Blowing the Mind and Melting the Heart in London
April 20th, 2009 | Uncategorized | 12 Comments »
I was stunned. I had sat crying uncontrollably for over two hours as I watched the stage performance of Billy Elliot – the Musical at the Victoria Palace in London tonight. What a way to wrap up my 4 day trip to the UK. The culmination of events leading up to the performance only ripened me toward the experience of a blown mind and a melted heart.
It was only after reading Elton John’s words that I began to even find my writer’s voice to pen this blog:
“I am extraordinarily proud of what Lee [Hall] and I have created for the stage musical of Billy Elliot. The show demonstrates everything I love about the power of art. It can inspire you. It can transform lives. Art can make you look at life in a way you never have before. And it can take you places well beyond your wildest dreams.”
My loss of words, which for those who know me may seem an impossible phenomenon, wasn’t simply a result of the show. The process began when I showed up for my yoga teacher training early Saturday morning. In a heated room full of people from several countries, I followed a demanding set of instructions for hours. The secret was to keep my mind out of the room and let my body flow. I can’t remember how long I hung out in Downward Facing Dog pose, but I experienced burning through my shoulders, down my arms and across my chest, while the sensation of my heart melting permeated my body. At one point, I realized that I was not the only one in this alchemic process. I glanced to my right and saw Rick dripping buckets of sweat and then glanced to my left and saw a middle aged British woman with a red head band pushing herself to the point of shaking arms and strenuous breathing. We were going through the eye of the needle together and having the same realization … we were stronger than we knew.
After the morning session, the room was beaming with light, the kind of light that shines through when a shell or crust has a crack or has completely broken open.
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February 1971 and again in 1972. Can it really have been that long ago? What a difference the decades have made as the village has grown in size! McLeod Ganj was then a small outlying area above Dharamsala, a neighborhood with a few wooden houses. In the center was a temple with a huge prayer wheel and a row of prayer wheels surrounding it. Here, devout Tibetans who had settled nearby to be in the energetic field of the Dalai Lama could make their daily circumambulations, turning the wheels as an offering and chanting mantras.
s not a place or a system or a method, an object or even a goal. Although the idea of sustainability can be a guiding principle in our planning, the truth is ultimately that nothing is sustainable “out there” because everything is in a state of flux. What really can be sustained lives within us. The Tibetans use the message from the Dalai Lama, “Never give up … work for peace in your heart and in the world … never give up.” This possibility of hope sustains them at the level of their soul. When their soul is sustained, life can continue to grow, even in the face of unthinkable circumstances. 
