Thursday 11 September 2008

Listening and Acting

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Two inspiring and thought-provoking snippets emerge from my recent reading, which I want to note here.

Firstly:

'Former CBS anchor, Dan Rather, had a tough time interviewing Mother Teresa.

“When you pray,” asked Dan, "What do you say to God?"

"I don't say any thing," she replied. "I listen."

Dan tried another attack. "Well, OK... when God speaks to you, then, what does He say?"

"He doesn't say anything... He listens."'


And from Quaker Faith and Practice (21.32)

"Along the paths of the imagination the artist and mystic make contact. The revelations of God are not all of one kind. Always the search in art, as in religion, is for rhythms of relationships, for the unity, the urge, the mystery, the wonder of life that is presented in great art and true religion."

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2 comments:

Seralu said...

Such impeccable timing as always Mr Coleman! Finally got hold of a copy of "Entering the Castle" and I have been reading through it as well as listening to the wonderful wonderful cds. They are challenging, life-affirming and maddening at times but always worth listening to and always seem to come up with an answer to a question. Last night, after one of those rather arid days when life seems rather colourless and the questions a little too hard, they had me pondering the link between acting and mysticism which your quote has just confirmed!
Hope all is well with you...write soon and let me know your news X

Mark said...

That's funny cos I'm re-reading 'Entering the Castle' too
(3rd time now)!
I finally managed to figure out why I'd been unable to copy CDs on my computer, so a copy of the "Finding your Sacred Contract" set is winging its way to you as I type this. Should arrive Tues or Wed. It's a lot of fun!

Caroline Myss' work has also been invaluable for helping me prepare for an hour-long class I'm leading at the Actors' Bothy this week. I've entitled it "What are your Archetypes?" and I've asked actors to bring their publicity photo & CV so we can explore potential anomalies between how we might be pigeonholed by casting directors compared with how we might want to cast ourselves. Then on Oct 11th I'll be exploring ideas and techniques (Michael Chekhov's archetype work, mixed in with Caroline Myss) for extending archetypal playing range.

Yeah acting and mysticism...

Meister Eckhart's quote which might have come straight out of Mischa's "To the Actor":

"The outer work will never be puny if the inner work is great".

just sums it all up for me.

Missing you being around. Hope you're well.