For a long time (I can now say decades) I have been exploring rituals, many kinds. It is one reason that I became a clown, which led me to study healing arts, which drew me to become a minister, which called me to form a deeper commitment to the arts.
I was writing an ensemble piece a while back, “At Thebes.” I traveled deep into our mythic history. This piece took me to the world of Oedipus and Jocasta. If you don’t know who they were, read the play, “Oedipus Rex.”
As I poured over literature and scholarly papers, I was struck by what a slippery slope is history. Like many plays, this story was based on a myth, a story that may or may not have happened, at least not with the details that got passed down and embellished by the storytellers. In some accounts Jocasta did not die, Oedipus did, he was exiled, he was not…etc. As I filled my notebook with these contradictory facts, the themes of my play came out of the smoke and mirrors.
The storyteller is the story.
Those who control the stories, control our ‘reality.’
The third major theme is intimately related to my larger purpose and it has to do with transforming the nature of the feminine in our lifetime. In Greek mythology, there is a hero. Let it suffice to say, this individual is a man.
Basically, I believe myself to be as valuable and heroic as all beings. Myths are the memes of our social agreements: our cultural ‘DNA.’ (Meme: a cultural item transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes) Jocasta is the heroine in my retelling of the myth. The third theme, of this piece
We all must face the call of our destiny.
Of course, there are twists and turns along the way-
It is a good time to create new myths and reclaim old ones. I think, on some level, most of us are feeling this, or some form of psychic indigestion. In the past weeks I have released myself from old ideas about artists being freaks or needing to suffer. This is why I am making a commitment to share some of my creative process to you, my friends and family.