Left Coast Odyssey Part 1

Friends:

So much has happened since I left the East Coast last Tuesday, Feb. 19. I should say my journey actually began about three weeks before that when I embarked upon packing up 8 years of STUFF I've acquired, collected, and held onto like a pack rat since I moved to DC in the year 2000.

I want to say how much I appreciate all of you who lent a hand - Mary Anne and Mike's bagels and boxes and packing up the kitchen, Lita's hilarious metaphors for all my expired toiletries, Sherri's delicious mushroom burgers (no, not those kind of mushrooms!), Linda's tough love helping me pack clothes for my trip, Laura's emergency care package when I thought I had the flu that one day, Renee's boxes and boxes and AMAZING assistance on the last day, which allowed me to sprint to the finish line, Laurie and Chris, Renee and Katy for baby sitting my drums, Alex's bust-ass job on the grant that was due right in the middle of it all, and Oh God, I know I'm missing someone but, please know, if you helped, it made a HUUUUUGE difference. I am so thrilled to have such a wonderful community in DC...

...So on to CALIFORNIA...

After letting the Wisconsin primaries absorb me through my travel to Oakland, I arrived in one piece but extremely fatigued only to leave the NEXT DAY en route to SANTA ROSA for the Mosaic Multicultural Foundation's KOURES camp.

Mosaic is an incredible organization that uses mythology and story telling to assist youth in understanding that their own experience is as old as time itself - that the troubles and ordeals are part of their own self actualization. The founder and director of Mosaic, Michael Meade, is a well renown mythologist and author, who also had a strong hand in building the Men's Movement. After a mutual friend cyber-introduced us, we began talking to plan a Voices of Youth workshop in DC. Voices of Youth is a 3 or 4-day workshop Mosaic produces in cities across the US where youth in trouble come, hear Michael's stories, write their own poetry, bond, learn songs and other forms of expression, and at the end bring their art to the community through a public performance.

It sounded so much like YWDEP - I thought I couldn't go wrong. So I went to an ADVANCED Voices of Youth in Santa Rosa on Michael's invitation. "Advanced" meaning many of the youth who came had already participated in a previous Voices event, and their teachers and mentors were bringing them back for an even more intense experience of engaging the deep self. The way I understood it was that I was coming to learn what Mosaic does in order to assess how a Voices of Youth event would look in DC.

When I arrived at the event, all of my expectations were blown to bits.

Knowing no one, I immediately shifted to my usual mode of hyperactivity, wanting to meet people and wanting them to like me. I assumed my drumming would be wanted and requested; I assumed my knowledge of performance art would be called upon in assisting the youth in building their repertoire for performance; I assumed I would be looked upon as someone with useful experience and knowledge, and that my skills would be requested.

All of my assumptions were incorrect!
At first I began making my own predictions that, being male-dominated, the environment was sexist and I was getting shafted for being a damn good female drummer (hey, it's happened before). But that got blown out of the water - even though there was only one woman on the staff (apparently several others were scheduled to come but canceled last minute), there were a number of female mentors and lots of young women there, all whose voices were being encouraged.

I didn't understand. I was teaching drumming on the side during break hours, and really trying to be helpful and participatory, but I kept getting shut down in subtle ways, and I could just feel a vibe of disapproval from Michael and other staff members who were basically avoiding me. At the same time, I was making really close friends very quickly with some of the other mentors there and even some of the students. So I was very confused.

When we began piecing together the performance, I was basically shut out from helping. I felt impotent. In addition I just couldn't seem to write anything - everyone was producing all this amazing poetry and I was just stuck.

Then, on the night before our performance day, two people I trust asked me to take a walk with them. Chris and her husband Lou are psychotherapists, and both are on staff. Chris had given me a ride from SF to Santa Rosa, so we'd already had a chance to get to know one another. I'd also confided in her about the vibe of dismissal I was feeling, and she'd been empathetic, telling me I reminded her of herself 30 years ago.

Chris and Lou told me what was going on.

I took a deep breath and settled in for one of the most difficult conversations of my life.

Basically, people were avoiding me because I was trying too hard, and it was clearly obvious. That first day, I was drumming too loud, and not respecting the space I'd entered. I became angry when Michael insisted I play the dun-un rather than my djembe. I didn't understand why he did this until Chris and Lou told me what was going on - I was too loud on my djembe. Also, Mosaic was NOT ABOUT PERFORMANCE. This was not something I understood either. I'd literally prepared myself to help these kids perform! Though the kids and many of the mentors thought I was a great drummer, and wanted me to teach them, I was really doing a disservice to the process with my attempts to help them tighten and clean their poems.

What I learned from Chris and Lou became so starkly apparent for the rest of my Mosaic experience. I saw what was really happening; the STORIES Michael told, about the old woman of the world sewing the cloak until the big black dog comes and unravels it; and about the young man whose father takes him to the underworld to witness a king with maggots on one side of him and gold on the other; and the one about two birds in a wasteland who bring life back by drumming and dancing; each story spoke to the young people in the room and inspired them to write authentically, through their hearts and souls, about their experiences. Poems about bad fathers, about broken love, about poverty both physical and emotional, about drug abuse, about violence, about battling with the self, about the shadow -- the young people GOT IT. They got the mythological references, and immediately integrated those stories into their own experiences to write authentic pieces displaying incredible courage and wisdom.

Our girls at YWDEP do something similar - but we go deep into the performance aspect. This piece comes straight from me and my own experience of not being SEEN or HEARD. I want the girls to be seen and heard so they will know how special they are, but ultimately, what other people think of them just isn't the point. It's the process that builds the girls' strength and self esteem. It's the process that self-actualizes. It's the process that bonds them together. For us at YWDEP, the performance is part of the process, but since I have come through my own initiation at Mosaic, I have a fuller understanding of WHY I have used this mode in my work.

I've dug up so many archetypes of myself since the "talk." I participated in the final performance with the youth in the Mission in San Francisco last Sunday, and saw. They didn't need their poems "tightened." They shone on the stage - just like our girls do - their strength, wisdom, humor, righteousness...

I didn't get to read a poem. Mine wasn't finished yet. But the next day, I wrote this one (below). I think it gets to the meat of my experience. I hope you've enjoyed this post - I look forward to writing more as this experience is truly an Odyssey.

Peace
Kristen

My mind is occupied
Unraveling my archetype

Observing the aftermath of the Koures
Where I could not run away from myself
There was no place for my half self -
Or in fact there was - but I wanted to resist it
Not inhabit the space given to the half
In order to find the whole

Expectations
GREAT
MONSTROUS
EXPECTATIONS

Led me to the opposite result
Of what my mind's eye had constructed
My attempts to claim my territory
Without first becoming one
With the lay of the land
Made me
A reckless warrior
A fool
A demanding child

And as each result of my actions
Became consistently clear
I was pushed off the big black horse I rode in on
And it was replaced by a big black dog

The ordeal of initiation ensues -
My work has only begun

I watch the youth connect with stories
That mirror their experiences
Metaphors Abound
All represent the unexpected chaos that is life

All that I have built
Has been built in haste

I am like a pinched nerve;
When the pressure of society is applied
The pain shoots in all directions
And wants to be salved by instant approval

I couldn't even see myself
Just too busy building structures not supported
By spiritual strength
Grown from great courage
Of which I see the seeds inside me
Sprouting
Needing water and sunlight

The courage is what inspires
What ignites
The courage of the sun
Is in my soul

So I see my archetypes and imagine healing
I visualize a bath of salt water
Lukewarm and gentle
The sound and smell of the earth
My senses see beauty
It's what I need

Now
Freed from judging my shadow
I no longer feed the black dog
But instead I walk slower,
With intention,
And listen for the signal from my mentors,
And from my ancestors,
And on cue
I will share these gifts
With you