This is the second lecture and in fact, it is a session titled in conversation with Richard Schechner. Let me first of all explain why I have placed this conversation in the second lecture of module 1, before starting the step by step discussion of ideas. It seemed right to place it in the beginning because of the key concerns of the course that have been articulated in this conversation. As perhaps you will slowly discover, the central urge in shaping this course is related to the search for the totality of our being. Very often, we become consumers of meaning rather than their creators. Through various critical and creative ideas, we would like to make a difference in this regard. As you listen to this conversation, you will notice that it revolves around reading, writing, performance in the context of the globalized world. In my view, this is a fitting start to the first module because it sets the tone for our own explorations. You may want to come back to this session after our discussion of many related issues in the other modules. The video course allows for this movement back and forth and we have taken advantage of it. My conversation with Richard Schechner has been recorded in New York University campus with help from Professor Satya Talwar, my husband and IIT colleague. Let me introduce you to Professor Schechner. Schechner is an eminent theatre director based in New York. He has been a noted presence as a professor of performance studies in Tisch School, New York University and he is widely seen as the founder of performance studies as an academic discipline. Through his untiring effort, he has supported dialogue on theatre and performance across various countries and cultures. He has argued for thinking of performance as an all-encompassing term with theatre as one of its categories. He has also been the editor of the prestigious journal, The Drama Review, which gave a platform for challenging prevailing restrictive ideas about theatre and performance. For a fuller introduction to his outstanding contributions, we would like you to check out the website that we have mentioned. You can actually check out many other websites if you get interested in Professor Schechner's ideas and his work. My conversation with Professor Schechner actually started way back in the 80s and it covered many, many cultural issues pertaining to writing and performance processes. Professor Schechner is a great listener forever ready to share his viewpoint. At the outset, I would like to thank him for sharing his ideas and concerns with us for this video course. It may be pointed out that Professor Schechner has spent a lot of time in India and for those who are familiar with his directorial adventures, which also actually has been a very, very important part of the counterculture of the 60s in the United States. His work on Ramleela of Ramnagar may seem anachronistic, but then globalization has thrown up many unpredictable areas of search and artistic combinations. In my conversation with Professor Schechner, range of issues have been raised by me keeping in mind their relevance for this video course. The resonances of these concerns will be palpable as you move on with the course material. Do take notes, undertake required reading and then examine the ideas critically. We would recommend follow up on the resources that have been identified by Professor Schechner to extend your artistic and intellectual horizons. So, now here is the session with Professor Richard Schechner. Alright, well, okay, so I think the performance has a broad spectrum of behavior. And if you think of it as a rainbow, a big art, you have on one side ritual, that's one foundation, and on the other side you have play, that's another foundation. In between ritual and play is this large art. It includes things of course like theater and dance and music, what we call the aesthetic performance job. It also includes things like classroom teaching, or a video game, or all different kinds of play, popular entertainments, film, performances in everyday life, such as when someone goes to an interview for a business, where you have to play a role of being somebody that the person who is offering the job wants to have work with them, or if you go out on a date and you're meeting someone of the opposite gender and you want to look nice and be good for them, so you are performing a role.  If you're a woman, you might put on some makeup to make sure your hair is good, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. We all know that those roles are intense and to some degree temporary. As you get to know the person better, you kind of drop those things. Sometimes people are quite surprised. Oh, that's the way you really look.  I don't think it's true that that's not the way people really are. People really are different under different circumstances. So you have play, games, sports, popular entertainment, performance in everyday life, everyday rituals, everyday ritual would be, what do you do when you get up in the morning? How do you walk your hands? How do you prepare yourself for the day? But then there's secular rituals, like when a president or a prime minister gets inaugurated, it begins office, there's also kind of ceremonies. When there are military parades in ball games, there are rituals that surround the beginnings and end into the ball games. The Olympics are full of rituals, because the winning athlete stands and then the gold medal stands up and the silver medal next to the bronze, the flags are ready, the national anthems are played, and of course there's religious rituals in Dupuja, or the service in a mosque, the five times a day called a prayer, or the prayers in a Jewish synagogue or a Christian church, and also some of the religions of humanity that are not the main great religions, things that are practiced in Australia, in Native America, in Africa, different kinds of religions, they're all full of rituals which are organized behaviors in which we are not exactly ourselves. So I would say performance is when I am not myself, but I am not not myself, I am somewhere between myself and someone who is not, and I play back and forth among these, even an actor in a film or in a theater piece, when the director says stop, they just become another person. When they say go, they become the person that they are. So we're very well trained from early on to perform these various roles, some of them we perform professionally and underline and point out now I am playing a role, and some of them are quite unconscious. I am sure students will have a lot to think about. Can I turn my attention to your work as a teacher? Sure. And what has been particularly interesting to us, when you talk about it during the course of the three discussions, is the fact that you went back to Seattle for your experimental work also, and you talked about the kind of vision that gives you this plus the fact that you've done vows and you've also done just being in this case, would you sort of give a sentence of what goes to those resources? Well, of course I was attracted to the Greek tragedies when I was a very, very young man. The first thing I ever published in this commonly journal was an essay about Gryffindys Vachy, which I later made that play into Dionysus in 69, a very famous experimental performance. Ten years before that play I was, that production I was writing about it. There are two reasons really that I was drawn to the Greek. One is historical and one is thematic. The historical reason is that it's probably the earliest formal theatre we have in the world. I mean, it's earlier than Kallidasa and the Sanskrit drama. So we don't know, there might be something else discovered, but it's like 2,500 years ago and they were fully developed plays. So being in the theatre I want to say what were the first plays that we know as fully developed. But there's a Greek myth that Venus is born fully grown from the head of Zeus. So these dramas are like great. So they may be very early, but they don't in any sense seem primitive or unformed. They seem like they're fabulous. They're finished and they involve the whole community through the chorus, but they also tell fabulous stories.  I mean, you just sense, still sense, thrills up and down my spine to realize that I am guilty of the crime I am seeking to find the guilty one for. And the Greek tragedies also deal with people who are not evil. I mean, in some sense, in Shakespearean, I'll get there, Shakespeare deals with good people and bad people. In Greek tragedy, almost everyone is good, and they clash on their goodness. And that's what happens in our actual life. It's not that we're so bad most of the time. There are great villains in the world, of course. Most ordinary people are not bad. But when they clash, when two pushies clash, when you have to decide between, am I going to side with my child on this or with my spouse on this? And I see both sides, but I have to decide, and one is going to be very angry with me. What do I do? I love both of them. So, Greek tragedy raises those questions. Shakespearean raises... I went to Shakespeare because I am a native born English speaker. So, if the Greeks were the earliest plays in world theater, the earliest plays in my Western tradition, then Shakespeare is the greatest writer in my language. And to be in the theater and not confront and deal with the greatest writer in your language, I mean, it just doesn't make sense. And also, the great thing about Shakespeare is he's free. You know, you could just go online, and you don't have to pay any money to read these plays. You have to pay money even to go into a great museum. So, you have to pay a little bit of money to see the Mona Lisa. You don't have to pay a rupee to see and to read Shakespeare. So, why everybody doesn't read Shakespeare? I don't know. He's a great storyteller. He has great characters with both comic and tragic. I've been particularly fascinated with Hamlet, and I've done three versions of Hamlet, what most recently called Imagine, mostly about the philia. So, I get involved in these plays. And the other plays as well, the Faust story, the story of power, and Marlon's Faustus, Dr. Faustus, was a great play. I've also been very drawn to modern playwrights, like Chekhov and Brett especially. Now, I know Brett is very important in India. At least he was when I was there, because he's a playwright, first of all, who draws on Asian performance traditions, not necessarily Indian, more Chinese, but certain qualities of performance that are non-European, that are Asian, namely that the character and the player stand next to each other. They don't merge. In realism, they merge. In brettian theater and in Chinese opera, perhaps in jatra and some other traditional forms in India, the character and the actor stand and comment on each other. And Brett also has a highly developed social sense, and the sense of justice and social justice, and he writes great dialogues and finds stories as well. Both tragic and comic at the same time. I've directed Mother's Courage of Children, which is a tragic story, has some kind of element to it, is a tragic story. But then there are other plays, like The Good Woman of Sichuan or Caucasian Truck Circle, which, you know, explore, again, these human dilemmas. So I also am attracted to drama as such. The theater, because it's about behavior. I am not an artist. I'm not a reflective artist so much. I mean, I do drawings and I know books, but I'm not a visual artist. I have to put down on paper and make it still. I like the paper. So being a person who's interested in the paper, I'd be glad to see it or film it. Let's go to your work in India. Okay. I know we've set a vast area of concern. But in retrospect, since you've interacted a lot with Indian and other practitioners studying around India, in retrospect, you have a few comments from the kind of value to a sign in the cultural world. Right. Especially, you know, because of this whole positive sense of organization. Right. Well, it's a very topical expression. Let me just review briefly my experiences in India. I came to India first in October 1971. I'm sure that's before every one of the students, probably before their parents were born, not only before they were born. And I came there, and it was my first time that I was outside of the European-American spirit. And so I was very shocked in a good sense. It was just different. But I stayed in India at that time for four months. And during those four months, I really saw a great deal of particularly funk and classical performance because I was fortunate enough to meet the very first week I was there. I met Suresh Abasthi, who at that point was the secretary of the Songheed Natak Academy. And we took to each other. We liked each other very much. And Suresh said, he said, what do you want to do here? And I said, well, I'm not so interested in the Taj Mahal or the Jaipur palaces. I mean, it doesn't, it's okay. But I can see them in a picture. I'm not interested. I want to see behavior. I want to see performances. He says, good. I will make letters to all these people. So under his tutelage, I saw Jatra and Chao. And of course Bharat Natyam and Kuchapuri and the Katak, the classic dances. And I saw a temporary theater and Pan Bhattara Theater in all regions of India. So I traveled as far north and west as Kashmir and as far south as Kanyakumari and I hit all of the great cities. I was in Kolkata. I was in Chennai when it was called Latras. I was in Kerala, of course, which I returned to. I was in Bombay when it was called Mumbai. And so I saw performances there. And I learned about India several things in that first trip, that it is at one level a unified culture and at another level many, many, many different cultures. So in a certain sense, India is a model of its own globalization. Let's put it that way. India is not India. And it was probably even more so before the partition between India and Pakistan. The final months that I was there, I was in Kolkata and it was the time of the Indo-Pac war and the liberation of Bangladesh where Bangladesh became independent. And I got very involved in the politics of that war actually as I protested the presence of the American Fifth Fleet, I think it was, there to support Pakistan. And I was in the liberation of Bangladesh where it was independent of Bangladesh. So I was involved in Indian society and culture at several levels. After that, I returned to India many times. I saw and continued to study Ramlila but not all Ramlila. There's particularly the Ramlila of Ramnagar which is right in front of the docks of Ramnagar, it's in Karanasi. And I've lived there and I've lived in India for as long as 11 months in a stretch and the last time I was in India's family a year ago when I was at a conference in the Karanasi. And also I directed Cherry Kavakicha, which is Cherry Orchard at the professional repertory company in that Indian drama. And then I brought mother carriage and her children which was, well, actually I did mother carriage earlier, which was the introduction we did here in New York to India. And we toured it to Bhopal and Moksnow and Calcutta and Bombay and Delhi and a small village near Calcutta, Sinjol and again, Avasti was very helpful in that. So were many, many people and actually the end of this week Nisar and Amal Alana are going to be my house guests. So I have very close friends and Nisar designed the set and Amal the costumes for Cherry Kavakicha she's the head of the National School of Drama her father was Andrea Al-Ghazi who started the National School of Drama so I'm very deeply enmeshed in all of that. And in terms of globalization you know I probably don't have politically correct report but my viewpoint is that ultimately at our root we are all one one single genetically speaking whoever they were was very few people in Africa and then we look at these trees in this garden is one root and then look at that leaf over there. So they're very, very different but at root they're the same. So at one level I feel that globalization is a return to a certain kind of root it's a return to the difficult proper recognition that we're one species. At the same time we don't want all of them to say the least. So the problem with globalization, there are two problems with globalization or let's say challenges. One is that is the classical of to not be exploited colonial exploitation exists or existed and global exploitation existed. So does national and local exploitation. Exploitation unfortunately cannot be localized among one group or one system. It seems that human beings do take advantage of each other and there are generous human beings and they're selfish ones and people act generously and don't do what they act selfishly. So to accomplish the collaboration of globalization without the exploitation of one past human being the other problem is this level you don't want to make the whole world a plug transplans in the airport with all these the same brands the same clothes, the same language and so on. So I feel we need to find some way to not to get over the national phase I do think that the national phase of human history has caused a lot of bloodshed just like the intensely religious phase has caused a lot of bloodshed. So to perhaps keep nations, perhaps keep religions but not to kill over them and we have to if you look straight in the face more blood has been spilled because people say you believe the wrong thing or you're in the wrong place or any other cause or maybe disease is an equal cause but disease we make progress about we have 6 billion people on the earth now instead of 2 billion because we've conquered some diseases but we haven't conquered our wish for power we haven't conquered or so globalization which features trade and cooperation at one level is I think in balance from my point of view a good thing if it could be made and again I think of India as a model I'm all for Hinduism but I'm not for Hinduism I'm all for Islam but I'm not for Sharia in other words it's a question of a certain kind of balance so whatever you want to call it so my view is that over the third thing is that globalization is not moving away it's not going to be just like Luddites in the 19th century said get rid of the machine well that was nice and maybe a few people could go and live on our farm but we're surrounded by machines we're not going to get rid of genetic engineering we're not going to get rid of globalization we're not going to get rid of world trade we're not going to get rid of that iPad you're holding in your hand which is conceived in California manufacturing in Shenzhen China and Seoul wherever so that even though somebody may be opposed to globalization we're always participating in it I don't know where this shirt was made but it wasn't made where we're sitting I don't even know where your clothes were made but possibly in India which is a great place to make clothes but possibly in Cambodia or Thailand or somewhere so it's not going to go away so the question then is how to make it serve human justice how to make it serve all right I have two questions one is not any new experiment in the form that students should see especially in the face of with science and technology well yes but I don't know they should go on a website run by a group an American group called Builders Association and in GDR we have a big interview with them I did an interview with their some of their artists including Mariah Weems who is their artistic director and they work very very closely with the most advanced digital technology and and performance and one of their pieces which is well documented is called Aladdin I don't know and it features actually people in this theater here making calls to India and talking so it's both live and media at the same time and they have others about the recreation of jet airliners and those experiences they're very much dealing with the very very contemporary media revolution that means that people sit in Bangalore answer the phone pretending to be American thinking of performance in other words they cannot have a British Indian accent they're supposed to sound like American and they say hi my name is Tom well their name may be Satya or their name may be Guruji or whatever their name is not Tom but since they're dealing with people who will be more comfortable with people who are like themselves they say that now I assume that if an Indian caller calls they say hello my name is Satya in other words the idea is to be like the caller so this group deals with these not only this they do a whole series of performances that technology group speaking then there's a group called the critical art ensemble CAE again my journal CDR writes about them and they deal with genetic engineering and recombinant DNA from a performative point of view they both are very critical of it and they examine it and they play with it then there's another group called the yes man I don't know if you know the yes man so the yes man is a performance group that kind of pushes the great corporations to own up to some of their crimes so for example this one will be of interest to people in India Union Carbide owned the plant that gave off the poisonous gases in Popao about 10 years ago so killed thousands of people and they've never never paid the relatives of these victims of what they should have and they've never really acknowledged that they've committed a great crime even if it was accidental it wasn't a crime of meaning to commit a crime but some crimes like edifices are unintentional so the yes man pretend to be Union Carbide so they went on television and said hello we are the CEO of Human Carbide they dress up and they tell me something and we are saying to the people of Popao we are apologizing to you and we are distributing 5 million dollars and of course the next day Union Carbide has to go on television and say they are not really us we are not giving any money and so they are exposed so the yes man is a group that you really have to look at so those are three critical art examples of builders association and yes man that I would think that the students are interested in this new kind of performance by far to look at Hi, my name is Richard and you share with us your favorite something like this about the business well right there's not going to be again my favorite I don't expect you on reading at the present moment I've gone back to some old writers so at the present moment I'm reading Dickens and I've never read Dickens since I was in high school I didn't read him then so now I've read David Copperfield Great Expectations and Bleak House and The Tale of Two Cities I like him as a storyteller so he would not be one of my great writers I think but he's pretty good and then I also read Virgil's Aeneid which is an ancient story roughly at the same time that the Ramayana was being written about the fall of Troy and the establishment of Rome but if you ask me in terms of contemporary writers short story writer I like very much is Flannery O'Connor who is very very good she's not contemporaries three generations ago but she's very good then there's Paul Oster who is contemporary and I've worked with Paul in the theatres his work is very good of classic people classics of the European novel of Flaubert and Zdendal and Tolstoy I like Wintergross and some of his work there's a new writer called Jeremy Latham I like there's Panuk wrote Snow or Panuk I like Salman Rushdie you know I'm not so different than most people my real field is not literature so I read for pleasure I don't read when I read the drama or when I go to the theatre I'm doing it for pleasure it's also a professional when I think of a novel it's simply because I want to read something I've also read some non-fiction that I recommend Steven Pinker who's a Harvard psychologist who wrote The Better Angels of Our Nature about violence and The Divine about it it's a very significant book I don't know if you know this book and I think it's a very interesting book one of the few books is it changed my way of thinking so when I was talking about globalization I was thinking of his five reasons why violence is relatively declined and he gives these reasons of feminization and global trade and democratization I think it's a very powerful book I do so much goodbye


So it's been raining cats and dogs in Southern California. It has not stopped. A lot of water out here. Just take a look behind me. This intersection. It's supposed to be raining all week. So I haven't had a chance to get out and skate. Not that I could anyway, because it's been raining so much. If I haven't mentioned it yet, it's raining in Southern California.  Before I jump into this video, I wanna give Evening Mob a quick shout out. If you haven't checked out eveningmob.com yet, go and check it out. Oh my, how do I know my kids? I made the T-shirts and hoodies myself like I screen printed them. So head on over, go and check it out. Join the mob today. Basically, I have some footage from an old hard drive that I found. And it's a little trip down memory lane. So right now we're gonna watch this footage and I'm going to reminisce and react to some footage from a few years ago. So here we go guys. This first clip is back at the slab. Nice backside 580 180 out. Look how green it is there. I never noticed how green Australia was. I think this is a barrel here. This is a barrel. How's that outfit, guys? I'm pretty sure I called out a work this day to go skate, which is, it was a fun day. I had fun. I can't remember the name of this plaza, but it's a fun plaza. There's me and Leon going back to back on a couple of lips. I did front lip, he did back lip. I think this is just a normal backboard. I think Leon shot this footage. It's all like sitting. This is a frontboard. If you know the name of this plaza, please let me know. I can't remember. It's in Sydney on the outside of the bridge. Picton, Appen, Skate Park, I'm sorry. Frontboard to a front Smith. I'm pretty sure this is in Appen, not Picton. Appen, New South Wales. Who do we have here? Mr. Benjamin Watts. I'm pretty sure he did a tray down this set. This dude skates so good. He skates really, really well. Shouts out to Wattsy. I think he gets it this go. Yeah, there it is. Textbook tray to a nice set of stairs that Picton, Appen, Skate Park. Oh my God, Appen, Skate Park. Still at Appen. Front lip, of course. These were fun days with the crew. We would just go and skate out as a crew, hit a few parks, and yeah, I miss those days. I miss you guys a lot. Wish I could come down and skate with you guys again and have days out like this. I don't understand how I got here from my front tail.  Here's me with a really poor front side 270 over the hip. I think, did I get it clean on? No. I think I gave up. Whoa. It's Xander. Shouts out Xander. Here's me trying it backside. Geez. Some, I can't turn my shoulders for some reason. What happened to Shorts? What happened to Mr. Enoch's? Right here. What's this park in Wollongong called Berkeley? Pretty sure it's called Berkeley, next to the lake there. Lake Illawarra, Shouts out Lake Illawarra, PCYC. Yeah, this was a fun, fun smith. I've done this in the past before and done it really well, and I tried to do it again, but I could only get a 280, and it was like that. So it was pretty sloppy. Beto Bay, is this Beto Bay? I don't know where this is. It's somewhere up the coast. It's somewhere where we have a Carl's Jr. in Australia. I can't remember the name of this place, but how sloppy was that cage running, honestly? I think I had a few shots of trying to get this line. I wasn't going fast enough. I just, yeah. This, all this footage goes to show how timid I can be at skateboarding. I'm not going to say that I used to be, because I know I can still be super timid at skating, and I wish I had more conviction behind my skating, and I wish I skated more staunchly, if that's a word, staunchly, urban dictionary staunch. Nice bail on a frontside disaster there. Yeah, I just wish I could skate harder and faster. Maybe I'm going to try to make that my goal for this year, skate harder, skate faster. Classic front board on the out rail there. Classic front lip on the out rail there. There's Leon with a big back lip to shove it out. Front Smith, of course. I need to learn some new tricks, honestly. Here's Wotsy again with a nice back Smith. Yeah, I need to learn some new tricks. Leon again, bang, textbook back lip. This dude is really impressive at skating, because he's like six foot three, probably weighs like a hundred kilos, and he still manages to throw himself around very athletically. Where's this next clip again? I don't remember the name of this skate park, but it's fun as a marble ledge. There's this ibis bird that kept kind of walking around the park. It was just doing its own thing. It did not care about people skating. What is the name of this skate park? I can't believe I've been out of Sydney this long, whereas I can't remember the name of the parks. Feeble. See, I used to be able to feeble pretty well, but I sucked and then I learned Feebles again. So you can relearn and forget tricks and learn them again over and over again, I think. Front Smith, of course. Sounds a pop out of that backside Fuego. That was a pretty cool back Fuego. Barely popped out of that. I pretty much rolled out of that front Smith. Front Feeble. See, I could front Feeble back in the day. I can't do it now. It's like another trick I need to learn to do. Here we go, Jared Rees. Shots out Reesi. I'm pretty sure. Yeah, I'm feeling this clip. Dang, kickflip guard. He did a backside 50 kickflip guard. I'm pretty sure I got the nip in here. He's Leon with a nice backflip. That's a long backflip, too. What does he do now? Backflip. Oh, he wanted to make it better, I guess. Maybe I got the cleats backwards, I don't know. That's Leon there blocking my shot of this out ledge. This is such a fun park, I wish I remember the name of it. Front Fuego to 180 out. Shots out to Leon. I'm pretty sure I landed this one. No, that one was lame. How's the blonde hair, hey? I don't know how I, yeah, it was definitely a look. Ha, ha, ha. There it is. That's the one I was after. That's that ibis bird again. I think we fed it. We all got lunch together, and then I fed this bird. Or someone fed this bird. I think Coupe fed it by hand. I chucked it a chip. There, I see there. It's going to take a little bit of a chip from Coupe. I don't get these birds beaks. He was fine. Look at the mullet on it. It seems like it'd be so hard to eat these if you'd be because they're long. I've got a mullet, man. Like a middle-aged bred. I don't know if we'll take this in the United States. This was a fun spot under the bridge next to the wall over there, Benjamin Watzie. How Watzie skates? He's fast and committed. It's like, you know, it's like on it. I skate too timidly, and I need to change that. But yeah, this was a really cool line. I thought, and there's water down there. So people's boards and stuff had fallen in. No one's board fell in this day. But yeah, this is probably my favorite CD tip. It was just that manual because of the sunset and the water looked really cool. Pretty sure this is holds where the car park. I wish I could do these flip tricks that clean still. This park, Cornell. Look at Sydney in the background, honestly. Sydney skyline in the background there. How picturesque. This was another really fun day out skating with the crew. Pretty sure I did wally to frontboard on this flat bar because I did wally to feeble. Just earlier you seen in that clip. This was the last time I was able to do a front blunt. Now it's the outfit. I think I still have this shirt. I'm gonna start wearing it again. And I wish I could still skate in high top cons like that. But after my injury with my ankle, I feel like for some reason where I tie the high top cons up on my ankle, it puts pressure and it hurts. So yeah, that was all the clips I could find. I swear there was more, but maybe there isn't. I don't know. Hopefully you guys enjoyed this video. I'm sorry it hasn't been like, oh we're out skating and it's Southern California and everyone's skating. It's literally raining right now. Like there's a pool in the backyard I can see. It's probably like a foot and a half deep. Everywhere's flooded. Cheers for watching if you've watched the video. Check out eveningmob.com. Pick something up. So that it guys. Hopefully see you guys in the next video.


Mu mazo mazo mazo mazo mazo Imωnumibolo. Tōkame de kāne. wa maizumaza wa maizumaza moa kanizia maizumaza maizumaza maizumaza maizumaza Adu wasi, kwa wagesfohili wasi amusibu kwa maanigia kwa Afrika. Kama maheni Mwa kwa maheni Afrika kwa Wanilia kwa miviko maheni. Tama maheni Apoi yaunia kwa wazima. Izumisha kwa maheni nanuek chaweja. Nikqaw kwa maheni na manisha kwa maheni. Zostmumisha na Mpa Kenwa Umi. Mwazifu kwa mprincha hakunama. in its story about the lion kingdom in the fictional pride lands of Africa. The phrase has actually been trademarked by Disney Corporation, which caused no small amount of furore by some supporters and speakers of the Kiswahili language. Even though it's not grammatically correct, it is not correct for a company to trademark our language or our culture, our inheritance and say it's theirs. Today it will be these two words that maybe don't make sense to us, but that's to them. Tomorrow it will be something else. Spoken by over 100 million people in East and Central Africa, it's one of the official languages of the African Union, and there's talk of making it a language spoken by all Africans. South Africa has recently adopted it into its curriculum. I go to conferences with fellow sisters from Africa. We speak French, we speak English, we speak and there's nothing that unites us also as Africans. So our children need that also to have a common identity with what is predominantly an African language, which is Kiswahili. While there are fears that factors like globalization are affecting many languages across the world, Swahili seems to be taking a different stride towards uniting a continent and perhaps becoming a Pan-African language. Salim Kikeke, BBC News, London.  It's Ibo from Niger. My mum actually has it going me a lot of the times because I don't really speak it that much. You don't speak it much? No. You should. I know that's true. That's what part of me chairs on Mimi. Asante Sofi, the very few words in Swahili that I know.


Mastering the art of wood carving takes a lot of skill, and the annual Black Duck Woodcarver's Festival has been finding the best at it for years now. Our own Cheryl Moore has that story, and this week's in focus. For more than 30 years, Woodlivers have traveled all over the country to Black Duck to check out the ultimate one-stop shop for everything pine, cherry, or oak. The festival has come a long way over the decades, and now features a lot more than just wood. Within a couple three years, the arts and crafts start joined in, and it became more of a community event, and it became a bigger event. We do a lot of shows down in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida. Just very friendly people here, very down to earth. Woodcarvers are hard to come by nowadays, so this show gives those in the field their chance to shine. For many, the journey started with a love for drawing and a little whittling. I love wood. I love the grains of wood, and I have an art background, and so being that my mom and dad had all the tools and the paints and everything, I decided to do it. I started carving in high school by hand with a chisel, and I was always interested in it, so I took pictures of everybody's carvings.  Woodcarving is a is a dimensional art. It's totally different than, and wood carving you'll see in Tarja. Many carvers will tell you it's more than just poking up a block of wood and then going at it with a chainsaw. So I'm like to draw their image on the wood and then make the right cuts. Yeah, a lot of people draw a picture first, like three-dimensional, so they know which side to go. You can actually draw on the wood, so you know where you want the ears and the arms, which helps a lot I think. If this story has you thinking about picking up a saw and finding a stump to practice on, the first rule is always be safe. The second rule is try and try again until you succeed. If you enjoy doing crafts and art, that what you could do is just start on your own and draw and just whittle things, and pretty soon if you start enjoying it, you get to see what happens with the wood, because everything that's in a piece of wood has something there that needs to be found. Reporting in Black Duck with this week's In Focus, Cheryl Moore, Lakeland News. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.


...adventures in time and space, transcribed in future and end. The National Broadcasting Company, in cooperation with Street and Smith, publishers of astounding science fiction, brings you Dimension X. High hill in Samoa, there is a grave inscribed on the marker of these words. Under the wide and starry sky did Mike me lie. Gladly did I live and gladly die, and I lay me down with a will. This be the verse you graved from me. Here he lies very long to be. Home is the sailor, home from the sea, and the hunter, home from the hill. These lines appear another place. Scrawled on a shipping tag from a compressed air container, and pinned to the ground with a knife. It wasn't much of a fair as fairs go. The trotting races wouldn't be held till eight o'clock at night. The flags and bunting grouped in the grey afternoon, and the pitchmen seemed discouraged.  I'm getting out. But the board meeting, sir, is your due in Kansas City at four. You think I need another $5 gold piece? Oh, no, sir. You trying to tell me what to do? No, sir. Of course not, sir. Then get this compounded buffalo roll off my back.  Just a minute, sir. I'll help you. There you go. Of course, sir. Did they watch your head on the door? No, sir. I'm sorry, sir. Yeah. That's the ship. We're off to the little club. Single jet type, professional mid-riff controls. Stay here, Henry. I'm going over. I wouldn't risk a nickel to see the sun blow up. Okay, sir. Would you take a positive in this trip? $5. That's right. Yes, sir, right away. Charlie, step this way, sir.  How things, man? Slow. We're not drawing as much of a coot stand. We'll pick up tonight with the chargers. Well, I'm ready, doctor. Cardiac condition, and I couldn't certify him. Sorry. You mean he won't take me up? He's the doctor. I couldn't even guarantee you'd live through the take-off. It's not only a bad heart, but with heavy acceleration, your whole circulatory system would be in danger. And at your age, bones are brittle, highly calcified. You can snap one on the take-off. And stop. After your flight? Dinner? At my home. My car is over there. You okay? Yes. You serious, Mac? You want Charlie and me for dinner? Oh, he is. Okay, okay. I don't see why not. You have been making dinner. Any cigar? Thanks. Yes, thanks. It is hard for me to see why any holder of a master's ticket would put the Earth's moon running. I didn't like it. Yeah, yeah. Don't hand us that. It was rude. No, I took a few drinks. I could have squared that. Too many regulations. Let's take. Yeah. Would it help you to get back to the moon? Sure. I could get a short haul job hopping on. If I kept my nose clean, I might even get back on the run. Yes, and would you be open to the business proposition? What is it? Do you own your rocket? Barring a couple of wings. I want a charter there to take me to the moon. What? You hear what he said, Mac? He wants just to fly that old heap to the moon. Oh, no. I can't do it. The old boats weren't out. We don't even use standard fuel. Just gasoline and liquid air. Why don't you bribe a couple of company medics? You've been done before. No, I know. That's not for me. I'm Dee Dee Harriman. Harriman? Why? You own the company. I own a large percentage of the company, but the other directors won't permit me to jeopardize the franchise. Can you tie that, Mac? A guy with half the money in the world. And he's up the creek.  He's right. Well, Captain, it's against the law. I'd make it worth your while. Sure, I would, Mac. Dee Dee Harriman. He'd make it worth our while. Oh, you're not kidding. Why do you want to go to the moon so badly, Mr. Harriman? It's the one thing I've really wanted to do all my life. I'm maybe 50 years older than you are. When I was a kid, nobody believed we'd really reached the moon. You've seen rockets all your lives, but when I was a boy, they laughed at the idea. But I believed. I wanted the moon to move. I used to stand in the backyard to stare. The moon? Why don't people fly to the moon? Oh, they can. Why not? They can't. Not now, anyway. Someday I will, Porter. Fly to the moon. Sure, sure. Come on, Nardell. Inside, way past your bedtime. I wanted to go to college. Engineering. Then the University of Chicago, then Yorkie's Observatory. That's what I wanted. But I didn't get it. Dad and I wanted you to go to college. We planned it. We saved for it. But with your dad gone and the girls growing up, I just can't manage it. The insurance won't cover us, and it's getting harder to make ends meet. You've been a good boy, Dell, and worked hard to make out. You'll understand. And I worked. Stock boy at the old Ford Plant in Detroit. Accountant. Credit manager for a mail order house in then New York. Rolls Street. And then transportation. The monorail line between New York and Chicago. The Atlantic Pressure Tunnel. And then Charlemann Rockets. Dell. Dell, I want to talk to you. Am I working, shall I? You talk to me now, Dell, or you may not get another chance. What is it? Fedlock with you. You've sold out again? I run the business, shall I? Dell, I'm fed up. I've got to hear it. I married you because I love you.  No, what is it, shall I? We're not long into going down. I'm tired. I'm not asking for millions, just a little life for the two of us. Oh, pull the money out, huh? I know you will. Twenty hours a day on benzene to stay awake and kneel, barbatone to sleep. Oh, Dell, I can't stop you from doing this to yourself, but I won't let you do it to me. I didn't know about the divorce for a month. I lost the papers under a stack of blueprints and stopped the specters. Here's the news, Lassdell. Stratto Rocket reaches Paris. We've got the franchise lined up. The House Committee is solid. The Federal Rocket Commission is okay. Thanks. Step is the moon. I'm not sure. Look, Dell, if we cut the freight rate on the tunnel, we could... I'm serious, Fred. The next step is the moon. Dell, you've been riding that joke for years. It's no joke, Fred. I've signed a $4 million research contract with National Fish and Co. and guaranteed the next two years' output of the Brookhaven Atomic Energy Institute. Dell, you couldn't.  You can't do that on your own initiative. I have, and the board will back me up. Fred, we're going to the moon. We've got fraudulent bankruptcies and an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission before we did it. There were three injunctions on the rocket before it blasted off. I was going on the second trip, but my considerate board served a court order on me. You can't go, Dell. Fred, I'll break you if it's the last thing... Hey, you've got a bad heart. That's no secret.  We've got an equity in this corporation, and you've protected it. You've sucked us in on this wild scheme, and now that it's paid off, you're going to sit right down here on Earth and see that the dividends come out on time. You're not going to the moon, Dell. Forget it. By the time my lawyers shook off the restraining orders, the first cargo rocket had crashed into the Pacific, and Congress rushed through the Space Precautionary Act. My heart was Earthbound, but now I'm moved. I will not die until I have set foot on the moon. Yeah, Captain McIntyre. You ask why I want to go to the moon? Well? You'll find a ship, Mr. Harriman. I'll drive it. You'll get to the moon. You heard me. Sell out my holdings. I want every share I own, realized in cash as soon as possible. But it'll depress the markets, or you won't realize the full value of your holdings. Don't you think I know that? I was juggling stock before you were born. I can afford to take the loss. Yes, sir. Mr. Harriman, there are two men outside. Who are they? Captain McIntyre and Mr. Schwartz. We'll send them in, Henry. What are you waiting for? Yes, of course. This way, gentlemen. Mr. Harriman. Captain McIntyre, glad to see you. And Mr. Schwartz, come right in. You weren't kidding about that job for us, were you? Certainly not. You're not backing out on me, are you? No, no, we need the job. Yeah. Our ship is lying in the middle of the Osage River, with a jet split open like a herring.  Friends and bruises, that's all. We jumped. I caught a catfish with my bare teeth. It's all right. Then we can get down to business. I'll have contracts drawn up for you. You two will have to buy me a ship. I can't do it openly. My dear board of directors will find out and slap a poor order on me. But, uh, we can't get credit. Don't worry. I'll supply the cash in advance. Take some ship that can be fitted for the job. Uh, straddle you out. Uh, move to a piece of desert. I'll find a strip and buy it. You mean fit her out there? Yes, we'll install extra fume tanks, change the injectors and timers for space flight. Spend all the money you want. I'll see that you get it. 132 shares of Apex holding at 60% of par. Jag. 52 prefer spaceways fuel, 50% of par. Jag. And that is the list. Uh, Mr. Harman is a process server outside. What is it? I don't know, sir, but I think it's a subpoena. I was expecting that. Henry, get Mr. Kammons on the phone. Yes, sir. I think it's time for my lawyer. Presenting Mr. Harman's relative, confirmed that his behavior for the past few hands ought to be there. That the petitioners believe that my client should conduct his affairs as to ensure that his nephew's missing will be supported in... Until tomorrow. Which way is the cat going to jump? Uh, Judge Embry is a strange one now. He assured me he has a higher regard for personal liberty and then added that any action he took would be in your interest. But he did say that men do become senile and must be protected. Senile? He might rule against me. Yes, sir. He might. An eccentric millionaire disappeared. Are you eccentric, Mr. Harman? Well, they used to call me crazy. It depends on your credit rate. A bench warrant under contempt proceeding has been issued. They won't find me out here. How's the work going, Charlie? Well, my ends are pretty good, shape. We finished the second pressure test on the new tanks and fuel lines today. The ground tests are all done except the calibrations. Take about four hours unless I run into bugs. How about supplies? Food and water on board, food, spare, service kit. I'm short navigation equipment, but give me a second and I'll get you down on the moon at any spot you need. Just from a general knowledge of relevant speeds and orbit. All right, Columbus. We know you can hit the floor with your hat. Are you ready to go? My nephews will have detectives out looking for me. Well, I could run those calibration tests tonight. Take till midnight. After that, it's up to the Commodore here. There she is, Miss Ironman. That's the job that'll take you to the moon. It's a good ship. I... Uh... Hey, Mac, stop the car. Charlie's out. Look it. Where's his medicine? His red pocket. Break the glass. Mac, we ain't gon' think of it. It's murder. He'll never stand up under his initial acceleration. Maybe not, but it's what he wants to do. Get that ship ready to fly. Out here, Miss Desert. What can I do for you? You're James McIntyre. Hey, Mac. You're McIntyre? I'm the Deputy Federal Marshal in the District. I got a warrant for your arrest. What charge? Conspiracy to Violate the Space Precautionary Act. You, uh...  Yeah. Well, I got one for you, too. Thanks. And a man named Harriman. Got a court order to put seals on your spaceship. We haven't got any spaceship. What are you doing? Kidding me? What's that, a kitty car? It's not O'Yacht. Oh, yeah? Well, if it's seals on it, it'll... The spaceship shows up. Oh, come on. Where's Harriman? Uh, in the shed. Over there. What shed are you talking about? Oh, my knuckle. That's the one I broke playing football. I'm always hurting that thing. Charlie, we gotta hurry. Get Pop into the cabin and strap him into his hammock. Right. Oh, long, Deputy. Oh, my knuckle. Long, Charlie. Everything set back there? All right, Mr. Harriman. I think so. These straps are tight. Have to be when we blast off. All set, Charlie. Give me control. Check. One bank. Check. Two bank. We don't need it. All right, boy. Wouldn't be better. Better stay in your hammock. I'll loosen the straps a little. Nothing. Just go easy on that side. Pop, you ain't fooling me, man. You've got a couple of busts of ribs. Well, there is much I can do until we ground. You take a neo-barbatol and... I'll wake you when we cut your... No. No, no. I'll stay awake. Okay. Just shoot that... That is a drum. The handle's nice. How's Pop? Bad shape. How bad? Cracked a couple of ribs in the take-off. You'd better set it down awfully easy if you want him alive. I'll make a full swing around the moon and ease the rent on an approach curve. It'll go fine if we've got enough fuel. Who called me? Something wrong, Pop. I thought somebody was calling me. I must have been asleep. I swung your hammock around. We're breaking out. There she is, Dad. The moon. I've seen a thousand photographs. There. There. That's Copernicus. And Tycho. The new manoeuvre of rhinestone. You know it all right, Pop. Where are you landing? Murray-Ambrium. Between Erythpolis and Archimedes. That's about 40 miles from Luna City, isn't it? Sure. Sure. It won't be easy landing with a garland approach radar, will it? I've done it before. Not without a second pilot to punch the stator meter. Pop, you ought to have a mate's ticket. You know the whole routine.  Yes, that's all I could to study till now to look at the moon. I feel as if I were coming home. Charlie, you know, I'm taking a rent. Cut in full power. Pop, can't take a rough one.  I'll do my best. Okay. Stator meter setting punched. Done. Here we go. It's a lousy landing, Mac. Stator meter drift. How's our passenger? Quiet. I wouldn't make any best at landing stuff.  I did my best. Pop. He's alive. Blood on his mouth. All right, take it easy, Pop. We're down. Where? Take it easy. Vacuum suits. Where are they? That's steady, Pop. Steady. You can't go out there yet. We've got to give him some first aid. Get me that suit. What do you think, Mac? Might as well get his suit out of the locker. Use the big one. He'll be more comfortable. Okay, Pop. Easy now. Hurts. Hurts. Feel those zippers, Charlie. All right now. Take it easy. All right, then, helmet. Do you have a diaphragm set? Check. Air valve? Set. Lift it on him. Don't hit him. There. Come on, Charlie. Let's get into our suits and we'll carry him out the locks. We'll break out air bottles and rid of stretchers. It's 40 miles into the dome. Pop something behind his head. Okay. Oh, my knee. I made it, Charlie. I'm on the move. You didn't understand. You were afraid I wouldn't take care of myself. But I made it. You'd better get Pop going. You're getting your hand getting on the stretcher. Never mind that stretcher, Mac. What's the matter? He won't need it. He's dead. Let's get out the Thomas Keyes and air bottles. It's a long walk to town. Yeah. What about him? Looks as if he's resting, doesn't he? Crossed out looking out on the Thomas. He got through the mode, like a star walking. Another adventure into the unknown world of the future. The world of the imaginary of the planet. Somewhere in the universe. Where night comes only once in a thousand years. The friendly darkness night brings to our own world. On this far off planet is a thing of terror, a breeder of panic and evil. We will as next week, as we bring you Isaac Asimov's night ball. Dimension X is presented transcribed each week by the national broadcasting company in cooperation with Street and Smith, publishers of the magazine, Astounding Science Fiction. Today, Dimension X is presented Requiem. Written for radio by Ernest Conroy from the story by Robert Heinlein. Featured in the cast were Rob Hendrickson as Harriman, Bill Quinn as McIntyre, and Owen Jordan as Charlie.


How did you sleep last night after the movie? I don't want to jump into any substance. I thought I was going to die, but I woke up this morning. Can I have some of these wonderful happy dreams? Do you really have the audience? Yes. Were you anticipating grief and terror? There's a life-heartedness. I never watched movies with that kind of smashing cars and bodies flying everywhere. I was in the boy movies. So I knew what they were going to do with me, but I don't know, I've been away. I was dreaming about being all these children in the magical woods and fairies and just alive. What's more boring than this? I don't know. The only thing I did on yesterday was I went back to work. You know, it was Monday the day I was supposed to be back at work and I was busy doing something else and somebody said, aren't you supposed to be at work? And I went, yes. And then I said, oh well, they're obviously not worried, so I'm not. I was glad we got to share that metaphysical movie. We had great metaphysics, and then even in terms of the action scenes and whatever, I remember years ago I had a friend who asked her to watch The Matrix and she only watched 10 minutes of The Matrix and she said, I absolutely had to turn it off. She said, it's just absolutely been too violent to watch that movie. And I said, well, maybe you should just look again with it and take notes with your emotions as they come up. Because I said, you know, the violence is really in the mind. You know, judgment is what the violence is and we are frequently told about violent movies or violent scenes and so on and so forth. But again, it puts the violence out in the world where it can never be healed because that's part of a projection or part of a way of distracting away from what's going on in your mind and your consciousness. So it's always good to just pay close attention to your emotions. There's chase scenes or cars sprawling on trucks. Some interesting scenes with that Mack truck. Well, that's Mack. They're like barbell kind of things, just rolling down the hallway. Quite an unusual scene. But we do have the extras if you ever want to watch the extras on that couch. They had fun filming that. They had one day of going out and they were like, okay, let's go for it today. Let's really go for it. They had a ball. I need a coffee for Tina because she never watches violence movies. I was more intrigued watching you though, David. I was watching you watching the screen as though you were seeing it for the first time.  In fact, we talked about it afterwards and I said, look at David. He's watching this. He's never seen it before. Plus, to be young, time, you'd see it. But you were absolutely in the present moment when you were watching. Every scene was like a moment in time. And you were absolutely absorbed in the scene. Just to see me watching. That's why I can watch them over and over again. They say, have you seen this one before? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. That's what children do. They watch the movies. Day after day after day. Yeah. I mean, it's good. That's kind of an incentive for that. That's the result of all this mind training so that you can just be present and you really feel a sense of joy when you're in that presence. It doesn't matter what you're watching and so forth. It's really good in terms of demonstrating peace and love and joy and happiness because it doesn't really matter than what the scene is. When I first went to Argentina, it was one series. It was a city of over 15 or 16 million people and not a lot of pollution controls and just what the world might consider kind of dirty, unorganized, and in people everywhere and everything, but I just was really enjoying the whole experience because I wasn't judging anything that was occurring, so it didn't really matter or things like noise level. I've had people that have been into spirituality for years that even like a Christian science practitioner, someone who's a highly trained mind, but if there's like somebody, one time a Christian science practitioner called me up and she's had done so many healings and people would call her up and just to join with her and join with God, but it was a hot day in Philadelphia and everyone had their windows open and somebody was playing their rap music full blast on their ghetto blaster and she called me up, I can't take it! I just can't take it! This rap music, you know? So there was, I said, ah, there was a claim. A claim that there is no God. If there's something that like irritates you or annoys you even or stirs up things and that's like they call a Christian science a claim. It would be like when you go to insurance Asian and you make a claim you're wanting to collect on your policy and when you make a claim in this world it's like saying there is no God. I've justified in feeling irritating, annoyed, upset it's like filing a claim with a higher bureau and saying, hey, I noticed everyone laughed at the line last night when the guy said when you pray to God, do you really, really want something? God's the one that ignores us. Everybody's had that feeling. I'm not sure if I'm like God knows nothing of this world but you already think you did everything so what do you need to ask for anything? That's good though, that's like the petitioning. When the mind believes in scarcity and lack it always has plenty of things to petition for and God seems to be the one that's supposed to answer all the requests and if you think of that the prayer is always answered but it's like again you really have to get clear on what are you praying for and you're always being answered and you have a form that comes that you don't like then you have to get deeper down to what am I really praying for what is it that I'm desiring here that I feel less than or lacking in some way and that helps you really undo the ego in a hurry when you start to really take a look at that if I was created whole and complete and I'm striving after something what makes that something so important to me that really unravels the string so to speak that really helps you let go of the self-concept that's how it happened for me when I would ask these practical questions when I would feel upset about anything I would say do I feel very defensive and then I would say to the Holy Spirit I said what am I defending against with all of this defensiveness and the simple answer was love that love is just trying to reach our hearts all the time it's just like a beam of light which just wants to reach our hearts so much and then at first it was like it's really exactly I'm defending against love it just doesn't seem possible that I could put so much energy into being so afraid of defending against love so I said okay let's try a different angle there what am I defending for if I'm defending against love what am I protecting maybe this will be helpful or helpful because I don't get this part about defending against love I always think I want love but then it was you're defending for you're protecting a self-concept that was made up to take the place of your divinity so all of your defense mechanisms are made up to defend to protect that self-concept and you're afraid that you won't know who you are if you let go of that image that was made by the ego it seems very much like the Buddhist term of dropping into the void because as you're going deeper and deeper and you're letting go of all these things it feels like you're going into emptiness or nothingness and who wants to be nothing you know we've heard that enough from our parents sometimes when we were children we were nothing but when we get older I want to be something but some thing is the problem to be a thing when we were created as a spirit that it seems like you're dropping down into the void of emptiness and all we have with Jesus or Jeshua is we have an expression that it's okay, keep dropping and drop through that hole even if it feels like you're going down to the sink and you're just going to drop down into the sink it's okay, go through the hole come through the keyhole I've been there it's like he's saying take a dive splash in the water's warm it's inviting and that's very important that's where the message of love no matter how much we talk about release no matter how much we talk about forgiveness no matter how much we talk about letting go it's okay to really get in touch with that feeling and that experience of the love as best as you can because that love that grace is so important that's what's what is that's what forever is so and it's just a matter of being aware of it and all the clearing away is simply making your mind ready to experience that love it's sort of come up for me lately it's really I really don't know what love is because I mean we have all these emotional feelings to go on and they all come and pass like they're sort of joy rising and passing through and I know I've got really deep deep peace and waiting myself up singing to myself because I'm just so it's like oh there's almost something watching me going oh my god look how incredible this is so even like the sense of love it's like I still you know what is that and not even you know feeling at peace and calm I feel I was happy but not recently but it's still like the idea of love it's still like like concepts but things to make often get thought of as some emotional sort of thing but the whole point is to that what I am is love the emotional thing that comes from God is that my take to this? yeah and of course America will see this as you have but two emotions love and fear so it's even calling love and emotion in that first sentence but we could say that love has many derivatives there are many aspects of it in the peace, joy, freedom, happiness you know you could fill in the blanks lists and so on there could all be derivatives or almost synonyms we could say for love and then fear and guilt and shame and pain and anxiety and depression and on and on and on would be anything that's upsetting you could say would be that and again the whole point is to simplify things even if you do it down to the basics of love and fear or right mind and wrong mind it gets very basic you start to realize that you could just summarize the entire human condition in terms of of a couple of terms and that makes it very simple it kind of cuts through all these layers of complexity that this world seems to have which makes the world seem very mysterious actually all these layers of complexity where you even hear spiritual teachers say life is a mystery or I always tell the story about my friend Jim Worderman who was he was a priest for many years a very tall man and he finally his brother was a priest and lived and died as a priest and he was in the priesthood and he just couldn't reconcile certain things so he got into a course of miracles he met his wife and a child maybe 20 some years in a course of miracles but he would come to a lot of my gatherings and he would watch the Holy Spirit kind of pour through and he would say I've never heard you stumped on a question I've never heard like a pause or a hesitation or some kind of delay or whatever just comes pouring through you and he said it's not my experience he said when I was taking confessions and questions and he said whenever I didn't know the answer to the question I would just say it's a divine mystery that was his out he said I always had to say something so he just said it's on mystery but he said you don't ever use that never put those words together divine mystery I said no God wants to be openly revealed there is no mystery in God or in love there are layers of ego complexity that give the mystique that give the mystery to this world and it can even make love seem very mysterious like it's this thing like what is it I think a lot of us have had very powerful experiences and you can say that's like a glimpse and the only difference between the glimpse of love and love is that love is constant and a glimpse is temporary so you can tell that even the glimpse is as powerful as it can be it can knock your socks off it can just feel like it blows your mind and yet it's temporary and of course the miracles Jesus describes revelation that way it's like the great rays or having experience of a direct experience of this light that's beyond the veil is called revelation but even revelation in this world is temporary because he says if you experience direct revelation in a sustained way the world would not last you would literally have to have the disappearance of the universe because that world of perception of images that covers over the light couldn't last couldn't stand the light you might say it would just completely evaporate and so he does say that very few have attained direct union with God in the sense that in this world of course they wouldn't seem to be around much or they wouldn't seem to even be able to perceive the world as they were in sustained experience so we can say that sustained experience of light is really what love is so it's kind of like your leading into what's then coming up into my mind if my mind goes to a point and starts going to the light if it just keeps on opening up into that there's no way I could stay here that's what there's no way I could stay a world so it kind of leads into like well how do you just be at peace seem to hold the world have a world because if I really am connecting with the light I can't really keep a world going that's perfectly into our theme for the day that's absolutely because you want a state of rest or peace and how do you rest and still see a world is really the question how do you really really rest and see a world and so the question did come up yesterday I believe about how do we be in the world but not of it that phrase is an interesting phrase in the world but not of it in the sense that the more you go into it metaphysically you start to really kind of see that that's kind of impossible to be in the world but not of it it's like how can you be a figure in the dream and be the dreamer at the same time you can't hold both positions in quantum physics terms you can't be the observer and behold the field the unified quantum field and be in the field in a particular or specific way because if you're the whole you can't be a part and we've all heard that the whole transcends the sum of the parts in actuality the whole is real and there are no parts you see how that goes one step above the whole transcends the sum of the parts as if the parts are real and they can be added together and it's like no this goes we could say to another level it goes beyond that so it's starting to realize that that the whole problem of this world involves part whole thinking as long as we think in terms of parts and holes then we still have a problem that needs to be corrected let's use the metaphor of a hologram you know when you hear about a hologram they tell you that each part of a hologram contains the whole that's a real one better each part contains the whole how can that be if the whole is all that there is and that there are no parts so you might say or fractals some of you have probably looked into fractals there's all kinds of interesting things but the replication of things it seems like this whole cosmos is built on fractals just images that replicate and replicate and replicate almost like just a cascading replication that's going on and yet that's all part of the misperception because it still involves parts so in the end it's like a yielding into or surrender into a state of completion where the whole tapestry comes together and you see the whole tapestry as one and as well you realize that you are unified that you are all aspects of that tapestry so there's no perceiver and perceived there's no observer and observed there's no subject and no object and that's really where the splittering occurs is in perception where it seems like there could be an aspect of consciousness that is doing the observing and an aspect that is observed or subject object that way and once you yield past that split in consciousness then you have the unified sense of consciousness, the unified field and then of course you have no problems because problems only came from believing that there was two two of anything it doesn't really matter two of what but the belief that there could be two of anything sets up all kinds of strange concepts like comparison comparison is a very very strange concept it's unknown in heaven competition is a very strange concept as well in the economic system it seems like competition is built into the human being in the sense of siblings competing competition between neighbors between countries competition in the food chain it seems like this whole world is based on this idea and as soon as you are understanding that the unified field doesn't know about competition you have to be vigilant in your mind against the idea you have to really watch your mind so that anytime something competitive arises you quickly hand it over to the Holy Spirit because that idea will only foster or maintain a sense of conflict in the mind and it doesn't matter really what aspect of your life that you're talking about is that competitive urge arises then is like okay I just need to hand this over this has served me to no end and it's not going to serve me at all so I'm going to release that aspect sometimes people would say to me yeah it's good don't compete against other people just compete against yourself and I'd be like oh that sounds horrible like they say I don't compete in any kind of races anymore I just go out with a stopwatch so then you bring time into the news time to divide yourself up into a human being is competing for a better time a quicker time in the mile or a 10k race or something and again the mind can distract itself and that's one of them is trying to get into self improvement and I always say if God created you perfect then why do you need to improve yourself you were perfect from the beginning in eternity and look at all the self help books I mean you really have to be discerning when you go to your metaphysical bookshelf or you go to your new age shop and you pick up the self help book which self is it that needs all this help you're going to start to eliminate a lot of things very quickly when you start to just get into these real basic things like well I want to accept my perfection I'm not really interested in making a better and better smaller self and trying to puff up a smaller self and when you hear words like a lot of times I'll hear teachers talk about self esteem we want to increase children's self esteem again you have to ask the question what self is it that needs to have this esteem increased and how how much is enough I mean what are we talking about and the teachers say well we want to help them have better grades so that puts a lot of pressure on children to keep up in terms of grades and comparisons and standards so that they can get into schools to learn more separation more fragmentation and then only to make it into university and graduate school where they can become more specialized in fragmentation you start to see the whole system is really flawed I remember when I was in university that I was given a graduate project in the College of Education to research education and so I did a lot of research I mean all kinds of different schools of thought I went back and looked in through the centuries and there was a guy named Ivan Illich who basically came to the conclusion that the educational system was the problem and that he advocated de-schooling society so I actually wrote that up and put it into the paper and the professors were not at all pleased but that I was in a very elite school psychology program and they were training me to do Stanford Bonaise in ways of intelligence and I'm writing a paper on I really like this guy's ideas de-school society it was like well we've got a real rebel but that was the year before the course of miracles came in my life so it was almost a symbol that I was being drawn to those kind of ideas because it just felt like it was time to start letting go of a lot of things and then I stepped out of the whole academic wheel after 10 years at university just realizing that all that could be used I had no regrets about any of it but it was like this can just be used now by the Holy Spirit in helpful ways to free the mind and free up all this sense of pressure that's built on learning and how much have I learned and stuff like that I'm just about first in here I feel like I'm dying which means it relates a little bit so I just I just want to share something this is my ego's biggest horror speaking in a group and I've made it to George George for instance I'm not as really amazing but I've been able to feel an experience of people I just wanted to do it with all of you I just wish you were going to be able to realize that there's a safety there and everybody that comes there can feel this whatever fears and things like though I still had trouble breathing because there was so much I think I've never seen a well-deserved so I've got to know how to learn things to do the best we can otherwise there's a safety for survival as a observer watching being confused understanding it all the loudness of it the strange things that this was that moment I've watched in my life in my aloneness and inactivity different activities that I've seen that gave me ideas that's kept me alive and that connection with others has we've always been in our state so when I felt that the only thing to do was to find that experience and find what I wanted to know so you already know I've been listening for seven years doing that so I've got questions around experiences that I had too especially with that one the third one connected to my experiences where I felt like I was literally disappeared there are normal things I could talk about so many different things that occurred to me and to actually really experience not coming to me but being triggered by it so that forms of my perspective on writing and writing and so I think it did and I guess that I think so much that it wasn't actually what I wanted to connect to to people that I could experience then coming out of such is a better sense of awareness it's kind of like I looped so much I had so much awareness such going on and I'm leaving this this communication advice because I've been able to express that the reason not even connection and then last year when I was in a room alone I was just absolutely at the bottom really really clearly asked what it was so I directed what this music background was about anyway it was about the spiritual system which I did a research on it was tested as kind of a diagnosis but it's actually of autism because the sky was normal and neurotypical even with this autism I feel so it's actually a real brain thing it's a difference it's a different wiring that kind of explains what I'm talking about so much work not like I was trying to be bisexual it's that all my attempts just there's no natural social ability that's the thing with this I'm just sharing the struggle with it and I know that there's actually a it's massive difference it's always people with that have some specific differences because it's difficult to focus on more than one thing and so why this whole experience for me when I'm actually expressing there's so much going on although I'll say in this kind of situation it's different so so I've still been I guess that was a bit letting go for me discovering that last year because I've lost so much no energy or I can't keep pushing anymore so I know I'm not working like I learned a few things that's what I have to do when I'm experiencing a lot of people with that I guess I just wanted to share that and find out why I'm discriminating on that because I have just a natural desire and that exercise was wonderful if I could do it every day for a month anyway that's been a real brain challenge for me it's mostly that why I think it's why some fear is coming and that's why it's all doing this for me at which end yeah it's beautiful when the mind is again I'm so afraid of the light so afraid of God's love it makes up a world of cosmos and many many defense mechanisms and autism and moving in autistic ways there's really good movies like what the catcher in turn did in the house of cards really is a spectacular movie that shows that this kind of isolating mechanism this closing off kind of isolating from the world is a defense and it's a call for love it means to be appreciated for what it is and then the opposite we talk about introverts and extroverts those people that seem to be very good at socializing have lots of friends and have lots of big social networks the world kind of shows that it's much more adaptable and flexible and so on and so forth but a lot of socializing again gets back into the ego defense so remember the ego made up the world and the ego peopled the world and then it's trying to get the mind caught up in these personal relationships as it's false identity so a lot of socializing that goes on you've kind of gone the other direction but a lot of socializing the world says oh that's very good lots of friends lots of strong family connections and so on and so forth good support system all the kind of things that people say is part of a healthy functioning adult mind is still part of of a defense against truth and love and so so you begin to see that no matter how it's been wired the brain, how the brain seems to be wired and everything is a reflection of of the mind of the decisions of the beliefs that are in the mind so it can seem like the brain you know, brains do look different and they're wired differently but they're just reflections of beliefs that have to be released in an identity and you might say that the question really is getting to the sense of what is the value of affection what is the value of physical closeness you know how, where does that fit in the overall context of this awakening and a lot of that depends on on how the defense mechanisms have been used for example I get a chance, I've been in 21 different countries so I can, as I go to different societies, different societies have different standards and rules and mores about affection and touch you know for example if you go to like United States and Great Britain and certain ones there's definitely a sense of like a private space surrounding the persona you know it's like don't invade and I would say not necessarily those countries but once you start to get into a lot of major cities if you walk through major cities and you notice people are making a lot of eye contact, they're looking ahead they're looking down on the sidewalk and everything and not even making eye contact it's a real sense of personal space then when I first went down to Argentina for example it was like hugs and kisses and hugs and kisses everywhere when you've come from the United States to Great Britain it's like my god we were going around I said oh you have to get some currency change, some money changed and they took me to the bank and I was looking across the way at another bank and there was two security guards and they were full of uniform with pistols and gear and everything and one is relieving the other kind of like in Great Britain they have the changing of the guards you know very formal guys come up there and all of a sudden they're bracing and kissing I've heard of the macho man then when I went to stay with my friend Maria you know she was there every time it was like an extended family but any time a family member would leave the house it was kiss kiss kiss hugs and kisses all the way around I'm going out to get some milk and then at night time came and before they would go to sleep I put in my little tits and mom gave me like that time hugs and kisses before the family member was good there was hugs and kisses to go to sleep and then you know I've been over in Europe recently more recently in different countries Belgium Belgium wasn't that the triple kiss it was like some other places France was like the double kiss and it was like a kiss on each cheek and then I went to Belgium and they had a smile I said ah yes the French just give you two one I mean by the conditioning it's wired it's just conditioning and so part of it is breaking away from our best conditioning that's part of learning to follow the Holy Spirit whatever your conditioning was it's the Holy Spirit will try to guide you beyond that condition so if you've been raised and you've kind of become accustomed to a certain level of affection or whatever and you have a circle with the eye gazing with the music playing with opening your heart up it can feel like that's where your heart is like saying I wish I could do this all day long you know it's just a call in your mind to be really open to doing much more experiential kind of things like that the times of reading books and doing those kind of things is past you know and you have that wisdom inside of you you have to move into much more of an experiential and be guided by the Spirit to open up that way there was a singer songwriter to travel with me back in 1991 1992 I think and Donna Marie Harry and she hit her guitar and she would just let the Spirit come pouring through her and I would tell lots of parables and some metaphysics depending on the church or the group that we were invited to what would be appropriate what they could handle and it turned back into revivals between the music and the parables people were opening their hearts up going to churches and doing a lot of experiential exercises like you were participating in this morning and people that had been in the same congregation and had sat in the pews next to each other for 20, 30, 40 years and oh there was mascara all over the place it was just everywhere it looked more like like Halloween or something but we were simply doing all these diet work singing that song that she had written I'm willing to open my eyes to see your innocence to see the child you are a mirror of myself and singing this over and over and then switching partners and switching partners and switching partners so basically the minister and people in the whole congregation that had never been in touch with such intense emotions that were crying all over the place and at the end they said wow that felt good wow that felt really good so this is where it comes in to follow your guidance now I would say again that kind of a phase with the experiential stuff and even with closeness in terms of bodies in the course of miracles Jesus says minds are joined bodies do not that's kind of an interesting statement bodies do not you cannot join bodies and so he says he talks about revelation this sense of light that we were talking about and he says that in this world people attempt to find that light to find that sense of deep connectedness and intimacy through proximity through closeness with bodies and it's not possible he says so it's good to know can I find it there or not he's saying no it's like he says a miracle you have to find this intimacy through miracles that's why he titled the book a course in miracles which many people think is kind of a strange name actually a course in what? miracles but what do I have to walk up water or park the Red Sea or you know like Bruce Almighty divide the tomato soup oh what do I have to do to achieve this miracle but it's no it's not any of that stuff either it's the sense of joining just joining and being in alignment with spirit following those guides those prompts that come and that if you keep listening to those inner prompts and you keep following you will get happier and happier and happier I spent I got to spend a little time with Les Les up in Pomeco but he was telling me all these he's a captain airline pilot for Qantas but he had an adventure over in the United States where he just went over and what was the phrase he used I'm here to throw myself to the wind he just kept telling people over and over I'm here to meet the people of America and throw myself to the wind and then people started just showing up and saying well come on my plane you know you're a pilot you can ride like shotgun or what they call it and he was taking all over the different cities he had no plan he just showed up and said I'm here to just throw myself to the wind and all these miracles started happening and that's getting closer to that sense of this deep intimacy that we want that we're really yearning for you know that's deep in our hearts is by listening and following and letting go of a lot of structure control a lot of past associations that stand in the way including those even around affection you know a lot of people just don't allow themselves access certain deep emotions because they just got it wired about what's appropriate and inappropriate and crossing over boundary lines you know that are all made up they're just all mental and so as you just step into it more and more and say okay guide me guide me show me I do not know the way to you but I'm willing to follow I'm willing to follow your internal prompts that's how it starts to open up that can go the other way too when you sort of tend for the impulse to be affectionate like I'm saying you know there's like impulses like my stance still and someone's coming towards you and your impulses to kind of go out but just actually stand still not in that direction yes it really really has to become very intuitive like when I travel around to a lot of different course of miracles groups and a lot of different churches I would notice that the groups would have like hugging rituals and the way you can tell a hugging ritual is when at the end of the gathering people go I haven't hugged so-and-so it's like it's like a search mission you know like there's 20 people in the room and they're like going around I haven't hugged you you know anything the ego can turn anything into a ritual you'll be hugging me something as simple and basic as that and that's why you really have to be very intuitive with it because it's the intention also I'm sure you've all had hugs from somebody that just comes up that just kind of hugs you like with it there's got to be that guidance behind it the real extending of love whether you're hugging someone whether you're cooking food whether you're taking a walk you want to have that sense of presence so you feel free and open and there's no sense of of it being a ritual you lose this whole idea of rituals and things having to be there's no way to achieve some kind of future outcome please now share something a really emotional and painful story because I'm working in the field of disabilities and the most profound experience I ever had was I worked with a man who was 40 years old with asperges and worked as a counsellor for many years and I never broke down and cried but I loved him so much real back then God's love and I worked with him for two years and then one day I pushed him a little too hard and he closed the door on me and I couldn't stop the tears I couldn't stop them and I just said to him you can choose you can choose now and that's a good thing because you have grown you had grown in the time you can choose now and that's great because you've grown and you can now choose that you don't want to work with me anymore so that's a beautiful thing I've always given him that I've given him to be who he was and him judging and and I just said but I love you and I'll always love you let's break all the rules all the rules and counselling rules and I'll always break the rules anyway because I have worked in a traditional way and I'm just going to stop I just blown blown and he just looked at me and said I don't know what's happening here I don't know what's happening here I guess what I really want to say to you is open the door to love because it is there only you close that door it's a tough girl when you're a little bit different there's a lot of love there that you are going to do and if I didn't love you I wouldn't be loving my own lovingly lost and I just want to love you but all of it's cool it's very courageous he said even speaking up in a group you know it's very courageous bold moves that kind of turn the tables on the ego and say you know I'm not going to be frightened I won't hold it in anymore and it's amazing when you just let it come up and let it come out in an uncensored way that begins to undo this people pleasing aspect defense of the ego which the ego is just saying you have to put on a mask and you have to wear a mask for defense of the ego it's the healing the healing for everyone that's it why don't we just gather it if i could just gather it that's it that's the limit it's for everyone it's an endless for yourself but it's a gift to everyone when we give ourselves permission As we say, take the lid off of it or just put it out, put it out on the table and everything. I had a songwriter who, his name was Vincent, he was from Belgium, and he so much wanted to travel with me. And he brought his keyboard along and he recorded a CD and he was so happy. And we were at his house in Boston, he got his keyboard set up and he was there and he looked out at everybody and he just froze. It was in terror. I don't know what it was performing or it was the terror of being in a Course in Miracles group or being in a group with me or whatever, but he just was up there. His fingers just froze on the keyboard. He couldn't even play one note. I mean, there he was all set up, ready to go. And so he did. The only thing he could do was he took his hand space on the keyboard and he just said, he looked everybody in the eye and he just said, I'm terrified. Absolutely terrified. He didn't.  And he said, I'm terrified and he started talking about it. And the more he talked, he talked for four or five minutes. People came up, they gave him extra hugs. Thank you for sharing, you know, it made it just pop through. And he was with me for like four or five stops. By the final stop, he was so animated. Remember when you first saw him, I remember that. He could hardly keep his feet even on the ground. He was bouncing around, singing all these metaphysical songs from before and before and through it. And everybody was like in live end and singing with him and everything and it was just a huge shift. But the first step was that step of being willing to not hide and protect it. It's that fear of rejection, it's the fear of how will people see me, you know, will people see me as weak and all these other kind of things and the opposite happens. You know, when you really are willing to do it, then all of a sudden something breaks, the tension breaks on the inside and then the witnesses, the sharings come forth. And that is what this human is about, it's about not hiding and protecting these thoughts as if you've owned them, as if they're your identity, as if you don't want to share them because it will only bring rejection or criticism or something onto you as if it flies in the face of a lot of past memories, maybe where you had this precious thing to share like a pearl to share and when you shared it, this seemed to be a reaction for a sense of non-acceptance.  And it's really for everyone, you can see that everyone can relate to it. It's kitchen is feeling like it's not a personal problem, it's just like a healing, human healing for all human beings. Even once we can't see, you know, throughout the universe, you know, we're all touched by this openness. So thank you. Is this saying that no private thoughts, is that coming to that camera? Yeah, we heard some guidelines and no private thoughts and no people pleasing I think people pleasing is one of the most sneaky and insidious of all defenses because it's so ingrained and so socially accepted of putting on a mask and smoothing things over and trying to maintain an illusion of stability when inside there's so much turmoil that there's anything but stability. It reminds me of a movie I saw many years ago with Chevy Chase and Goldie Haun. It's called Foul Play. Barry Manilow recorded the theme song for the movie. And so it comes out, the theme song goes You remind me I live in a shelf Safe from the past And doing okay But not very well No jolts, no surprises No crisis arises My life goes along as it should It's all very nice But not very good And then the chorus is And I'm ready to take a chance again Ready to put my love on the line with you But living with nothing to show for it You get what you get when you go for it I was just like in movie theater And the scene that we're on was the Pacific Coast Highway in California, you know, up there And the car was coming around And this giant vista of the Pacific Ocean opened up right when he was saying And I'm ready to take a chance again It was like this gigantic vista This gorgeous vista And of course it was an emotional rush I never forgot that experience But the beginning lyrics of that song really say a lot It's this double kind of thing that's going on It's all very nice but not very good, you know Nice Another key word is like fine When you ask somebody how you're doing I'm fine like It's like an invitation like Okay, what's up? What's really happening? Why do you have to keep saying fine over and over? You know, it's just so fine, why? So it's good, it's just breaking through And the private thoughts is that The ego made up a world where Mines seem to be separate instead of one And each separate mind seems to have thoughts of its own And these are all ego thoughts But the mind that holds onto them Believes it is so guilty and shameful About those private thoughts But that's why it keeps them private It's kind of like a feeling is If anyone ever knew The thoughts that are going through my mind I would never get loved or accepted I wouldn't have friends You know, I would just I would have to crawl away, hide somewhere If anyone knew That's why it's for example Like in Alcoholics Anonymous You know, people seem to have All these private thoughts In Alcoholics Anonymous they call it The Stinking Thinking And so that's their word for it Instead of private thoughts Stinking thinking Stinking thinking Stinking is short for stinking Stinking thinking And so they have this And then they get into alcoholism Or drug abuse or whatever Because it's just a way to Distract away from the pain and the hurt Of the aloneness Of the isolation and so on and so forth And then when they join Alcoholics Anonymous Or 12 step groups They're astonished when they start to hear Other people speaking Because they feel like only they And this problem And suddenly that's what the value of the support group is It's like, oh my gosh I thought obviously the only one In the whole world that had this crazy Thoughts and these crazy emotions But now I see And then the more they stay with it The more they start to hear patterns And after a while they start to go Yeah, it's this ego thing We're all exposing this one ego thing It seems to grip all of our minds But that's what the private thoughts are about And when I say no private thoughts It doesn't mean that you should Indiscriminately just walk up I mean people take this idea And they go home and they go Okay, I'm going to have no private thoughts My spouse and my gender and everything It's like an explosion Like walking into a minefield Boom, boom, the fireworks begin It doesn't mean that With certain emotions When there's been layers and layers Of people pleasing That's what you feel guided to Start talking about Just bringing it into the discussion As you're guided It can really bring a lot of A good step in the right direction A guy and a friend Who I worked with her for like two or three years On this idea And she just got in touch with all this darkness And all this she was denying And her pressing so much With her friends and work With her family and so forth And her teenage son and teenage daughter And she came home After a weekend with me She came home and told him She said, I have like Not been living my life to the fullest I have been holding so much in Basically she was She was picking up She was picking up the clothes for the kids Doing all the washing, cleaning, meals She was like the maid And the teenagers were Like the king and the queen And she My friend Lisa couldn't understand Why she was depressed So after she talked with me And we got in touch with all of this Going on in the mind She actually went home and she told Her two children, adolescent children I'm taking the lid off Of a lot of thoughts and emotions That I have and things are going to Change around here And basically Their response was, no way You're the mom This is your role And you're going to play the role And we're playing our role And you're going to play yours Actually I've talked this through Very thoroughly with David And things are going to change So she called me in about a week I said how things have done this week And she said, oh it was like World War 3 Broke out and she said They were very strong And they were not going to change It was a pile up and this will Get dirty and this and that Because I'm breaking the pattern I'm just not going to do this anymore And after about a week They finally Saw that she was very committed In what she was doing So they said Okay we're going to take our lids off Of our thoughts and emotions Because we've been playing the game And then it really got wild Second week And then things cleared away As the months went on It was a tremendous healing It was just like Everybody was playing a game Kind of like that thing The Emperor has no clothes Where everybody's playing along And it seems to make the illusion Of it real It seems to solidify it And then when one person says This is crazy, this is insane I'm not going to play the game anymore That starts the healing process And it just gets Like Louise Hay one time says It's like cleaning a turkey pan After you cook the turkey You've got this junk all in the pan You put the soap and the water in You scrape a lot And it gets a lot dirtier It's going to get a lot dirtier before the pan gets cleaned And that's kind of a nice Metaphor for your mind I know it's going to get dirtier It's going to get messier initially My friend and her children When children are growing in their 20s It's much more harmonious They have a sense of They're equals They have a sense of respect But it all started with her just saying No, I'm not going to Play by these old past thoughts And private thoughts It's tea time Okay Wonderful