On Grounding

We often talk about grounding as preparation for performance. What does it mean to be grounded? What does it feel like? How do I achieve it? These are skills I learned fifty years ago in those first few theatre classes I took in college and in the group therapy work I was discovering at the same time. Both in the mid-seventies, when group therapy work was in the zeitgeist and it’s connection to the work that was being done in the theatre was undeniable.

As I get older, I've come to take these things for granted. Indulge me while I look a little deeper

Let me start with a couple of stories that are, on the surface, unconnected.

Beth and I would often walk in the woods above Lantzville. There are trails all through there and many old trees. One big tree in particular has a name. Someone hung a sign on it. “The Beast.” It’s about six feet through at the base and thirty feet up it splits into three distinct trunks.

We would always stop there, place our feet flat on the ground and our hands against the rough bark. We’d close our eyes and pay attention and pretty soon we’d become aware of the energy flowing up out of the ground, through our bodies and back into the tree. It is a current that aligns us, that makes us feel a part of the forest at least for a few minutes. I still do this. It grounds me. Stops the clatter. I stop and say hello to The Beast. It’s energy fills me, makes me larger. Calms me. Her energy still resides here, too. And I greet that, too. I can feel them both. The tree. Beth. It is a blessing. Hych’ka.

This other story is from a different part of my life. Standing backstage in the theatre in those suspended moments before the show begins, as the lights are about to dim, I will often find a support wall or a post that carries the weight of the building down into the ground and I will do the same thing. I will settle my feet flat on the floor (it works better when I’m barefoot), place my hands against the wall and allow myself to reach down through the wall, through the foundations, into the earth, down into the power the turns inexorably there, the slow and mighty currents in the magma below us. It is a kind of visualization or meditation, a movement toward stillness. Push aside the veil, find the void, embrace it. I can then call up that energy from the earth and into my body, fill myself with it, fill myself with a raw power that I can carry out onto the stage, that gives me the ability to reach out and lift the audience in my arms and take them on the journey I about to perform. The energy grounds me, allows me to be larger. Stops the clatter.

Walking out under the lights, we are filled with such a responsibility. The theatre requires us as performers to be larger than we are in our normal lives. These people in the seats took the time out of their busy lives to come see us. They paid money for these tickets. Money they worked for. I am grateful and I need to be big enough to lift all three hundred of these people who have come to see us. This quote from Marianne Williamson’s A Return to Love is particularly apt for the work we do in the theatre.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Your playing small does not serve the stage. Shine.

There are several things that stop us from embracing this power that resides within us. One is this fear that Williamson talks of. Learning to push aside that fear is a challenge all in itself. Another is the busy-ness that fills our scattered lives. Most of us are infected with this kind of Brownian motion: the random jiggling movement of particles that you can observe through a microscope. We wiggle and hum and this undirected energy distracts from our performance. Our first step is to seek calm, to move ourselves toward silence and stillness. Everything starts with silence and stillness. So much of early theatre training is filled with exercises meant to achieve just this: slow the buzz down to a single controllable flame that I can shape into the form I need it to take.

Breathe, find the void, embrace it, let the energy flow into you and fill you.

Grounding.

My thanks to Jim who posted a picture of his feet this week and prompted me to start writing. I started this post thinking I could keep it short and to the point but I realize there is so much here that is interconnected and I think there are probably a series of other posts to follow. On choices and intentionality. On visualization. On trust. I will try to keep writing.

Beth holding it all up.