meisner - day 2.2

the second day we did an exercise about sleeping on stage via taking yourself through a specific day dream. we were to give ourselves permission to follow wherever it lead. and, of course, we had to start with an extreme direction: intense joy, lust, rage, shame, etc, etc.

i chose rage.

it's one of the hardest places for me to go and an area i particularly want to explore this quarter. and the idea i chose as my entry into the daydream was that of smashing breakables.

it's my turn, and i lie down in the bed on stage and go into this mind space full of breakables and immediately begin smashing with a baseball bat. not a coincidence: i chose a roomful of mirrors.

i destroyed each and every one until the shards congealed together into a nightmare of massive, jittery spiders. but i attacked them too, smashing them to bits that were gracious enough to stay dead on the floor the second time.

when all was still, my bat was no longer i my hands, and i stretched out my arms to deliberately shred my hands on the sharp edges around the room. it was this aggressively self destructive act of defiance. calculated self-inflicted violence.

i was ruthless in my deliberateness. completely ruthless.

i stopped and look down: dispassionately {and painlessly} noticing the blood covering my hands and stretching toward my elbows, knowing that firmly lodged in the cuts were countless glass shards. and this moment lasted for a while, filled with curiosity and stillness. and significantly: judgement was withheld, or rather, was nonexistent.

time stretched out in my purgatory until i lay down and looked up at the one perfect mirror still left in the place. i hadn't realized it was there on the ceiling. as big as the room. generous and expansive. and i looked up at my naked length until a good friend appeared, softly walked up to me, and gently held and kissed each hand. the blood was cleaned. the shards and wounds non existent.

(let it be noted here that the friend is one who has journeyed a long way with me through my story of body image, sensuality, etc)

we lay down, intertwined in naked silence, until it occurred to me that we couldn't be resting so peacefully on shards of glass, and when i looked down to see where we were, a lush, green field, with foot-high grass surged out from our pale bodies. and we cuddled under the sky until the dream ended in a series of quick images: running through the grass, diving into a meandering river and then being carried blissfully along our way. laughter. smiles. cool water. refresh. fin.

needless to say, i find it interesting that rage can also lead back to sensuality. two way street. or perhaps more accurately two way secret door.