Tues, Apr. 15
... The only difference is
Our final movement presentation was a cumulative assignment that took elements of things that we've learned over the semester, both physical and spiritual, and integrated them. Basically, we started on the floor, lying on our backs, and then went through the process and exploration that a baby goes through in learning to stand (sped up, obviously). That part was all about realizing the impetus for an action, and allowing the action to come out of that, rather than out of some sort of scripted or choreographed idea. For instance, a baby first rolls over because it looks to the side far enough, and eventually the head pulls the rest of the body over.
After we were standing, we went into three positions of woundedness that we had worked on earlier in the semester. We were supposed to physicalize three different wounds that had happened to us, and create tableaus of a representation. In the piece, we moved from one into the next, and eventually, ended up lying on our backs again, in a position of openness and brokenness, ready to start the process over again.
It was a very cool exercise, symbolic of the cycle of growth and pain that happens in life, and it was interesting to watch people's discoveries as they went through the process.
When Laurel was learning to stand, she was so focused on a spot above her, and her impetus for standing was to get closer to it. When she stood up, there was a moment when we could tell that she was really being affected by something that had happened to her, although no one knew exactly what.
After class, we were talking about it, and she said that there was something about seeing the ceiling that way that made it seem like she was seeing it for the first time, and that made her catch her breath when she saw the beams in the ceiling.
I was thinking about that, and thinking about the beams: how long they'd been there, how solid they are, how much a part of this building they are, and how they don't change, even though the building has been almost completely renovated in the past 10 years.
And then I realized that I learned to walk in this building. The school was bought from my church when we expanded and built, and this building that I go to school in now was my church for the first 10 years of my life. I spent many, many hours here, and I know that I made many of the discoveries of early childhood within the security of these walls.
There's a good probability that I learned some of that in the room that I now take all of my theatre classes in (it used to be the balcony for the sanctuary). I spend many hours there these days, and it makes me wonder what kind of discoveries I've made in that room before.
I can remember it being a huge part of my imagination, spending time running up and down the stairs, in the sound booth, in the storage rooms, pretending all kinds of things in that room. Who knew, 20 years ago, that I would be spending my post-secondary education pretending and exploring in that same room.
I wonder if the beams in the ceiling had any significance for me then.
I wonder if they were what made me pull myself up and get a little bit closer.
One year ago today: Her comment reminded me of a letter Lewis once received from the mother of a nine-year-old who was troubled because he felt he loved Aslan, Lewis�s fictional lion in The Chronicles of Narnia, more than Jesus. "Laurence can�t really love Aslan more than Jesus, even if he feels that�s what he is doing," Lewis responded. "For the things he loves Aslan for doing or saying are simply the things Jesus really did and said. So that when Laurence thinks he is loving Aslan, he is really loving Jesus: and perhaps loving Him more than he ever did before." As with Aslan, so with our spouses.
infinite || abyss
posted at 3:36 p.m.
