Living Warrior

"Once there was a young warrior. Her teacher told her that she had to do battle with fear. She didnt want to do that. It seemed too aggressive; it was scary; it seemed unfriendly. But the teacher said she had to do it and gave her instructions for the battle.

The day arrived. The student warrior stood on one side, fear stood on the other. The warrior was feeling very small, and fear was looking big and wrathful. They both had their weapons. The young warrior roused herself and went toward fear, prostrated 3 times, and asked:

"May I have permission to go into battle with you?"

Fear said, "Thank you for showing me so much respect that you ask permission."

Then the young warrior said, "How can I defeat you?"

Fear replied, "My weapons are that I talk fast, and I get very close to your face. Then you get completely unnerved, and you do whatever I say. If you dont do what I tell you, I have no power. You can listen to me, and you can have respect for me. You can even be convinced by me. But if you dont do what I say, I have no power."

In that way, the student warrior learned how to defeat fear.

From "When Things Fall Apart," by Pema Chodron

Back from VaCay....

....And the question is: how do I keep a little bit of this relaxation I slinked into while away, in my everyday life here in NYC?

There is a really terrific book I'm reading again, about living the creative life called "Letters to a Young Poet." Its fantastic!  In the early 1900's, a "young poet" wrote several letters to Rainer Maria Rilke (established poet) asking him all things on his mind about writing, process, creativity, dealing with people, being open to change, and on and on......published here in this book are the responses he got from Rilke. 

One bit of advice comes to mind directly from this book as I ponder how to live with more ease and trust, while persuing my dreams: to "enjoy the questions as much as you enjoy the answers....." 

OK....?? :)

Doing a reading tomorrow night and then shooting a part in a film on Thursday night --- Also starting to submit my one person piece to festivals here and there --- oh! which by the way, I never blogged about - my first public show of this piece on July 1st went really really well! (and out of superstition, that's all I want to say about that for now....) What was most important, was that it was FUN! 

;)

One Person Piece Update

SOOOOOO ----

I'm doing a staged reading of my one person piece, "so far" - tonight! I have to say I am REALLY proud of it and am actually patting myself on the back for going after this -- I was really scared in the beginning - but now I'm excited and just having fun.

It awakened a different part of my creative life --- using muscles I'd never used before. REALLY COOL.

I'm amazingly relaxed about it....(wow! That's a new one.....)

The big lesson I learned here:

Whilst I was chipping away at it - a lot of my friends were running around, doing their own thing - booking plays/films, making their own films, etc, etc. And its very natural, while being totally happy for them and supportive, to want to run off and go make my own film, refocus on auditioning, etc, etc because I see them bearing fruit in their own creative lives. I felt at times like I was missing out on something while I was focused on writing my piece. It was hard.

But now that I am doing this reading tonight - I'm really happy that I focused on it - as difficult as it might have been to switch gears, not compare myself to others, etc. And I made a whole new set of friends throughout this process - I have so many ideas of where I want to go next with it........

What I've learned about myself, is that its terribly important that I focus on the task at hand. I'm an Aries - I want to run around doing 1000 things at once - its a blessing and a curse at times! I get distracted REALLY easily ---

Speaking of getting distracted - I gotta wrap this up and go rehearse one more time today! Wish me luck tonight!!!

Onward and Upward (and everything in between!)