MUSE RETURN
These are my lab notes from a Paratheatre LAB done in Berkeley California from Dec, 2010 to Feb, 2011. It was a veteran group of paratheatrical researchers and met 2 sessions a week for 8 weeks. The theme of the LAB was the Archetype of the Muse. This was our second LAB focused on the Muse as a group, thus 'muse return'. These notes were taken when I arrived home from each session. The first two sessions are missing notes. These notes may not make much sense until you've had some experience in the paratheatrical medium.
LAB 3: Communication: Mystery, Creativity, Fact
This was a very difficult lab session. I’m not sure if I’m entirely connected or present to what is happening in the work right now.
I started with a foundation source of ‘mystery’ which released a lot of energy as my body gave shape to many unknown and unrecognizable movement patterns. The foundation source later returned to ‘communication’, which was what I had planned to work with as I came into the lab session.
My personal trinity was known, creativity, unknown. Unknown was very similar to mystery.
Mystery: feminine hair flipping, giving birth, holding a child of my own in my arms, upper back toning
Embodied Voice Work: Starting with the Tone of a Source, then finding movement from that.
Communication as a source led to the following sensations/experiences… having body of ears, communication includes Big Listening, not just articulation and speech. Also, communication involves body talking, not word talking; taking with action of the full body. Communication was about ‘send-receive’, not just sending signals. Communication manifested as movement of energy and information; as movement and ripples of impact and effect at its essence. Movements went left to right, up and down, and in all directions. Movement is communication. Movement is communion; affecting and being affected. Sending and receiving ‘energy and information’ is communication and is relational altogether. Communication is not just about between humans; it is all things communicating to all things.
He , Ha, Ho Jog of communication. Like a ladder from top to bottom along with movements of flopping over.
Entered muse with my back. I squished my body in half so only my upper back could tone. Also, the communication of left to right in my body led me to think of tensegrity movements and how I prefer to find stuff organically in paratheatre to the lame process of learning tensegrity movements from some book or class.
- James
LAB 4 0f 16: Earth, Action, & Activity
We began the session with a rare talking circle about the nature of a true source and how to choose them for foundation and trinity work.
I decided to keep it simple and used Earth as a foundation. This led to deep sensations of the mass beneath my feet all night; as well as energy that rose up through my feet and spine, culminating in a vision in the muse realm of the caduceus within my body/spine… the root of the two serpents began deep in the earth and the two snakes heads met in my head, at the eyes, kissing just between the two eyes.
Trinity of action/transition/activity led to many revelations about what constituted either pole for me and how I would travel (what kind of sequence would get me) from one to the other. Action felt primarily as the heavy lifting and willingness to work hard that seems the essence of ‘earth’ action. Activity always seemed some sort of avoidance or distraction at first.
Finding sustaining care in ‘activity’ was a challenge: at first it was about what I get so obsessed with or hung up on in the moments of compulsive activity devoid of true action. Then it became a kind of release or relaxation; it had the color of frivolity that I often disregard as useless but actually seemed to be a relief or tension release from vigorous action: perhaps it was about ‘entertainment’ or purposeless fun.
Strongest revelation was that caffeine consumption was compensating for disconnection from 'muse sources’ and led to fruitless begging for inspiration from a disinterested muse and thus aimless/empty activity. It was like a beggar licking the bottom of a dry well.
Also, transition as a separate source revealed itself, rather than just a space between two sources… and in that essence I found my good friend, the god Hermes. =-)
In the final ritual, the strongest sensation I had was needing to spend a lot of time in the sustaining care of my foundation source before being of much use in the realm of the muse. As earth, sustaining care manifested as slow movements used to engage different segments of my spine in undulation; as if my physical body needed more care an attention before I would be able to enter into and sustain the power of the muses.
- James Wagner
Lab 5 0f 16: Power, Love, & Wisdom Beginning the night with cliché’ movements, we moved on to the opposite of ‘taboo’ movements; Instead we explored what I’m calling ‘super cool’ movements. It was a very humorous way to expose myself to how I move and sound with the unconscious intention to impress.
My foundation source was POWER. I was concerned at first, afraid that it would shatter me with an overload of energy and not serve as a container or ‘foundation’. To the contrary, it manifested as movement/sounds of great physical and skeletal force. It felt like ‘empowerment’ and actually had a lot of structural integrity.
My trinity was Power, Love, and Wisdom
As we worked as a group with our trinities, we added the emphasis of ‘service’ and then ‘service to the purpose of’ each source. The most striking imprint was: wisdom as the vast clear waters of a Bahamas beach – clean, clear, vast, water, life, and brightness. the tone was multiple octaves, like Tibetan throat singing.
The strongest impressions of the night were in the final ritual: taking each of the three sources ‘purpose’ movements into the realm of the muse so that they may be offered to the muses.
LOVE in the realm of the muses was elevated from simple tones in my heart into a song of lament and exposed how deep my sadness around lost love still rings in me at this time of the year. WISDOM lead to a moment of clarity where I could stand clearly in the realm of the muses, unperturbed, clearly watching it all, and had the discrimination to turn my back and walk away. I was reminded that it was wise to remain detached, to not be the muses bitch, and know when to say ‘no’. Final pass was POWER: I found that the more power I have the more the muses can use me, if I am strong then they can pour vast energies through me without melting me down. =-)
Lab 6 of 16: Absent … I missed this lab. sadly…
Lab 7 of 16: Trust in God: Chaos, Order, Choice
This was the most powerful, sublime session I have perhaps ever experienced. It was very hard to let go of it in the final no-form, but Antero, on cue, reminded us all not to hold on: that we could continue to relate to it if we gave it Space.
Foundation Source of ‘Trust in God’ practically asserted itself. When I first entered into it, I was stunned by how calm and utterly absent of ‘drama’ it was. I exited the space and tried again, with only slightly different effect; slow and quite prayerful song-walk.
I often have thoughts, images, memories while doing this physical work. I no longer see this as a problem. I assume that thoughts and memories are bubbling up from the work and allow them to float through as if they may have a purpose or message.
In the warm up I had odd thoughts 9for me) float through my head – I was recalling all my jobs and relationships and old worries. But this time each thought had a distinct feeling of ‘acceptance’ and peace about them; as if realizing they weren’t a big deal. Of course, It then occurred to me this might be because of my foundation source. Again, I was stunned: laughing.
My trinity source was chaos, order, and choice. This was charged given my life circumstances and I felt was highly relevant to the ‘muse work’ we’ve been doing as I am currently experiencing prolific inspiration but a overwhelm in terms of my ability to commit and complete the sheer volume of ideas I’m being given. I kowtow to brevity in communication and will skip extensive descriptions here.
The real landmark experiences were much later in the evening; they came when relating my foundation source to the realm of the muse.
Upon returning to the realm of ‘trust in god’ I was suddenly 90 years old, shuffling through a retirement home alone and I was struck, the very same peace and utter absence of ‘drama’, the same serenity washed over me. The result was an absolute absence of fear about the outcomes of my life. I knew I could look back with the same humor, forgiveness, and release as the experience I described in the warm up. On the second pass I saw ‘trust in god’ as flush red. I started to caress my body and pleasurable sensations heightened. The feeling that crystalized was, “trust in god is trust in pleasure”… that if I really stay in my body and attend to what feels deeply ‘good’ and ‘pleasurable’ I can be led to the most holy.
Trust in my own bodily sensation and Pleasure as a divine guide was radical.
In the end I returned to the sublime peace of that moment walking in the retirement home hallway, only this time, not only was the ‘peace’ present, but the radiant sublime rapture of Light, of the ‘sensation’ of being alive… even at that age. It was present in injury, in hurt, in sickness, and pain… still the radiant sublime hum, the rapture of Being Light itself.
- James
Lab 8 of 16: Comfort: Trust, Doubt, Action
I am writing this a full week later. My foundation source was destabilizing enough to the process to cause a drain of interest in recording the results. As a result I recall very little detail.
Looking back, my relationship to ‘comfort’ was probably the most damaging; not comfort itself. In the hands of the muse ‘comfort’ became a quite beautiful expressive gesture of bathing the group in peace, ease, and divine relief. but to my persona, I had judgment about comfort as ‘weak’ and cause for lazy avoidance; perhaps even decadence.
I did experience the ‘maturation’ of my trinity though, which is a phenomenon I’ve often noticed.
Trust became faith… a further or more ‘muse-touched’ or holy form of trust. Doubt became uncertainty… and was an easy partner to faith, rather than the adversary doubt seemed to be. Doubt turned into simple and fundamental ‘not-knowing’; what I’ve heard called divine ignorance. The sensation that I really have no idea what is coming, even in the very next moment. recognition of uncertainty was the foundation of faith. Action stood strong.
The final crystallized moment of my the evening for me was as follows: I opened a holy book as I walked. My hands were the book I was reading. but it was alive. like a butterfly, a symbol of transformation. It was a living text; like a living bible – the word of a ‘living’ god. I walked and read and swayed, bent over, my attention went to the baby steps I was taking. then the phrase ‘faith is every step’ came to me. My evening of work cumulated in the understanding that each step I take actually contains my entire trinity. Faith in the direction I have chosen, action towards that, and open uncertainty as to what the next step will bring.
Gratitude,
James Wagner
Lab 9 of 16: Moon, Earth, Sun I began with Moon because it was almost full last night; probably the closest to full that we’ll have during this lab. It proved to support the most revelatory moment in the LAB work which had to do with the moon’s reflective power. Banishment movements during the warm up released a lot of energy and did break me out of more habitual patterns of movement; especially strong was the next step of finding idiosyncratic movements; movements that only I could perform or that were essentially or quintessentially ‘James’. Presence actions during the warm up deepened my understanding as being present is becoming a higher value in my life: I found myself more invested in genuinely finding authentic motions that increased my honesty and congruency in the moment.
In the foundation source, the groaning in my body from the moon source was challenging… put me in touch with my emotional body at a level that left me very irritated and uncomfortable.
Trinity was moon, sun, star at first… but star just couldn’t stick, so it became earth. I went with that.
We did some ‘muse approaches’, taking each trinity source to the muse. This was the strongest part of the evening, and like one other participant said, I felt as if I got three distinct visions, one for each visit and source.
Sun… was ignition. fire starter. a fire started in my forehead and spread throughout the body. each cell was like a lick of flame; front and back, top to bottom. each cell ignited. what came in reflection, was ‘body as source of light’.
Moon… was reflector. mirror. collecting the moon energy on my arm, taking it to the muse, I became the moon. It was a bit ‘no-duh’ but at the same time revelatory. it revealed that my body has the capacity to play ‘reflector’. I can play my moon self when I serve not as the source of light, but as the power to reflect other’s light back to them. ‘body as mirror’.
Earth… was shit eater. transformer. I had an old image come back, from a dreaming lab. dirt. digging. and bugs. beetles. I slowly became a bipedal beetle… I know, WTF? anyway, beetle self turned into eating shit and dirt and spitting our pearls. shit eater, pearl maker. gave me a sense of what the Tibetans call Tonglen… the practice of breathing in suffering and sending out freedom and relief. ‘body as transformer’ like the body was a purifying machine, via the vehicle of the breath. suffering in, freedom out algorithm.
Final rituals were not nearly as successful for me. Not sure why. Sometimes I think, like dreams, if the frontal personality isn’t ready to face or integrate certain kinds of information, it remains hidden or memory blocks it out. I have a sense that a lot happened… but memory does allow itself to be exposed right now. Also, I have a sense that to some degree my LAB work is suffering from ‘hiding’ I’m doing in my daily life. I must be willing to face new and fearful material that I have in the last six months shoved back into denial in order to be capable of moving forward. ? questions.
James Wagner
Lab 10 of 16: Moon, Fire, Sky
We began the session with a group circle discussing our current understanding of the muse based on our cumulative experience. Then Antero suggested we choose foundation sources that act as an ally when approaching the muse.
I choose moon again. The first thought of what I needed as an ally to approach the muse was more receptivity. Moon seemed to fulfill that all night.
My trinity was fire, moon, sky.
We engaged trinity work as a group searching for ‘sustaining care’. Fire cared about musculature; weightlifting. Muscles as fire factory. Moon was a standing backbend, opening the full front of my body in a crescent. Moon cared about the receptivity of the soft frontal line of my body. Sky was a vision of catching stars with a star catching net; and laughing manically. (This was self-exposure of my obsession with willfully catching dreams).
We returned to trinity work as a group, this time with muse realm above. Fire revealed a vision of me merged with a fire muse; reminded me of this image.
This time in sky, I was aware that of all the stars in the sky, only one mattered; only one was mine… guiding my life.
In moon, the muses used my open front crescent to beam dreams onto a sleeping earth. The dark side of the moon was behind my heart all night too… like a shadow, an always unseen place. We moved into approaching the realm of the muse directly. From our foundation source allies we moved into the realm of the Muse. We seemed stable, strong, together. I found one form and song and basically maintained that the entire ritual. orbiting like the dark side of the moon, back to the room, toning from my back. Not sure what this was. Or what was communicated.
Final pass, the most relevant experience was the experience of taking my sky star scooping motion into the realm of the muse. It was ripped out of my hand, and the star filled sky (stars felt they had something to do with the muses) spun me like a top and sung me. It was a kosmic song and dance. and when I left the realm of the muse, I fell flat on the floor, completely exhausted.
The muse has corrected me. Before the lab I said I wasn't the muses bitch. In fact, I am. and one of the things the muse demands of me, is to be strong enough to take its Force, even if for just short bursts.
LAB 11 of 16: Patience
This was a night of new. We began and built on No-Form, the Muses, and our Foundation Sources: the whole night seemed like one large Trinity.
I took some guidance and sourced Patience as a foundation; an asset and experience that could serve me but is relatively foreign to my functional ego.
Patience partnered with Work, and Power to form my trinity for the evening.
We did personal trinity work followed by a group trinity ritual focused on Service of each Source. Crystalized communications include…
Work as beasts of burden and as the purposeful direction, like an arrow, the directs Power.
Patience as yellow, as the waiting of a womb, and as cumulating in the harvest
Power as the power to protest (to stand up) and as a loose body available to surges of power
We worked to embody our foundation source and carry it’s form into the realm of the muse as service. Most distinctly, embodiment of Patience was a stalk of seaweed, with no power of locomotion, waiting for the tide to carry it from one location to the next. In the realm of the muse, the song that came from that movement was playful and full of variety; like a Bach concerto, riffing on itself, endless variations but always connected. I got a strong sense that the muse likes Patience as Workless Time: meaning time with no purpose or direction, able to just meander and enjoy the pure play; it likes luxurious, timeless meandering. I got a sense, if I just let go, the Muse will carry me gently like the beauty of a seaweed forest, dancing in the tide.
Other imprints: Entering the realm of the muse from an Impersonal No-Form ground, I found myself still for the entire ritual. I was a golden brick in a giant temple of the Muse. I had the sensation that I was already well placed in God’s temple. That just to sit there and shine and be the brick I am was more than enough, was glorious. the group had strong cohesion in this ritual, it felt as if we were all held in together in the actual architecture of the Temple of Muse; our collective song seemed cohesive and orchestrated.
I also had an experience of going from Impersonal No-Form into the fusion of Muse and Foundation Source and being immobilized as a chrysalis. Despite being immobile much was going on; in fact the most profound magic of transformation was happening without any action on my part; I need patience, inaction, waiting for the magic to take place. This is a great lesson for James in relation to the Divine One and it’s intermediary with me, these ineffable Muses.
Memory Walk struck me most radically in Impersonal No-Form. Life review flashed before me, but this time I wasn’t James in the memories, but the Impersonal No-Form present in all memories; in all time and space. The result: a sensation as Impersonal Void as Immortal Self.
I will be joining the Spring Basics Lab; the end is in the beginning and before I leave San Francisco, I look forward to returning to absolute Basics. But in the mean time, three more dates with the Muses.
- James
Lab 12 of 16: The Flower of Love
Tonight, looking back on this session, I felt more than ever, that my job is just to perceive and be present to what is present in the real circumstances and energy of our group intention (of approaching the muse) when I enter the room. To simple notice and serve/move what Is Moving.
We began the night movement sourced from our feet and legs. A far less heady, more grounded evening seemed to come from that emphasis early on; resonating even into my performance today as a heightened ease of being.
My FOUNDATION SOURCE revealed itself as THE FLOWER OF LOVE. I was left with the image of a gigantic white fluffy lotus flower above and below the whole room. Then the below became a fluffy bed of red rose. The primary vision of Flower of Love came back again and again. It was similar to the following images, all of which I found on the web this morning, after the fact.
My Trinity was Need, Flower of Love, Desire.
I found that Desire carried me forward and was a stimulant to evolution and growth. Needs seemed watery in the sense of support, of nurturance and seemed to be on the ground below the flower: needs as support and nurturing from the base and root of the body to support the blossom of love, stretching towards the sun and sharing its beautiful open face. Need manifested as pool of Love at the foot of the flower, and desire showed itself as the sun the Flower of Love was reaching for. Spine as Stem was nice. Crown of Flower Blossom.
Two new understandings of the muse came from a direction to designate one ritual space as “what we don’t know about the muse”. I saw a vision of a three dimensional interlocked blocks, like three Indra’s nets, weaving in and out and going different directions. Like a modernist painting of endless interlocking pastel plastic picture frames on a mat blue background. Sending Energy, Information, Inspiration, and Impact from all directions, not just above.
Muse as Omni Directional
In the muse realm, I had a vision of Creation’s Horrors, its vile mutations. I could see how the creative force doesn’t just make refined, beautiful, and clean poems and paintings and works of art. It sometimes made horrific, disastrous, malicious creations. I got a sense that the misaligned creative force is what generates such atrocity.
Muse as Mutation
In group circle Sylvi’s report of “Intervals & No-Intervals” as relevant to the nature of the difference between the realm of the muse and Impersonal No-form made a big impact on me.
Interval as Essential Muse Action.
Jeffrey reported an experience of being a Book Writing Itself from which he felt no sense of transition when he returned to Impersonal No-Form. It struck me as…
Book of Life as Muse Action
We finished with a Witness Walk: a new technique for me. It felt great to have some distance at the end. I could see all my experience as an outsider: it seemed to give me a sense of clarity and insight liked I just watched a drama on stage.
Understanding was had, rather than re-experiencing.
- James
LAB 13 of 16: Relationship to the Muse
The whole evening I found clarity and information very quickly. We used advanced and even new emergent techniques almost exclusively, resulting in high octane data.
In retrospect the theme seemed to be recognizing the nature of our relationship to The Muse as a Personal one: a culmination of many of the small breakthroughs over the last two months.
Starting with a Group Circle: we touched in around our primary intention of Ritual Actions of the Muse. Upon completing this discussion I understand these to be discovered actions that allow me to enact some essential aspect of the muse or as actions that establish relationship with the Muse. Now, a day later, I realize it might be something more like the actions that enact the sacred reality of various sources.
We worked with Somatic Questions: the two I remember clearly were:
Where am I going? Becoming an animal with paws. I am going deep into my animal nature. Who am I now?a crown of light. impact on the top of my head. I am now being illuminatedMy trinity emerged as Fire, Play, and Presence. While working with the trinity to unearth ‘ritual actions’ of each, I had the following discoveries…
Fire as the Fireworks of Joy… To cut off from the fire in my belly is to cut off from my joy.
Fire Performs the Ritual Action of Grounding… The lightening of muse inspiration grounds itself.
Presence, in personal work, was about closing my ears and eyes so that everyone else in the room was gone. I was entirely present to everything happening inside; the absolute and total subjective experience: I was able to tone and sing and move without any outside guidance or direction. I used the gesture in my daily creative work to great effect the last two days.
In Presence, with the Ritual Action direction, I found presence as the silence of retreat or Zen meditation, understanding why silence and stillness cultivated that total subjective presence. It also seemed to be about the unspeakable and unknowable; Yahweh - the secret, silent , absolute private place where that which is finally unspeakable and unknowable resides… Presence was in making Void Within my Home.
Play became about smashing into component parts. I had a vision of playing Legos when I was a kid; I was smashing my Lego city and digging in the pieces as I excitedly dug for the piece I needed for a new creation.
Revelation is a sign of high quality in this work: seeing what was right in front of me all along but which I had not yet seen clearly. When working with the source of our personal relation to the muse and approaching the realm of the muse, I discovered myself as a powerfully and fully engaged Horn of Valhalla, calling with my whole being to the Muse. I saw that in fact my entire being was one totally committed call to the Muse. I was surprised to realize that in fact, my devotion to the muse is actually TOTAL at this point in my life. I tend to be critical of myself, that my commitment to my art is' ‘not enough’… this is the action of my mind stuck in the past, not Reality Circumstances.
From this horn of Valhalla full call I entered the muse realm and the song just poured open… I felt like Beethoven. I could see layers and layers of clouds with muse like angels sitting among the levels. The one thought was that I was being exposed to the music of the spheres. the songs of the cosmos. it didn’t last long. but I felt I was being shown a great mystery, allowed to hear the very music of Heaven or Reality itself.
Antero spoke of what was guiding his ritual structures tonight. much new in the approach. the main discovery was an ability to approach the muse with a casual attitude or the same indifference it treats us. this furthered the exploration of the very real, ‘relational’ quality of meeting the muse. I like this direction. That like all subtle entities, I can relate to it with mutual autonomy and mutual respect, just like a human to human intimate relationship.
Going in and out of the Ritual Actions Quickly towards the end of our session: I entered three times. Once I was singing a hymn, singing in a big Mormon tabernacle-like hall. Once I was using my hands to move the ocean and then I had the sensation that I was moving the water inside a fellow participants body and that this moving the healing water already present in his was the power I had to heal with my hands.
Ritual Actions of the Muse: Hymn. Laying on of Hands.
On the way home I had the following perception of the actual conditions of my souls journey this time around.
No kids. No family. No marriage but the sacred one within. Instead, lots of love and sex, but most importantly, self-commitment and a slow build of my teaching and my art with great patience and integrity.
A day later now, it strikes me how powerful the Ritual Action Technique is, and why it is an advanced technique. I am stunned and sad I am soon leaving this working group.
In Service to the Muse,
James Wagner
LAB 14 of 16: Absence and Connection
I missed this LAB session due to performance of a new play. I have to say, the performance took huge leaps forward that night… and I think in no small part to the fact that I was still connected to the Muse work that was happening with the group, my energy body was still very much connected to the Group. and in my own way, I was using the performance to continue my relationship. I’m eager to read Antero and Sylvie’s reports of the group work.
Lab 15 of 16: Center, Right, Left
All evening I found many experiences from earlier LAB sessions returning, but deepening a layer or revealing another facet of themselves; these increments of new information I find very encouraging and affirm my sense of a steady diet of revelation.
Trinity: Center, Right, Left
Clear communications were as follows.
Right revealed that it always needs to ‘fight’; needs adversity and will locate ‘enemy’.
I learned not to attempt to stop life’s battles, but to embrace the reality that I actually seek and create it as an essential part of my dual being.
Right revealed the use of swords for Protection. I crouched and hit with a family/tribe I was protecting.
The protective, survival power of swords and warriorship was new. That shelter was not cowardly but appropriate strategy.
Center, I rocked in a seated position, opening my right hip, as if my body was preparing itself for Zen Meditation.
Center as Meditation.
Left revealed my left arm moving like a serpent.
I had a strong sensation of the flow of left moving into the whole body, as serpent as body flow.
I saw Kundalini being the serpent in the garden that left Eve so misunderstood and vilified.
We then approached the muse with the offerings of our trinities. Starting with our foundation source and then offering our trinity sources in a second pass.
I found myself working Center body as unit. This took a long time as it felt like I was locking in each ‘center’ along the center line. As I got to forehead I entered the muse realm. A ream of color and light gushed out of that center, whipping around the room. Painting everything. This steam eventually turned into a garment that I wrapped around me. I spun. Letting myself be on display.
Muse relations as Adorning myself with Playful Light; Self as Artwork
On another entrance to the muse realm I heard a Shakespeare line in my head. “This Wind we Talk of…blows us from ourselves.” I became like a fall leaf, blowing in the wind, swirling. I swirled around another lab participant. I had a sensation of delighting him joyfully. At that moment he was standing still. I felt as if I was playfully waking him up, moving him. One of my consistent sensations in the muse realm is that whatever energy I enter with gets elevated and useful to being beyond myself, an experience of service.
Muse Service as the Light Touch of Play as Service.
On one entry I found the stream of color whipping out of my forehead again, but this time it was like paint, and I was in the Golden Temple from an earlier Lab session. This time I was slathering the temple wildly with paint, similar to the multicolored coat I’d experienced earlier. It felt like I was painting the Golden Temple of the Muse to make it look like the World, like a camouflage paint job.
Communication: The World is The Golden Temple of the Muse with a nifty camo Paint Job.
Another Entry, from Right, turned my swords into scalpels. In the previous Muse Lab many of us had had the experience in the final lab of a very mundane expression of the muse, the Muse as expressed in the every day. This felt related. I had a sensation of swords of the right being delicate tools. Being able to make small precise incisions. And to perform miracles in the hands of a master, to save lives, to play god, and to make works of art.
Communications: The Sword can be Used To Heal. The Great Magic of the Sword is in the Moment by Moment, Small, Artful Incisions in my Own Being.
Entering into Muse with Center Body I found an army of muses in the clouds above… on phones of all kinds. (apparently the muses were revealing their humor with me tonight) my job was simply as a Muse Operator. I was in service in that realm is I helped connect them to the people they wanted to talk to; their peeps. (reminds me of Antero’s report that the muse’s told him, “love us some earth'” when he asked for guidance around a foundation source).
Communication: Muse Service as Playing Operator… collect call from the Muses, will you accept the charge?
Offering Water, I found a full bodied roll around movement that made me painfully aware of where I had stored up tension and emotion… especially in my right back. it was agony. I took that full bodied flowing that revealed my ‘holding’ into the realm of the muse, I became like Oedipus on stage… suddenly my deepest trauma’s, held in my body, could be released on stage and made Useful.
Communication: Muse Action as Performed Tragedy: Surrender of Personal Agony into Communal Exaltation Through Alchemy of Performance
After a memory walk we chose one more (new) foundation source to carry into the muse. What came was “Breath of God”. In the Body as Unit area I found an ease in the breath and movement I’d not felt all night. Upon entering it, I revisited the Song of the Spheres, Songs of Heaven feeling of Beethoven I’d had in an earlier session… but this time, the breath being calm, the music and energy was not shattering and erratic. It was just sublime. I felt I could sing like that forever. It was stunning joy, ease, glory, pleasure, beauty, and peace… at least to me. =-)
Communication: Breath Peace
In the Closing Circle every time I tried to share something profound, it just became ridiculous. Everyone was laughing at the absurdity of some of what I was sharing. Perfect. I needed that.
Muse Communication: You’re not all that.
LAB 3: Communication: Mystery, Creativity, Fact
This was a very difficult lab session. I’m not sure if I’m entirely connected or present to what is happening in the work right now.
I started with a foundation source of ‘mystery’ which released a lot of energy as my body gave shape to many unknown and unrecognizable movement patterns. The foundation source later returned to ‘communication’, which was what I had planned to work with as I came into the lab session.
My personal trinity was known, creativity, unknown. Unknown was very similar to mystery.
Mystery: feminine hair flipping, giving birth, holding a child of my own in my arms, upper back toning
Embodied Voice Work: Starting with the Tone of a Source, then finding movement from that.
Communication as a source led to the following sensations/experiences… having body of ears, communication includes Big Listening, not just articulation and speech. Also, communication involves body talking, not word talking; taking with action of the full body. Communication was about ‘send-receive’, not just sending signals. Communication manifested as movement of energy and information; as movement and ripples of impact and effect at its essence. Movements went left to right, up and down, and in all directions. Movement is communication. Movement is communion; affecting and being affected. Sending and receiving ‘energy and information’ is communication and is relational altogether. Communication is not just about between humans; it is all things communicating to all things.
He , Ha, Ho Jog of communication. Like a ladder from top to bottom along with movements of flopping over.
Entered muse with my back. I squished my body in half so only my upper back could tone. Also, the communication of left to right in my body led me to think of tensegrity movements and how I prefer to find stuff organically in paratheatre to the lame process of learning tensegrity movements from some book or class.
- James
LAB 4 0f 16: Earth, Action, & Activity
We began the session with a rare talking circle about the nature of a true source and how to choose them for foundation and trinity work.
I decided to keep it simple and used Earth as a foundation. This led to deep sensations of the mass beneath my feet all night; as well as energy that rose up through my feet and spine, culminating in a vision in the muse realm of the caduceus within my body/spine… the root of the two serpents began deep in the earth and the two snakes heads met in my head, at the eyes, kissing just between the two eyes.
Trinity of action/transition/activity led to many revelations about what constituted either pole for me and how I would travel (what kind of sequence would get me) from one to the other. Action felt primarily as the heavy lifting and willingness to work hard that seems the essence of ‘earth’ action. Activity always seemed some sort of avoidance or distraction at first.
Finding sustaining care in ‘activity’ was a challenge: at first it was about what I get so obsessed with or hung up on in the moments of compulsive activity devoid of true action. Then it became a kind of release or relaxation; it had the color of frivolity that I often disregard as useless but actually seemed to be a relief or tension release from vigorous action: perhaps it was about ‘entertainment’ or purposeless fun.
Strongest revelation was that caffeine consumption was compensating for disconnection from 'muse sources’ and led to fruitless begging for inspiration from a disinterested muse and thus aimless/empty activity. It was like a beggar licking the bottom of a dry well.
Also, transition as a separate source revealed itself, rather than just a space between two sources… and in that essence I found my good friend, the god Hermes. =-)
In the final ritual, the strongest sensation I had was needing to spend a lot of time in the sustaining care of my foundation source before being of much use in the realm of the muse. As earth, sustaining care manifested as slow movements used to engage different segments of my spine in undulation; as if my physical body needed more care an attention before I would be able to enter into and sustain the power of the muses.
- James Wagner
Lab 5 0f 16: Power, Love, & Wisdom Beginning the night with cliché’ movements, we moved on to the opposite of ‘taboo’ movements; Instead we explored what I’m calling ‘super cool’ movements. It was a very humorous way to expose myself to how I move and sound with the unconscious intention to impress.
My foundation source was POWER. I was concerned at first, afraid that it would shatter me with an overload of energy and not serve as a container or ‘foundation’. To the contrary, it manifested as movement/sounds of great physical and skeletal force. It felt like ‘empowerment’ and actually had a lot of structural integrity.
My trinity was Power, Love, and Wisdom
As we worked as a group with our trinities, we added the emphasis of ‘service’ and then ‘service to the purpose of’ each source. The most striking imprint was: wisdom as the vast clear waters of a Bahamas beach – clean, clear, vast, water, life, and brightness. the tone was multiple octaves, like Tibetan throat singing.
The strongest impressions of the night were in the final ritual: taking each of the three sources ‘purpose’ movements into the realm of the muse so that they may be offered to the muses.
LOVE in the realm of the muses was elevated from simple tones in my heart into a song of lament and exposed how deep my sadness around lost love still rings in me at this time of the year. WISDOM lead to a moment of clarity where I could stand clearly in the realm of the muses, unperturbed, clearly watching it all, and had the discrimination to turn my back and walk away. I was reminded that it was wise to remain detached, to not be the muses bitch, and know when to say ‘no’. Final pass was POWER: I found that the more power I have the more the muses can use me, if I am strong then they can pour vast energies through me without melting me down. =-)
Lab 6 of 16: Absent … I missed this lab. sadly…
Lab 7 of 16: Trust in God: Chaos, Order, Choice
This was the most powerful, sublime session I have perhaps ever experienced. It was very hard to let go of it in the final no-form, but Antero, on cue, reminded us all not to hold on: that we could continue to relate to it if we gave it Space.
Foundation Source of ‘Trust in God’ practically asserted itself. When I first entered into it, I was stunned by how calm and utterly absent of ‘drama’ it was. I exited the space and tried again, with only slightly different effect; slow and quite prayerful song-walk.
I often have thoughts, images, memories while doing this physical work. I no longer see this as a problem. I assume that thoughts and memories are bubbling up from the work and allow them to float through as if they may have a purpose or message.
In the warm up I had odd thoughts 9for me) float through my head – I was recalling all my jobs and relationships and old worries. But this time each thought had a distinct feeling of ‘acceptance’ and peace about them; as if realizing they weren’t a big deal. Of course, It then occurred to me this might be because of my foundation source. Again, I was stunned: laughing.
My trinity source was chaos, order, and choice. This was charged given my life circumstances and I felt was highly relevant to the ‘muse work’ we’ve been doing as I am currently experiencing prolific inspiration but a overwhelm in terms of my ability to commit and complete the sheer volume of ideas I’m being given. I kowtow to brevity in communication and will skip extensive descriptions here.
The real landmark experiences were much later in the evening; they came when relating my foundation source to the realm of the muse.
Upon returning to the realm of ‘trust in god’ I was suddenly 90 years old, shuffling through a retirement home alone and I was struck, the very same peace and utter absence of ‘drama’, the same serenity washed over me. The result was an absolute absence of fear about the outcomes of my life. I knew I could look back with the same humor, forgiveness, and release as the experience I described in the warm up. On the second pass I saw ‘trust in god’ as flush red. I started to caress my body and pleasurable sensations heightened. The feeling that crystalized was, “trust in god is trust in pleasure”… that if I really stay in my body and attend to what feels deeply ‘good’ and ‘pleasurable’ I can be led to the most holy.
Trust in my own bodily sensation and Pleasure as a divine guide was radical.
In the end I returned to the sublime peace of that moment walking in the retirement home hallway, only this time, not only was the ‘peace’ present, but the radiant sublime rapture of Light, of the ‘sensation’ of being alive… even at that age. It was present in injury, in hurt, in sickness, and pain… still the radiant sublime hum, the rapture of Being Light itself.
- James
Lab 8 of 16: Comfort: Trust, Doubt, Action
I am writing this a full week later. My foundation source was destabilizing enough to the process to cause a drain of interest in recording the results. As a result I recall very little detail.
Looking back, my relationship to ‘comfort’ was probably the most damaging; not comfort itself. In the hands of the muse ‘comfort’ became a quite beautiful expressive gesture of bathing the group in peace, ease, and divine relief. but to my persona, I had judgment about comfort as ‘weak’ and cause for lazy avoidance; perhaps even decadence.
I did experience the ‘maturation’ of my trinity though, which is a phenomenon I’ve often noticed.
Trust became faith… a further or more ‘muse-touched’ or holy form of trust. Doubt became uncertainty… and was an easy partner to faith, rather than the adversary doubt seemed to be. Doubt turned into simple and fundamental ‘not-knowing’; what I’ve heard called divine ignorance. The sensation that I really have no idea what is coming, even in the very next moment. recognition of uncertainty was the foundation of faith. Action stood strong.
The final crystallized moment of my the evening for me was as follows: I opened a holy book as I walked. My hands were the book I was reading. but it was alive. like a butterfly, a symbol of transformation. It was a living text; like a living bible – the word of a ‘living’ god. I walked and read and swayed, bent over, my attention went to the baby steps I was taking. then the phrase ‘faith is every step’ came to me. My evening of work cumulated in the understanding that each step I take actually contains my entire trinity. Faith in the direction I have chosen, action towards that, and open uncertainty as to what the next step will bring.
Gratitude,
James Wagner
Lab 9 of 16: Moon, Earth, Sun I began with Moon because it was almost full last night; probably the closest to full that we’ll have during this lab. It proved to support the most revelatory moment in the LAB work which had to do with the moon’s reflective power. Banishment movements during the warm up released a lot of energy and did break me out of more habitual patterns of movement; especially strong was the next step of finding idiosyncratic movements; movements that only I could perform or that were essentially or quintessentially ‘James’. Presence actions during the warm up deepened my understanding as being present is becoming a higher value in my life: I found myself more invested in genuinely finding authentic motions that increased my honesty and congruency in the moment.
In the foundation source, the groaning in my body from the moon source was challenging… put me in touch with my emotional body at a level that left me very irritated and uncomfortable.
Trinity was moon, sun, star at first… but star just couldn’t stick, so it became earth. I went with that.
We did some ‘muse approaches’, taking each trinity source to the muse. This was the strongest part of the evening, and like one other participant said, I felt as if I got three distinct visions, one for each visit and source.
Sun… was ignition. fire starter. a fire started in my forehead and spread throughout the body. each cell was like a lick of flame; front and back, top to bottom. each cell ignited. what came in reflection, was ‘body as source of light’.
Moon… was reflector. mirror. collecting the moon energy on my arm, taking it to the muse, I became the moon. It was a bit ‘no-duh’ but at the same time revelatory. it revealed that my body has the capacity to play ‘reflector’. I can play my moon self when I serve not as the source of light, but as the power to reflect other’s light back to them. ‘body as mirror’.
Earth… was shit eater. transformer. I had an old image come back, from a dreaming lab. dirt. digging. and bugs. beetles. I slowly became a bipedal beetle… I know, WTF? anyway, beetle self turned into eating shit and dirt and spitting our pearls. shit eater, pearl maker. gave me a sense of what the Tibetans call Tonglen… the practice of breathing in suffering and sending out freedom and relief. ‘body as transformer’ like the body was a purifying machine, via the vehicle of the breath. suffering in, freedom out algorithm.
Final rituals were not nearly as successful for me. Not sure why. Sometimes I think, like dreams, if the frontal personality isn’t ready to face or integrate certain kinds of information, it remains hidden or memory blocks it out. I have a sense that a lot happened… but memory does allow itself to be exposed right now. Also, I have a sense that to some degree my LAB work is suffering from ‘hiding’ I’m doing in my daily life. I must be willing to face new and fearful material that I have in the last six months shoved back into denial in order to be capable of moving forward. ? questions.
James Wagner
Lab 10 of 16: Moon, Fire, Sky
We began the session with a group circle discussing our current understanding of the muse based on our cumulative experience. Then Antero suggested we choose foundation sources that act as an ally when approaching the muse.
I choose moon again. The first thought of what I needed as an ally to approach the muse was more receptivity. Moon seemed to fulfill that all night.
My trinity was fire, moon, sky.
We engaged trinity work as a group searching for ‘sustaining care’. Fire cared about musculature; weightlifting. Muscles as fire factory. Moon was a standing backbend, opening the full front of my body in a crescent. Moon cared about the receptivity of the soft frontal line of my body. Sky was a vision of catching stars with a star catching net; and laughing manically. (This was self-exposure of my obsession with willfully catching dreams).
We returned to trinity work as a group, this time with muse realm above. Fire revealed a vision of me merged with a fire muse; reminded me of this image.
This time in sky, I was aware that of all the stars in the sky, only one mattered; only one was mine… guiding my life.
In moon, the muses used my open front crescent to beam dreams onto a sleeping earth. The dark side of the moon was behind my heart all night too… like a shadow, an always unseen place. We moved into approaching the realm of the muse directly. From our foundation source allies we moved into the realm of the Muse. We seemed stable, strong, together. I found one form and song and basically maintained that the entire ritual. orbiting like the dark side of the moon, back to the room, toning from my back. Not sure what this was. Or what was communicated.
Final pass, the most relevant experience was the experience of taking my sky star scooping motion into the realm of the muse. It was ripped out of my hand, and the star filled sky (stars felt they had something to do with the muses) spun me like a top and sung me. It was a kosmic song and dance. and when I left the realm of the muse, I fell flat on the floor, completely exhausted.
The muse has corrected me. Before the lab I said I wasn't the muses bitch. In fact, I am. and one of the things the muse demands of me, is to be strong enough to take its Force, even if for just short bursts.
LAB 11 of 16: Patience
This was a night of new. We began and built on No-Form, the Muses, and our Foundation Sources: the whole night seemed like one large Trinity.
I took some guidance and sourced Patience as a foundation; an asset and experience that could serve me but is relatively foreign to my functional ego.
Patience partnered with Work, and Power to form my trinity for the evening.
We did personal trinity work followed by a group trinity ritual focused on Service of each Source. Crystalized communications include…
Work as beasts of burden and as the purposeful direction, like an arrow, the directs Power.
Patience as yellow, as the waiting of a womb, and as cumulating in the harvest
Power as the power to protest (to stand up) and as a loose body available to surges of power
We worked to embody our foundation source and carry it’s form into the realm of the muse as service. Most distinctly, embodiment of Patience was a stalk of seaweed, with no power of locomotion, waiting for the tide to carry it from one location to the next. In the realm of the muse, the song that came from that movement was playful and full of variety; like a Bach concerto, riffing on itself, endless variations but always connected. I got a strong sense that the muse likes Patience as Workless Time: meaning time with no purpose or direction, able to just meander and enjoy the pure play; it likes luxurious, timeless meandering. I got a sense, if I just let go, the Muse will carry me gently like the beauty of a seaweed forest, dancing in the tide.
Other imprints: Entering the realm of the muse from an Impersonal No-Form ground, I found myself still for the entire ritual. I was a golden brick in a giant temple of the Muse. I had the sensation that I was already well placed in God’s temple. That just to sit there and shine and be the brick I am was more than enough, was glorious. the group had strong cohesion in this ritual, it felt as if we were all held in together in the actual architecture of the Temple of Muse; our collective song seemed cohesive and orchestrated.
I also had an experience of going from Impersonal No-Form into the fusion of Muse and Foundation Source and being immobilized as a chrysalis. Despite being immobile much was going on; in fact the most profound magic of transformation was happening without any action on my part; I need patience, inaction, waiting for the magic to take place. This is a great lesson for James in relation to the Divine One and it’s intermediary with me, these ineffable Muses.
Memory Walk struck me most radically in Impersonal No-Form. Life review flashed before me, but this time I wasn’t James in the memories, but the Impersonal No-Form present in all memories; in all time and space. The result: a sensation as Impersonal Void as Immortal Self.
I will be joining the Spring Basics Lab; the end is in the beginning and before I leave San Francisco, I look forward to returning to absolute Basics. But in the mean time, three more dates with the Muses.
- James
Lab 12 of 16: The Flower of Love
Tonight, looking back on this session, I felt more than ever, that my job is just to perceive and be present to what is present in the real circumstances and energy of our group intention (of approaching the muse) when I enter the room. To simple notice and serve/move what Is Moving.
We began the night movement sourced from our feet and legs. A far less heady, more grounded evening seemed to come from that emphasis early on; resonating even into my performance today as a heightened ease of being.
My FOUNDATION SOURCE revealed itself as THE FLOWER OF LOVE. I was left with the image of a gigantic white fluffy lotus flower above and below the whole room. Then the below became a fluffy bed of red rose. The primary vision of Flower of Love came back again and again. It was similar to the following images, all of which I found on the web this morning, after the fact.
My Trinity was Need, Flower of Love, Desire.
I found that Desire carried me forward and was a stimulant to evolution and growth. Needs seemed watery in the sense of support, of nurturance and seemed to be on the ground below the flower: needs as support and nurturing from the base and root of the body to support the blossom of love, stretching towards the sun and sharing its beautiful open face. Need manifested as pool of Love at the foot of the flower, and desire showed itself as the sun the Flower of Love was reaching for. Spine as Stem was nice. Crown of Flower Blossom.
Two new understandings of the muse came from a direction to designate one ritual space as “what we don’t know about the muse”. I saw a vision of a three dimensional interlocked blocks, like three Indra’s nets, weaving in and out and going different directions. Like a modernist painting of endless interlocking pastel plastic picture frames on a mat blue background. Sending Energy, Information, Inspiration, and Impact from all directions, not just above.
Muse as Omni Directional
In the muse realm, I had a vision of Creation’s Horrors, its vile mutations. I could see how the creative force doesn’t just make refined, beautiful, and clean poems and paintings and works of art. It sometimes made horrific, disastrous, malicious creations. I got a sense that the misaligned creative force is what generates such atrocity.
Muse as Mutation
In group circle Sylvi’s report of “Intervals & No-Intervals” as relevant to the nature of the difference between the realm of the muse and Impersonal No-form made a big impact on me.
Interval as Essential Muse Action.
Jeffrey reported an experience of being a Book Writing Itself from which he felt no sense of transition when he returned to Impersonal No-Form. It struck me as…
Book of Life as Muse Action
We finished with a Witness Walk: a new technique for me. It felt great to have some distance at the end. I could see all my experience as an outsider: it seemed to give me a sense of clarity and insight liked I just watched a drama on stage.
Understanding was had, rather than re-experiencing.
- James
LAB 13 of 16: Relationship to the Muse
The whole evening I found clarity and information very quickly. We used advanced and even new emergent techniques almost exclusively, resulting in high octane data.
In retrospect the theme seemed to be recognizing the nature of our relationship to The Muse as a Personal one: a culmination of many of the small breakthroughs over the last two months.
Starting with a Group Circle: we touched in around our primary intention of Ritual Actions of the Muse. Upon completing this discussion I understand these to be discovered actions that allow me to enact some essential aspect of the muse or as actions that establish relationship with the Muse. Now, a day later, I realize it might be something more like the actions that enact the sacred reality of various sources.
We worked with Somatic Questions: the two I remember clearly were:
Where am I going? Becoming an animal with paws. I am going deep into my animal nature. Who am I now?a crown of light. impact on the top of my head. I am now being illuminatedMy trinity emerged as Fire, Play, and Presence. While working with the trinity to unearth ‘ritual actions’ of each, I had the following discoveries…
Fire as the Fireworks of Joy… To cut off from the fire in my belly is to cut off from my joy.
Fire Performs the Ritual Action of Grounding… The lightening of muse inspiration grounds itself.
Presence, in personal work, was about closing my ears and eyes so that everyone else in the room was gone. I was entirely present to everything happening inside; the absolute and total subjective experience: I was able to tone and sing and move without any outside guidance or direction. I used the gesture in my daily creative work to great effect the last two days.
In Presence, with the Ritual Action direction, I found presence as the silence of retreat or Zen meditation, understanding why silence and stillness cultivated that total subjective presence. It also seemed to be about the unspeakable and unknowable; Yahweh - the secret, silent , absolute private place where that which is finally unspeakable and unknowable resides… Presence was in making Void Within my Home.
Play became about smashing into component parts. I had a vision of playing Legos when I was a kid; I was smashing my Lego city and digging in the pieces as I excitedly dug for the piece I needed for a new creation.
Revelation is a sign of high quality in this work: seeing what was right in front of me all along but which I had not yet seen clearly. When working with the source of our personal relation to the muse and approaching the realm of the muse, I discovered myself as a powerfully and fully engaged Horn of Valhalla, calling with my whole being to the Muse. I saw that in fact my entire being was one totally committed call to the Muse. I was surprised to realize that in fact, my devotion to the muse is actually TOTAL at this point in my life. I tend to be critical of myself, that my commitment to my art is' ‘not enough’… this is the action of my mind stuck in the past, not Reality Circumstances.
From this horn of Valhalla full call I entered the muse realm and the song just poured open… I felt like Beethoven. I could see layers and layers of clouds with muse like angels sitting among the levels. The one thought was that I was being exposed to the music of the spheres. the songs of the cosmos. it didn’t last long. but I felt I was being shown a great mystery, allowed to hear the very music of Heaven or Reality itself.
Antero spoke of what was guiding his ritual structures tonight. much new in the approach. the main discovery was an ability to approach the muse with a casual attitude or the same indifference it treats us. this furthered the exploration of the very real, ‘relational’ quality of meeting the muse. I like this direction. That like all subtle entities, I can relate to it with mutual autonomy and mutual respect, just like a human to human intimate relationship.
Going in and out of the Ritual Actions Quickly towards the end of our session: I entered three times. Once I was singing a hymn, singing in a big Mormon tabernacle-like hall. Once I was using my hands to move the ocean and then I had the sensation that I was moving the water inside a fellow participants body and that this moving the healing water already present in his was the power I had to heal with my hands.
Ritual Actions of the Muse: Hymn. Laying on of Hands.
On the way home I had the following perception of the actual conditions of my souls journey this time around.
No kids. No family. No marriage but the sacred one within. Instead, lots of love and sex, but most importantly, self-commitment and a slow build of my teaching and my art with great patience and integrity.
A day later now, it strikes me how powerful the Ritual Action Technique is, and why it is an advanced technique. I am stunned and sad I am soon leaving this working group.
In Service to the Muse,
James Wagner
LAB 14 of 16: Absence and Connection
I missed this LAB session due to performance of a new play. I have to say, the performance took huge leaps forward that night… and I think in no small part to the fact that I was still connected to the Muse work that was happening with the group, my energy body was still very much connected to the Group. and in my own way, I was using the performance to continue my relationship. I’m eager to read Antero and Sylvie’s reports of the group work.
Lab 15 of 16: Center, Right, Left
All evening I found many experiences from earlier LAB sessions returning, but deepening a layer or revealing another facet of themselves; these increments of new information I find very encouraging and affirm my sense of a steady diet of revelation.
Trinity: Center, Right, Left
Clear communications were as follows.
Right revealed that it always needs to ‘fight’; needs adversity and will locate ‘enemy’.
I learned not to attempt to stop life’s battles, but to embrace the reality that I actually seek and create it as an essential part of my dual being.
Right revealed the use of swords for Protection. I crouched and hit with a family/tribe I was protecting.
The protective, survival power of swords and warriorship was new. That shelter was not cowardly but appropriate strategy.
Center, I rocked in a seated position, opening my right hip, as if my body was preparing itself for Zen Meditation.
Center as Meditation.
Left revealed my left arm moving like a serpent.
I had a strong sensation of the flow of left moving into the whole body, as serpent as body flow.
I saw Kundalini being the serpent in the garden that left Eve so misunderstood and vilified.
We then approached the muse with the offerings of our trinities. Starting with our foundation source and then offering our trinity sources in a second pass.
I found myself working Center body as unit. This took a long time as it felt like I was locking in each ‘center’ along the center line. As I got to forehead I entered the muse realm. A ream of color and light gushed out of that center, whipping around the room. Painting everything. This steam eventually turned into a garment that I wrapped around me. I spun. Letting myself be on display.
Muse relations as Adorning myself with Playful Light; Self as Artwork
On another entrance to the muse realm I heard a Shakespeare line in my head. “This Wind we Talk of…blows us from ourselves.” I became like a fall leaf, blowing in the wind, swirling. I swirled around another lab participant. I had a sensation of delighting him joyfully. At that moment he was standing still. I felt as if I was playfully waking him up, moving him. One of my consistent sensations in the muse realm is that whatever energy I enter with gets elevated and useful to being beyond myself, an experience of service.
Muse Service as the Light Touch of Play as Service.
On one entry I found the stream of color whipping out of my forehead again, but this time it was like paint, and I was in the Golden Temple from an earlier Lab session. This time I was slathering the temple wildly with paint, similar to the multicolored coat I’d experienced earlier. It felt like I was painting the Golden Temple of the Muse to make it look like the World, like a camouflage paint job.
Communication: The World is The Golden Temple of the Muse with a nifty camo Paint Job.
Another Entry, from Right, turned my swords into scalpels. In the previous Muse Lab many of us had had the experience in the final lab of a very mundane expression of the muse, the Muse as expressed in the every day. This felt related. I had a sensation of swords of the right being delicate tools. Being able to make small precise incisions. And to perform miracles in the hands of a master, to save lives, to play god, and to make works of art.
Communications: The Sword can be Used To Heal. The Great Magic of the Sword is in the Moment by Moment, Small, Artful Incisions in my Own Being.
Entering into Muse with Center Body I found an army of muses in the clouds above… on phones of all kinds. (apparently the muses were revealing their humor with me tonight) my job was simply as a Muse Operator. I was in service in that realm is I helped connect them to the people they wanted to talk to; their peeps. (reminds me of Antero’s report that the muse’s told him, “love us some earth'” when he asked for guidance around a foundation source).
Communication: Muse Service as Playing Operator… collect call from the Muses, will you accept the charge?
Offering Water, I found a full bodied roll around movement that made me painfully aware of where I had stored up tension and emotion… especially in my right back. it was agony. I took that full bodied flowing that revealed my ‘holding’ into the realm of the muse, I became like Oedipus on stage… suddenly my deepest trauma’s, held in my body, could be released on stage and made Useful.
Communication: Muse Action as Performed Tragedy: Surrender of Personal Agony into Communal Exaltation Through Alchemy of Performance
After a memory walk we chose one more (new) foundation source to carry into the muse. What came was “Breath of God”. In the Body as Unit area I found an ease in the breath and movement I’d not felt all night. Upon entering it, I revisited the Song of the Spheres, Songs of Heaven feeling of Beethoven I’d had in an earlier session… but this time, the breath being calm, the music and energy was not shattering and erratic. It was just sublime. I felt I could sing like that forever. It was stunning joy, ease, glory, pleasure, beauty, and peace… at least to me. =-)
Communication: Breath Peace
In the Closing Circle every time I tried to share something profound, it just became ridiculous. Everyone was laughing at the absurdity of some of what I was sharing. Perfect. I needed that.
Muse Communication: You’re not all that.