Life as improvisation

Life as improvisation

Until recently, I would have said, I knew little of improvisation, a theatre training technique used to train actors, entertain and encourage creative thinking. After doing a little research I realised I knew more than I thought!

The UK and US comedy show, Whose Line is it Anyway illustrates how improvisation works. Simply, you take a prompt and on the fly, solo or in a group you improvise sketches, stories or single lines to build on the original idea. Comedy can play a big role.

I realise the writing I do works on a similar basis. I get an idea and say yes to it, then more ideas of what to say tumble one upon the other. It has been like this for so long that I have never really wondered about the magic of that.

What struck me anew, is how Life as improvisation is the most natural thing in the world.

A beautiful way to see this is in the joy of re-discovering life’s earlier pleasures. Things from childhood or young adulthood, left along the wayside until one day, an impulse to return and pick them up again, occurs, out of nowhere. There is a sweetness in that return, for we bring a new understanding to the much loved activity.

A softness descends at the memory of hours lost in wonder filled play, indoors or out; solo or in the company of friends, real or imagined. The senses quicken in anticipation of re-experiencing that magic. The form may differ but the delight is familiar.

A wonderful example of this is showing up in my life. Moths caught my attention recently. A thread (that little quickening) pulled on me and I see clearly now, I said yes to the nudge, with no idea why I was drawn nor what might come of following the trail.

So far, like a lover besotted with the beloved, I have come alive and lost myself in research, a visit to a museum, conversations with entomologists and curators, sketching, story ideas, photographs, gathering data and musing with inspiration and wonder at these extraordinary creatures. The fantastic names, tickle my love of language: Cavorting emperor, Viper’s Bugloss, Splendid Brocade, Tawny Shears.

Ideas and delight have fizzed and bubbled as I enter into a hidden world as if by special invitation 

Moths are short lived creatures. Sometimes just a week or two. Likewise this fascination may be short lived but intense. Yet already the treasure is great. With no constraints, no need to define the purpose or point of the trail, I can simply enjoy being on it.

So many strands of my life are coming alive in this exploration: organic farming, poetry, story, pattern, sensory perception, conversation, art, science, nature. And all this before venturing out to look for moths at night. There’s a delicious freedom: Life as improvisation.

Rather like baking, there are simple raw ingredients like shape, form, colour, function which have the potential to combine in our imagination into extraordinary wonder filled flights of fancy, learning, action and creating something new, imbued with the wonder we feel.

Part of the magic lies in the openness and delight in letting our imagination guide and shape our experience whether it is den building, watching bugs, climbing trees, building homes or cities from random household items, playing tag, making up songs or stories, painting, sticking, gluing or dressing up. It is striking how little our imagination needs. In fact often fewer props lead to greater imaginative leaps. As children, this comes naturally. As adults we can forget.

But when we remember, there is mystery in that magic and recognition too

Recognition of something deep within us, that wants only to embrace life whole-heartedly, delight in aliveness for its own sake. Those early joys are intimate, bespoke signposts to that deeper sense: our True Nature. We know it when we touch it. It is impersonal, vast, immediate, ordinary and deeply alive.

To return to those pleasures with deeper understanding of the power of that dimension to nourish and inspire us, is like trailing your fingers in cool water on a hot summer day. Delicious, energising and something to revel in. T.S. Eliot puts it beautifully in this extract:-

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.

—T.S. Eliot, from “Little Gidding,” Four Quartets (Gardners Books; Main edition, April 30, 2001) Originally published 1943.”

Life as improvisation, now there’s a thought! Saying YES, AND to Life. Agreeing with your heartfelt impulses and allowing your imagination to expand on them. To be in conversation and co-operation with the dynamic magic of Life.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and reflections.

P.S. This piece has been inspired by many things including beginning Rob Hopkins, From What is to What If – unleashing the power of imagination to create the future we want. Highly recommend. He is one of the founders of the Transition Town movement, now worldwide. I love how good ideas spread!

CONSULTATIONS

If you’re drawn to discovering more magic and mystery, I would love to work with you.

You can find out more here and be aware, my fees are a guide not set in stone. If you have a little thread pulling you towards being in consultation with me, follow it and together we’ll let our imaginations loose and create something extraordinary. Email me and let’s start a conversation.

Reflections on Discernment

Reflections on Discernment

Discernment is one of those less fashionable attributes. It’s not showy or pushy. It doesn’t demand the limelight and slips in quietly without an entourage. Appropriate for these times.

When the foundations of western society falter as we realise they were built on sand, it can be a disorientating time. And this is where discernment is an ally.

Discernment is an attribute we can cultivate

It’s easily overlooked. In the incessant din of opinion and counter opinion, who needs discernment when you can open any social media feed and be told what to wear, what to eat, what to do and what to think depending on your inclinations.

And this, this is something at the heart of our predicament. We have outsourced our wisdom to those who shout loudest or flatter our egos the best or reassure and soothe our fears in the most dulcet tones.

Discernment comes to our rescue, giving us pause before we jump on someone else’s train

Insecurity comes in many forms. Not knowing what to think and asking others to do that for us, is just one form. But it infantilises us.

Now more than ever, it looks to me, we are being asked to grow up. To use our powers of reflection and contemplation so we can discern where to put our attention, where and how to spend our time and money, when to act and when to pause.

In learning something new, in my case about anti-racism work, it can be tempting to jump in with the right phrases, the cool memes and a show of activism but we know when it feels off (and so do others). When it is about being seen to be or do something simply because that recognition shores up our ego or fragile sense of self, then our actions are at best hollow and at worst counter productive or damaging.

Unlearning old habits of thought can be uncomfortable at times, but discernment is our ally

Just as we know when we are tired and hungry our mood is likely to drop and in that state, our judgement gets clouded; so too, when we discern we are wanting to act from a place of insecurity, we can pause and wait for a settling that will allow an action to arise that promotes connection rather than taking us further away

Pausing, allowing ourselves to settle, allowing love to fill us, can have far greater impact than a load of social media shares done in a rush of ‘I must do something.’

Discernment is not something to learn or acquire; it’s always available when we settle and get intimate with that felt sense that tells us we’re home.

Note: Written 6 August 2020, published 18 August 2020

 

‘Everything I do is dedicated to exploring and appreciating the wonder of the human spirit. Going deeper. Beyond what we know. I do that through heartfelt conversations, sharing the 3 Principles as expressed by Sydney Banks, pointing people home and through writing, poetry, art and illustration.’ Juliet Fay – For the curious, subscribe to my list, that’s where you get to hear about upcoming gatherings and get original content direct to your inbox
 

Consumption versus creativity

Consumption versus creativity

consumption, creativity: in breath, out breath.
every day, consuming food and drink: essential to life

but not all of it

every moment creating: things, relationships, ideas, experiences.
consuming ever more information, drama, energy, fuel, food, time,
the planet’s, ours, other people’s

always wanting more

over consumption driven by desires that cannot be met
for comfort, excitement, security, power, immortality even.
short term dopamine hits to soothe over-excited systems
if all we are is a lone separate human among 7 billion others

why wouldn’t we go on a binge?

chasing connection, inner fulfilment, chasing away our demons
with every click, glug, fight and scroll we get further away
draining the life blood from ourselves, our planet, our children
weary, frightened, ready to attack, we cower, duck or dive

the frenzy of desire takes us to the brink

to go forward is to fall into the abyss, chaos, destruction
we pause, catch a different note and hear a different song
the song of creation, re-formed in every out breath
our stories swirl like bridal gowns released from moth balls

but beyond is the crucible holding each sacred act of creation
fixing your hair, taking out the trash, typing a text
reading aloud to a child, waving at the neighbour
tiny acts unnoticed, forgotten, yet weaving this web of experience

acts of love, reciprocity, generosity and service
made daily, often unremarked, acts of humanity
everyday creation, pulling the threads that bind us
when we’re already swimming in the same sea

only we forget and flounder and flail about
and create the illusion of drowning when
all we’re doing is making a wave
in the sea of belonging, the sea of love

to notice, to see, just to see, is enough
to wake up and worship at the altar of creativity
go out, with glad hearts and celebrate
the daily acts of creation that connect us

© words and artwork, image of original watercolour pencil artwork, sun & moon abstract by Juliet Fay 2020

This piece is in a new style for me, neither prose nor poetry, inspired by the writing of Bernadine Evaristo, author of Booker Prize joint winner with Girl, Woman, Other. In the book she uses no capital letters, just line breaks. I was amazed how quickly I got over the initial feeling of disruption and adjusted to it as the new normal.

Juliet Fay is a poet and Three Principles facilitator and local admin of a Buy Nothing Project group. Subscribe to her list to hear news of gatherings (virtual for now), and receive original writing and artwork direct to your inbox. Find out about being mentored by Juliet or Wellbeing Sessions

Joy: a poem an reflection

Joy: a poem an reflection

So often a fleeting state, seen as hard won or not relevant to the cut and thrust of daily life. A momentary dazzling of the senses, a peak experience, snapped for Instagram. Yet there is more to joy than meets the eye. A potent healer of self and others. A transformative, contagious state, where all that has been can be swept away in an instant as something new is revealed. How might we nourish joy in our hearts? If, as it seems to me, it is there, lurking, ready to break through the surface of our awareness at any moment, is nourishment simply relaxing into it, recognising the constricted, fearful thinking that takes us away from it?

And what of avoidance, bypassing, living in la-la land. That’s not joy. That takes as much effort, in terms of denial and wilful head in the sand blindness, as living in negativity. It just dresses itself up as positive when in fact it requires the same degree of dehumanising as its opposite, wilful cruelty.

Joy is something else. A willingness to be joyful is a good start. Knowing it brings healing is all the encouragement we could want, isn’t it? Joy in being alive, joy in the foibles and ridiculousness of ourselves and others, joy in the millions of unseen movements that make up this living, breathing planet. Joy in the fierceness of the human spirit, the resilience of the tiniest plant clinging to life on a windswept rock. Joy in being part of this unknowable, incredible whole. Joy in the journey with all its ups and downs.

What are you seeing?