Odin 1. Eugenio, Clelia, teachings

Note -- this post was added after the blog was begun. I inserted it on the date when it was written. Living at the Odin was exactly what Grotowski promised: I was being taken apart at a molecular level. At an ethical level. I didn't know at the time what was happening. I just wrote what I could see.

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I am sick. I have a cold, I can't breathe. I think my spirit is purging. I had a ticket to go to Poland for 5 days, and the day before I was to leave, I decided not to go. Within two hours, I was sick.

I sometimes write Eugenio long letters about his rehearsals. Over time, I got more comfortable, and they got deeper. He put a sticky on my folder saying, "dear Rachel -- Thank you. More!!" I feel as if I am writing someone already dead. Someone from an older generation. As if smoke were writing to fire. Related but not the same.

My theory is that we are all hungry for the Teachings. For a source of spiritual wisdom, who knows us and holds us in their heart-hand, and murmurs to us. It is incredibly comforting to be around another spiritual seeker, to hear what they are wrestling with, what truths they are contemplating, what they perceive in me. To be reminded that the Teachings exist.

This last year I have been surrounded by Teachings, by the Questions. By humanness and presence, vibrant aliveness, in the cloth of spirituality.

Last week I asked Clelia, a visiting theatre history professor from the University of Rome, if she would give me a Teaching. "About what?" she said. "On what is important about theatre, why it matters." "Okay," she said. A week later, she came, dressed up, with notes, to the bibliotek/ dining room, and said she was ready to teach me.

Clelia began with an ancient Japanese story about how theatre began, and moved to the Greeks and the commedia dell'Arte, then shared a paper she had found on how theatre performance positively affects the biological organism -- watching tragedies creates a heightened level of white blood cells that lasts a while; watching comedies creates an even higher level of white blood cells, that diminishes less and lasts longer. She ended with, "Wellness is relationships. And theatre is the REALM of relationships." Her talk was formal, gorgeously classical, warm, 90 minutes long.

Clelia cooks toast in a skillet, making a hole in the middle to cook tomatoes with it, to eat with eggs. I learn as much from watching her cook, or hearing her speak Italian, or laugh and greet everyone warmly, as I do from her theatre talk. It's all Teachings.

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Sometimes I picture me and Eugenio sitting on a little green hill, back to back. Other times it is as if I, or he, am leaning on a great tree.

It is important to see someone like me, who is all grown up. To absorb what it is possible to become. I am not the same oak tree that he is, but I am another oak tree. I wanted to spend some time around a big one.

What I see in Eugenio is ethics and integrity everywhere. In his speech, practice, his smallest acts. "A clean theatre and a clean yard is a loved theatre and a loved yard," he says. On Saturday, he came in to vaccuum his office and its foyer. He says, "Individual training goes 8-10, rehearsal goes 10-4." He is always in his office by 8. Not 8:10 or 8:15, usually not before 7:45. But, by 8am he is there and the door is cracked open, meaning you can knock and come in. At 10am, rehearsal begins. When you speak with him, he is present, whole, truthful, decisive.

The Odin's integrity is part of the Danish character. The Odin has absorbed its integrity from the farm buildings which house it, from Denmark where it lives. I am living in a more civilized country than my own.

I think it is not a coincidence that, in this year when I am 46, the first year I have outlived my father, I have found an ethical, accomplished, teacher-father.

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I read a book, Seven Steps On The Writer's Path. The author would set up seven chairs in front of the room, name each one, then ask people who knew they were in that stage, to come sit in that chair and speak for it.

It wasn't until Chair Six that you were finally in full flow of Creating. Chair Seven was Finishing. And then, it was back to Chair One, Not Knowing.

I think I am searching for my next Chair One. Something is surely finishing. I am unrecognizable, by an irrefutable inch or two more, each new week.