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Sacred Theatre Workshops, 2010
Soul & Spirit: A Dialogue Through Eternity
This theme about the relationship of the Soul to the Spirit, and vice versa, has played around in my mind for the past several months. Then I became really inspired in October when I attended a lecture and workshop given by Michael Meade, the storyteller/mythologist/shaman/poet/wiseman. He believes that our culture has become besotted with things of the spirit (the mind, the world of ideas, and the push to transcend) while ignoring the things of the soul (the world of the body and of feelings, of the earth, and the pull of immanence). Meade says this long-lasting imbalance accounts for many of the difficulties of our present time.
What is the Soul? What is the Spirit? How do they work together?
My focus for next year is to explore their differences, their similarities, their conflicts, their unions - in other words, the eternal relationship - between these two forces as we experience them in the sacred drama of our lives. Another way we will work with these forces is to feel the Soul as one aspect of the Divine Feminine, and the Spirit as one experience of the Divine Masculine. I believe they seek partnership within us, and can provide a sense of dynamic, ever-changing harmony, containing as they do all the energy and conflict of a great play.
Here are six dates in Ashland:
February 11-14 (Who exactly was St. Valentine?)
April 1-4 (from April Fool's Day to the Resurrection, the journey of a life!)
May 28-31 (A Time for Memories), culminating in a party on
June 1, Publication Date for To Be and How To Be: Transforming Your Life Through Nine Powers of Sacred Theatre. Party to be announced.
September 3-6 (Labor Day Extravaganza);
November 4-7 (O Wild West Wind);
December 9-12 (Winter Wonderland).
Each of these is an individual seminar; you are invited to attend one or more.
Times: Evening of the first day to mid-afternoon of the last day.
Cost: Each Ashland weekend costs $325. This includes tuition, tickets to two, theatre events, supplies, and food (light supper Thursday evening, Continental breakfasts, snacks and a feast).
Multiple Choices:
If you sign up for three or four sessions, and pay before January 31, 2010, you may attend for $295 per workshop.
If you wish to register for five seminars, you pay a total of $1395 ($280 per session) before the date in January.
Sign up for all six by that date and pay a total of $1560, or $260 per session.
To register for these workshops, please send a check to Peggy Rubin, 323 Oak Street, Ashland, OR 97520, listing which workshops you wish to attend. Make checks payable to Center for Sacred Theatre. If any of your contact information has changed since you last attended, please be sure to mention that. You can email me with any questions at pegrub@aol.com.
One workshop in Ocean Grove, New Jersey: October 14-21. Register with Patti Kaufman at pattik.mac@me.com.
Book signing and one-day workshop Wheaton, Illinois:
September 30: Evening presentation & signing
October 2: One day workshop.
Contact Ruth Ann Fowler at programs@theosophical.org
The Lady’s Book of Days
New Edition, larger format, of the former “A Book of the Lady”
A special book of days gleaned from a year of Sacred Theatre participants’ writings,
exploring the possibility of creating a goddess bible: a collection
of stories, psalms, artwork, lamentations, and hymns that can be used
to express and guide our lives, as well as help to restore an awareness
of the feminine face of the divine. This little day book (for recording
important dates for years to come) is a tiny piece of the whole story,
a sprinkling of those created to reveal today’s versions of her
ever-renewing story.
[Order The Lady’s
Book of Days]
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Opening June 1, 2010
To Be and How To Be:
Transforming your life through nine powers of Sacred Theatre.
A Sacred Theatre Production, in association with Quest Books, The Theosophical Publishing House, and the Community of Sacred Players across the country. Foreword by Jean Houston. Edited by Sharron Dorr. Publicity by Xochi Adame, Wendy Jane Carrel, Author Ambassador, and Pat Heck. Title by Phillip Salazar at Publishers Group West.
Soon to be in bookstores everywhere.
Lots of Sacred Theatre friends, led by Pat Heck, are finding ways to promote it. Heaven knows it would never have been completed without the faith and courage of everyone who has ever participated in a Sacred Theatre workshop. Your enthusiasm made me believe that something of the work could make the journey from a personal experience in a seminar to written words on paper. The brilliant Sharron Dorr made the “translation” from ideas to book form.
Here's a piece from the Prologue to the book:
MAKING A PLAY
For every word an actor speaks onstage, every gesture she makes, hundreds of ideas have been tried and discarded during rehearsal. Additionally, for every person on the stage there are dozens more behind the scenes, contributing to the coherence and aliveness of the action: costumers, stage designers, builders, props makers, stage managers, lighting designers and controllers, ticket sellers, ushers, and house management staff members who make life easier for everyone in attendance. I want to acknowledge that your life also carries a huge “back story”; part of this book's purpose involves the pleasure of teasing out strands of that story and honoring all the people who have made it possible for your play to get to the stage and keep on playing.
We will accomplish this purpose in an actor's way: by asking questions and engaging fruitfully with nine forces, or powers. These nine powers underlie all theatre work and can support your life with the same energy and excitement that an actor feels before an eager audience. Each chapter describes one of these powers and provides opportunities for training with vigor and élan.
Do you remember the fundamental questions we learned in journalism class: Who? What? When? Where? How? Why? The powers of Sacred Theatre answer these questions this way:
Question One: Who?
Answer: You!
Power: Incarnation
You came into this life with purpose, determination, and delight, ready to act, enact, and react. You came prepared and able to play many roles. You are the star in your own life, and you are also a participating player in many other lives. Learning to embody this lifetime fully is one of the goals of the chapter on the Power of Incarnation.
Question Two: What are you doing?
Answer: Enacting a story
Power: Story
You are a living story, part of the immeasurably rich story of life on earth, and you can experience, remember, reinvent, and enjoy the multitude of ways you have participated profoundly in it. Finding your own essential story and tapping into the great story of Life on Earth are two actions that engage this power.
Question Three: When are you enacting this story on this stage?
Answer: In this present moment
Power: Now!
The Power of Now! offers an understanding of the strands of past and future held in this present moment and provides training in learning to flow easily with each successive fragment of time.
Question Four: Where are you enacting this story?
Answer: On the stage of life
Power: Place
The Power of Place provides you with a sacred stage composed of imagination, memory, reality, and recognition of the energy of the earth. This stage gives you the strength of belonging and the capacity to take a stand on behalf of your life.
Question Five: How are you enacting this story on this stage in this moment?
Answer: By virtue of three great creative forces
Powers: Expression, Point of View, and Conflict
1) The Power of Expression invites you to gain creativity through speech and movement so that your full body, voice, and intention are aligned and you are able to express the exact emotions or ideas needed to move forward.
2) The Power of Point of View focuses on the gift of being who you are, appreciating why you are the way you are, and valuing your unique way of seeing and doing, as well as on the ability to embrace other perspectives in order to shift and expand.
3) The Power of Conflict gives you again and again the opportunity to learn and to grow, and even to transform. No life, or play, can exist without this power, and the higher the conflict the better the play.
Question Six: Why are you doing all this?
Answer: For the love and joy of it all
Powers: Audience and Celebration
1) The Power of Audience is that of observer and attentive listener. All good plays are performed for and before an audience, for the purpose ultimately of celebrating life. Your individual play is performed for a sacred audience who witnesses and applauds your work. This power also enhances your awareness of the joy of being a member of the sacred audience in other people's plays.
2) The Power of Celebration is the payoff. It provides the enjoyment for which you, as a sacred player, are doing all this preparation. “Yes!” is the word that theatre shouts aloud. No matter how poignant, painful, or tragic the events of your story may be, life demands that you-that all of us-learn to celebrate its existence in every moment.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO HELP LAUNCH THE BOOK, PLEASE EMAIL ME AT PEGRUB@AOL.COM. YOU MIGHT OFFER TO WRITE COMMENTS ABOUT SACRED THEATRE, OFFER TO REVIEW THE BOOK, OR GET THE WORD OUT TO YOUR FRIENDS.
The Lady’s Year of Joy, a calendar of slow and easy days
 Some years ago, this gift of the goddess arrived with directions about a Ninefold Path that brings, finds, celebrates, enhances and strengthens Joy. The year consists of nine months, each named for a step on the Ninefold Path, and each with 40 days. It is perennial; that is, not tied to any particular year. Each month is divided into four weeks of ten days each, and each week is devoted to one of the elements, Earth, Water, Fire, and Air.
For example, in the traditional calendar, I am writing on January 13. In the Joy Calendar, this is the month of Joyful Sourcing and Re-sourcing, and this is the third day of the week of finding myself sourced in joy through experiences of water—drinking water, bathing in it, feeling the crunch of ice under my feet, lifting my face to the rainfall, watching the clouds for snow—every touch of water reminds me of joy and the ever-flowing fountains that are sources of joy.
I use the calendar to remind myself to practice joy. One friend keeps a Joy Diary based on the Calendar; she records an image from each day that brought her special joy and touched her with its blessings. Another keeps it at her desk to remind her of the path of joy; she finds that embracing such a path releases stress and slows things down long enough for her to remember to appreciate the mystery and miracle of life.
A version of the calendar is available to you through our STORE.
“I dream of travel”
Sacred Theatre Trips
2010 traveling will be with Jean Houston on a return to the magic and mystery of Egypt April 24 - May 9. The theme is Initiation along the Nile. Click here for more details: [TRIPS]
Speaking of Travel
 If you or your friends are planning a visit to Sicily and Malta, Turkey, or Ireland, the books prepared by Sacred Players for the Sacred Theatre journeys to those countries are available, and can be downloaded in PDF form through our STORE. The books contain stories about the areas of travel, mythic underpinnings for the land itself, poetry and daily readings to evoke deeper spiritual awareness of the worlds one is traveling through, room for sketches and notes and more. Not your traditional travel guide; but especially evocative for someone who wants to see more than is available at the surface, and who wants to know more about the forces emanating from the Divine Feminine throughout her world. [STORE]
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