invisibility – The BeZine

The Olympics have come to a close; the Paralympics follow. Saturday evening Jennie and I watched a Gimp DVD. She is planning to show it to her Expressive Therapies class, along with some material from Bill T. Jones. Its been a while since we last saw Gimp in performance so revisiting their work was a revelation.

The Paralympics is a much-needed, if under-reported competition for athletes who happen to be disabled. The Gimp Project is a collective of dancers, able-bodied and disabled. The Paralypics is a contest; Gimp is a collaboration exploring the world of disability experience. The first seeks perfection, the latter revels in the beauty of imperfection. The Paralympics pursue inclusion, abet separate and unequal; Gimp tells stories, often casting light on the processes that marginalize and exclude.

There is a remarkable invisibility surrounding these processes, although many activists, academics, and artists have sought to illumine them. It matters little whether these forces exclude persons on the basis of ethnicity, race, disability, or other difference, the effect is consistent. The systems are pervasive and largely invisible; they are also profoundly human.

The Medicine Wheel holds all of human experience, offering us a view of life as a whole. There is a place on the Wheel for everything that can be encountered, even a space for our collective fear of otherness and contagion. The Wheel reminds us that we will each encounter all that is, whether directly or through the experiences of others. Our fates are inexorably woven together; the fate of each is that of all.

As we meditate on the Wheel we are encouraged to consider that while they seem real, both safety and isolation are illusory, transitory states. The last few months I have found myself wandering the wilderness that is part of the Post Polio experience. Recent health concerns continue to bring up ancient unresolved feelings, along with worries about the future. I have been repeatedly thrown back to the fear and pain of the acute illness and post-illness recovery, and the social isolation imposed on me as a Polio. I am also reminded the effects of the virus continues to impact my life and thus the lives of those I hold dear.

I’ve been exploring the experience of Post Polio through the wisdom of the Wheel. For me, now, Post Polio lies in the North, the place of aging, teaching, and eventually, making preparations to return to the Spirit World. (The North is also the place of preparation for rebirth!) The journey is complicated as I find myself trying to make sense of my nearly lifelong disability from a place on the Wheel where it is also my task to embrace a declining body.

Part of the task is to acknowledge my fear of erasure. We live in an epoch in which Polio was eradicated; we are, for most purposes, a Post-Polio world. I was taught I had survived the virus and should get on with life, ignoring, as much as possible, the devastation to my body and psyche. Yet the path of forgetting and ignoring is fraught with difficulties; the way of assimilation or “passing” is thorny. The normative prescription offers the possibility of inclusion, yet to follow that road is to participate in a collective act of erasure, to become invisible, and thus lose Self.

Every human being comes to a place where s/he is vulnerable; each of us eventually faces the treat of erasure and the powerful emotions that accompany that threat. In a culture addicted to perfection, and dismissive of difference and need, such moments carry added fear and shame. How odd such an essentially human experience is marginalized, leaving so many to face the North filled with loneliness and dread.

As a society we increasingly relegate the task of accompanying folks on the journey through the North to the health care profession and the clergy. As a result, we have marginalized the insight and wisdom that may accompany disability, experiences of trauma, and aging. In doing so we create great suffering for the very young we profess to idolize, for we deny them context. How are they, in the face of ceaseless messages about the centrality of competition and perfection, to know they are all loveable, all sacred, beautiful, and desirable in their humanness and imperfections?

Our collective focus on perfection sells products and drives our economy, yet blinds us to the fate of our neighbors and the world. Our deeply held collective desire for safety encourages us to abandon our elders, young people, and children, threatens our very being as a species, and steals our Souls. Still, as prophesy insists, we have options. We can risk relearning the wisdom of the elders, symbolized by the Medicine Wheel, accept the complexity and terror of being human, and journey together into a Sixth World. There are, if we make it so, seats for all at the table.

– Michael Watson, Ph.D.

MICHAEL WATSON, M.A., Ph.D., LCMHC (Dreaming the World) ~ is a contributing editor to Into the Bardo, an essayist and a practitioner of the Shamanic arts, psychotherapist, educator and artist of Native American and European descent. He lives and works in Burlington, Vermont, where he teaches in undergraduate and graduate programs at Burlington College,. He was once Dean of Students there. Recently Michael has been teaching in India and Hong Kong. His experiences are documented on his blog. In childhood he had polio, an event that taught him much about challenge, struggle, isolation, and healing.

Stones, balanced with mortar-less perfection, stand on the hillside and silently watch the ferry slip through its island laden path.

THE ACT OF INVISIBILITY

AMY NORA DOYLE (SoulDipper)

Into the Bardo Contributing Writer

Yesterday, a professional musician read aloud The Prayer of St. Francis. The man wasn’t performing for the crowd. He was reading as though the prayer had been written for him.

The intonations and musicality of his voice lured me into loving the words. I questioned the opposites contained in the prayer. Are they better served verbally? Or silently?

Does an effective “channel” speak love or just show it somehow? How is it easiest to receive vibes of pardon, faith, hope, light, and joy? Is it best to transmit consolation, understanding and love with an act of invisibility?

People who personify the virtues listed in St. Francis’ prayer are rare, but Susan Boyle came to mind. Did she have years of invisibility? Did it magnify her beauty?

The prayer says, “It is in dying that we are born…” Being, instead of being seen, disciplines the ego and makes room for giving.

I wanted to know: How can I construct my own invisibility?

This question first arose in the early 1970s in London, Ontario. I joined the London Little Theater Group and was given the role of a seductive secretary in a murder mystery. I was overjoyed until I realized my character was murdered in the first minute of the first act. My only lines were repeats of phrases spoken by my lover/boss. I was taking shorthand while he dictated a letter. I didn’t even have to do a dying scene. The lights went out, a shot was fired and when the stage was lit again, weeks had passed.

That kind of invisibility was easy. The mystery revolved around my character and I didn’t have to do a thing. I sat bored and impatient backstage, waiting for the end of the performance so I could do curtain call with the rest of the cast.

Stan, a professional actor who had retired in London, was a small, quiet man with powerful stage presence. His role in the play suited him – a quiet, polite, detective who matched the cunning of a yet-to-be-famous Columbo. His role required a deftness that caused players, and certainly audiences to forget he was on stage.

“How will Stan ever be invisible on stage?” I asked the director.

“It’s one of the most challenging roles for any actor,” he said. “It’ll be especially tough for Stan because everyone likes to watch him.”

“Does that mean the other players have to do a good job of distracting the audience?”

“That’s important, but Stan can’t count on that. What if the other players don’t pull that off? The story relies on his shadowy observations and impeccably timed responses.”

During rehearsals, I popped in, did my one minute on stage and left. I didn’t have a chance to ask Stan about invisibility. He was continuously engaged with fellow cast members.

We had a packed house each night of both weekends. I wanted to watch Stan in action, but had to stay backstage. It wasn’t until the cast party that I finally had a chance to pose my question.

“Stan, apparently you mastered invisibility every night. I’d love to know how to do it. Is it the opposite of acting?”

“It’s a wonderful and artful challenge. It’s customized with each play, each cast and each setting.”

“But how do you do it?” I asked.

“I think myself into a state of not being available. I’m absolutely still. I don’t draw attention to my character in any way. I work with the timing of the other actors as I blend in with the scenery, the movements, and the mood. I imagine myself small until it’s time to step back into the spotlight – big as life.”

“So…you are turning your visibility off and on in accordance with what’s around you?”

“Yes. For me, being invisible requires more acting than being center stage. It’s draining. It is the most intense, yet rewarding, acting I have done. It’s terrifically fulfilling.”

Here I was, yesterday, listening to a professional musician invisibly read a prayer. I listened to Susan Boyle sing the St. Francis prayer with the power of coming out “big”. I remembered a gifted actor teaching the art of invisibility.

Am I any closer to knowing how to channel the virtues named as opposites in the prayer?

I’ll have to see how invisible I can be. However,I’ve learned one thing. An act of invisibility is a supreme act of giving. Self-willed or not. Both have purpose.

Can you become invisible?

♥

AMY NORA DOYLE ( souldipper) ~ has been blogging since 2010, always write-on-target with the topics she chooses to address and her not insignificant gift of story. She is appreciated as much for her insightful comments on blogs as she is for her indefatigable efforts applied consistently to the subject and spirit of the sacred. Amy is also an intuitive. Amy’s work in the ground of the sacred derives from “a life-changing trip to an incredible country, South Africa, the longing in my soul to release concepts about the magnificence of ordinary life has blown the typical writing blocks, corks and stoppers.” The inspired and inspiring Amy lives with her cat in a house on an island in Canada. Be sure to stop and visit her on your trips around the blogospher.