half a bottle of wine. And I sleep like a baby on Monday nights. I realize I've just exhausted the reader's tolerance for metaphor. But I don't think it is a coincidence that I started taking yoga class and am writing poetry again. Perhaps my poetic devices were trapped in the rigidity of my spine and limbs. Or maybe a purple room makes my brainwaves sing. Or maybe the lesson is that too often we try for and get discouraged by the grand gesture when it is small effort that yields big results.

Coincidence?

I started off my day watching the Oprah Soul series interview that Oprah did with Dr. Wayne Dyer where he explains coincidence as a mathematical term used to describe two angles that fit together perfectly. Oprah countered with, "There are no coincidences." She used the word in the way we tend to use it today--as in surprise happenings.

I taught a workshop yesterday on Creative Journaling for artists. It was deeply satisfying. I got to explore the art making process and connect types of journaling to each part of the process. Then--to further instill it in my own mind, I got to teach it. I left my house with a smile, telling my son I was off to work. He said, "Yeah, but it's a job you love." That wasn't to discount my work, but to reinforce it.

I stopped in a cafe for coffee before my class and had some Ethiopian blend while journaling and finishing the final chapter in the Art and Fear book I am digesting. An interesting thing happened. I put off reading the last part of the book and instead wrote two poems. It has been a long time since I wrote poetry. I don't usually share my poems. Sometimes I take bits and pieces of them and use them in my novel writing. It was wonderfully freeing. Totally emboldening. Dare I say. . .decadent? I am being reunited with my words after a trial separation, and I am finding we are compatible. Why did we think we weren't?

I went to the workshop feeling light and happy. Eight people came, which is a great group size for me. Large enough to justify my time (and gas allowance) and small enough to interact. We brainstormed about what it is to be an artist. I read from Sue Bender's book Everyday Sacred. In the group itself, I reconnected with longtime participants and met some new faces. Though I travel 25 miles to teach this class, the newbies live three miles from my house. We discussed the local school system, where to buy raw milk, and cheesemaking. I found out that my new acquaintance is the baker who makes my favorite bread.

After the class, I again felt light. I bought some herbal bug repellent in Sarah's shop. My husband loves the scent; so if I can repel bugs and attract him, I am good for all the best possibilities of a summer evening. In addition, I had just finished reading Everyday Sacred which has as a running theme the symbolism of begging bowls. Tibetan monks go out and beg with their empty bowls and they learn to be grateful for whatever comes their way. I had been looking for a new summer purse. Radiance has lots of options made by Hemp Sisters. I picked up a particular bag that was woven with colorful fibers with black & white print accents. The print has a picture of a simple bowl. If that wasn't enough, when I found out that the colorful fibers were actually recycled Indian saris, I knew it was mine--in spite of the fact that my pay for giving the workshop was going to be seriously compromised by all my expenditures. And so, with my bug repellent/husband bait and my new purse, I left the shop and headed back to the cafe for my lunch date.

I was meeting a new friend Kathy who came to the labyrinth workshop at the end of May. She is a former fabric artist who is currently taking a course called Biography and Social Art at Sunbridge College in New York. We connected on about one hundred different levels. She was finishing a book by the author of Art and Fear so we discussed the things we both discovered from the books. We are both knitters, though Kathy is more actively so. She is doing an in-depth study of artist Judy Chicago for school. Judy Chicago had a great deal of influence over me and my art when I was in college and to this day. And Kathy's daughter lives in Northampton, MA, a town I love. So when Kathy asked if we could work together--she needs to practice coaching individuals as part of her program--I immediately agreed. With my scattered art and business practices I have been feeling the need for some unifying forces and direction. Coincidence? She asked that I come up with a central question around which to center our work. (Since the meeting, I've made a huge list of questions from which I hope to whittle down to one at our first session.)

If that wasn't enough, I came home to a surprise check in the mail. I sold another piece of art--one that, frankly, I forgot was hanging in a gallery. WOO HOO! I put the check in my begging bowl purse with much gratitude.

A cap on my day, I watched the movie Becoming Jane (about Jane Austen) with my daughter. (She is a big Anne Hathaway fan, and although she is more in the realm of The Princess Diaries--for literature as well as movies--she has watched Pride and Prejudice with me in the past.) We then proceeded to spend the rest of the day curtsying and perfecting our English accents.

A day of serendipity and light.