#24. a (content marketing) letter to atlas talisman and open world theatre.
reflections one month on from a life changing ritual theatre experience.
a month ago today we experienced a life changing ritual.
it was improvised, but it had all the bells and whistles that powerful rituals tend to.
soul tribe gathered in circle, hearts opened in trust, love flowing between all.
tears poured, voices screamed, deepening happened, and the liminal space was filled with spirit. everyone could feel it.
And, most importantly, Sage decided they wanted to be a little more monogamous afterward.
~~
Atlas, this is a kind of love letter to you and your methodology, Open World Theatre.
We don’t know exactly how to do this job we’ve signed up for — ‘Journalist’ — but this is how we’re doing it. Hope you enjoy. along with anyone else who might view these words of heart.
~~
»the context«
on may 25-26, sage shawaman ~yrfavritegndrinfrmedshaman~ attended an Open World Theatre Immersion in Research, Victoria.
on the final night of the immersion, here’s what happened.
A character we’ll called LightMan got onto the stage and performed his bit. It basically ended with a love & light “I love all of you guys! You’re all so amazing! This world is so beautiful!”
in the audience, Sage sat watching LightMan and… unfortunately/fortunately… found him ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING.
Actually, it wasn’t Sage per se, it was one of our personas, Datha (embodiment of Death, Depression and Thanatos).
Datha is basically our inner nihilist, and fucking hates it when people sing the Love & Light gospel.
“The world is not fucking love & light. It’s pain. Horror. Torture. Genocides happen and nobody cares, or they forget in instants. Shadows lurk everywhere and our modern culture is too fragile to face the truth. Corrupt leaders dominate the world, and the economy, and mostly all of us sit in our impotence and comfort, placated to the evils of the world, letting this planet burn. Humans Fucking Suck.” — Datha.
As soon as LightMan finished his bit, Sage (Datha) sprung onto the stage and let it rip.
“I FUCKING HATE ALL OF YOU. I DON’T TRUST ANY OF YOU. UGH!!!”
This went on for some minutes.
At some point… a burst of laughter emerged from the audience.
Although everyone else was struck by the intensity of this expression (nobody had quite taken the expression of rage to this level yet), there was one soul who decided “it was funny”.
She didn’t take us seriously. She thought we were kidding. She thought we were performing.
No. We weren’t performing. We were fucking serious.
»enter Atlas«
at this point, we’ll quote ourself from the previous post:
A reflection on Atlas’ brilliance:
it’s in the scene work that atlas really proves his mettle.
with him basically directing the scene — deciding when it pauses, ends, and what defining details comprise the scene — we, the OWT players, surrender ourselves to his Creative Judgement.
So, returning to the scene…
As Datha unleashed his fury, and as this person, let’s call her CacklingGiggles, interrupted with her laughter, Atlas boldly decided…
“NOPE. We’ve had enough of this. You’ve been at it all weekend. Stand up. Stand in front of Sage. Look them in the eye. Face this now. No more bypassing with laughter.”
The Teacher (Atlas) had commanded us now. We were playing his scene out. The visionary.
And so we did.
Datha went toe to toe with CacklingGiggles, and she finally got the transmission of rage that she needed. There was no bypassing it now.
We dashed toward her. Centimetres away from her face. Looking at her with all our misanthropic, nihilistic, bitter bitter bitter rage. She couldn’t deny it anymore. Quivers were felt.
The rest of the audience/players sat in awe. This shit was getting real.
“VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN. AUSTRALIA SAYS NO. HAHAHAHA. FUCKING FUCKING HELL. FUCK!!!!!!!” Datha was furious. Datha was this close to hitting this patronising, condescending woman. CacklingGiggles was lucky that Sage was still the one truly in charge. Datha doesn’t control us.
And so instead of hitting this woman, knowing that that would be criminal, we started beating ourself instead.
We smashed our head with our firsts. Punched our body all over. Stamped and spun and twisted ourself into self-flagellating knots. The audience, and CacklingGiggles, again, stunned.
And then Atlas stepped in.
He held us. He paused us. He whispered, “You’ve done it. You’ve done it. That’s enough now.”
Open World Theatre is performance in service to realness.
We all have these parts. The rageful parts. The violent parts. The parts of us that will kill in the name of love. The parts of us that want to; that would maybe even enjoy it.
In this scene, Datha was transmitting on behalf of the collective.
Was Datha’s rage “justified”? No. But that wasn’t the point.
The point is that this embodied-expressed rage was True in a more fundamental way.
Nobody in that room could deny the potency and pertinence of what was witnessed.
~~
The scene came to an end. We all sat down. Realityy Jasmani, Atlas’ co-facilitator, stepped on stage.
“If we aren’t willing to feel our shit, then other people have to feel it for us.”
We could feel her thanks beneath the words.
“This is what we do here at OWT. We’re doing this work for the collective. We’re finding more realness because we need it. Our culture needs it.”
With these sagacious reflections calming the electricity in the room, we were all able to take a deep sigh of relief.
And then… something cracked in us.
Sage cracked. Datha cracked. Our entire being cracked.
We were sobbing. Intensely. Tears poured and poured and poured down our face, upwelling from the deepest crevices of our blackened heart. Our unfeeling heart was feeling something.
Sage / Datha has had suicidal ideation for a lifetime.
Realityy Jasmani approached us, kneeling.
knee to knee, we sat.
“I just want to give up”, Sage said to her.
“I want to give up so much, it’s too much, I can’t feel all this for everyone anymore. I can’t hold these feelings. This rage. This bitterness. I can’t. I can’t. I want to give up…” tears continued to roll down our face, the emotions weren’t going to be held back anymore. They took on a life of their own.
“I invite you to just give up right now. Here. On the floor.” Realityy had extended a sacred invitation. All of us was welcome. Even the suicidal-nihilistic parts.
Reluctantly, sheepishly, terrifiedly, we did.
we crawled ourself into the ground. lay in foetal position. we covered our head with our arms and tucked our knees into our gut and cried. we cried and cried and cried. so many tears. it was a waterfall of healing.
the entire room, at this point, turned into ritual.
some minutes later, as we blinked open our dampened eyes, we found ourself in the midst of a circle.
the stage and audience setup was no more. Suddenly, we were in ritual proper — a circle gathering, hearts and souls as equals, the potency of spiritual healing and emotional release felt by all.
for another hour, the ritual continued. cracks continued. hearts kept breaking open. none of it made sense, yet all of it made perfect sense.
we were all here for this. This is what Open World Theatre was capable of.
~~~
Sage leans into monogamy.
A tangent here, but it’ll make sense.
Polyamory is pretty buzzy these days. many have flocked to it in the spirit of sexual and/or relational liberation; giving up the institutionalised oppression and dysfunction of monogamous constraints and nuclear families, many of us conscious souls have found our way (back) to the open plains of polyamorous possibility.
Sage has been at it for some years. And it truly has been liberational. Beautiful. Growthful and healing.
And yet…
There’s a part of us that found security in the distance of polyamory. with multiple loves, it can be easy to not fully commit to anyone.
and, it turns out, with our beloved Leslie, this was the case.
~~
after this ritual experience we found ourself changed dramatically.
our heartspace was blown wide open. we were feeling connected to Life at large in a renewed way. The people around us were family. The world in general was a supportive and safe place to be. We could feel our feelings, and we wouldn’t drown in them or suffer under them.
We Wouldn’t Give Up.
somehow, paradoxically perhaps, it was in the giving up (crawling into feral position and crying crying crying) that we our capacity To Try was renewed.
and somehow, that lead to us expressing to Leslie that we no longer want to share them with other people. Perhaps not forever, but certainly right now.
We wanted monogamousness with Leslie. We wanted to focus on them, and have them focus on us, exclusively. To truly deepen. To dive in, to commit, fully, and see what might happen with our hearts completely on the line in that way. No more sharing. No more diversifying interests in other people. just us. Let’s give it a go.
~~
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It’s been a massive month since this fateful night.
We spent a lot of it up in the trees of northeast victoria, at a homestead named Anam Cara.
we had a lot of healing and integrating to do after this night.
It’s not easy to re-enter the normal world with a heart cracked open so wide, so vulnerable.
We haven’t reverted. We haven’t given up again. Our heart remains full and open and boldly embracing of the terror in this life.
Basically… our warrior heart has been awakened. And it has a lot to do with the potency of Open World Theatre.
Atlas, this methodology you’ve innovated is profound.
Thank you for your work.
We look forward to journeying with you more.
May your upcoming tour be filled with delight and opportunities.
We are all lucky to have you with us, serving us, serving the revolution of culture and consciousness.
Here’s to Spirit Punk. !!