YOU ARE AN ARTIST – You know you possess the goddess power of making Something out of Nothing. Think. Feel. Look at the tactile world around you and reach out your hands.
Goddess and Artists immortalize themselves. Sometimes their works are so intriguingly beautiful that we are drawn in and our critical senses – our fear – is tranquillized while we allow the artist to work magic upon us. Artists aspire to be magicians of the mind and soul.
Goddess Challenge – You create something unforgettable because you do not want to be forgotten. You want to open hearts, minds and brains just as yours were first opened, long ago, when you looked upon this amazing world for the first time and felt the power & potential of what you saw. Goddess feel the same thing. We march to a different drummer we feel inside ourselves. We are inner, not outer directed.
Goddess Danger – There is possibility here for such overweening pride that you place your own psyche above Creation in importance. If you seek to divert worship of creation to yourself your own soul will harden unto death, and your creative powers will be extinguished.
Goddess Opportunity – Join with all the goddesses in creating something entirely new that the world will not want to live without. The joy of sharing, the rapture of being known, the ecstasy of expression, of gratitude of being understood, will be yours.
Are you an artist because you say you are or because they say you are? Well, are you a goddess because you say you are or because they say you are? I think it should be obvious that is TOTALLY NOT UP TO THEM. You MUST decide you are a goddess, you have to FEEL like a goddess and they can NEVER “tell” you what you are. It’s exactly that way for artists, too. It’s a temperament, a way of viewing the world, and because it’s in harmony with Creation all around us, it’s enormously satisfying. Really gets those alpha waves going.
The Goddess in You needs to Protect your Creativity. It is always under threat.
Hustle Culture – Art can’t hustle but the merchandisers and the monetizers hasten to tell you: “Close enough – let’s get this thing to market.” But you need to find out what’s there – why this subject, these tools are drawing you. You need to think, to explore, to experiment, to start the process of 10,000 “failures” Edison said are the steps to success.
The Creative Goddess – If you’re not a creative goddess, you’re someone else’s goddess and that’s a living death. Strategize. Speculate. Get out that Training Journal. Dream. Speak to your soul. Allow it to shine.
Models & Mentors – “Creativity is seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought.”– Albert Einstein
“Creativity can’t get used up. The more you use the more you have.” – Maya Angelou
“Creativity is just connecting things.” – Steve Jobs
“There is no innovation, no creativity, without failure.” – Brené Brown
“What’s so fascinating about life is the constant creativity of the soul.” – Deepak Chopra
Something’s bothering you. Immortality is a lot of hard work, that seems to require giving up life’s tiny but expensive (physically And financially) comforts. Do you lie awake at night recalling bad moments from the past? The Regret Oracle says you need tackle the problem of “change” NOW. What moods flood in when you close your eyes? What would you change NOW? How do you WANT to change?
Why are People so Afraid of Looking Inside their Psyches? Because of Regret, that’s why. The things we’ve already done or that we already are that can never be changed. Sorrow floods in – now we feel helpless, we hate ourselves and we can’t fix anything. We fear we are in for a bad, cold, frigid winter of discontent.
Lighten Your Load – No one can do this but you. You are serving as prosecutor against your own life and guess what? – that’s not fair. Fundamental Attribution Error means people blaming individuals for actions that were the result of mass decisions or life circumstances over which they had no actual control. Look into it, if you want to. (Sometimes we need to.) Or you can just forgive yourself and move on. After all, we’ve got the future to think of. Our Inner Goddess won’t be stymied.
Goddess Challenge – First, forgive yourself. You were held hostage by fortune (we all were) and inevitably you went full-on Stockholm Syndrome and identified with your attackers and tried to please them. (We all did. It’s called Society.) Now you’re madder at yourself than you are at them. Forgive yourself.
Goddess Danger – The moment you drop that burden, you’re in another part of the forest. Surprise! This wasn’t the plan but here you are. The Danger is – you’ll give up. Don’t. NEVER GIVING UP IS THE GODDESS’S SUPERPOWER. We CREATE paths where none existed. You can easily see from every fairy tale and hero’s journey you’ve ever studied that now we’re getting to the Good Part. By testing your muscle you get to grow your muscle. If your muscle is never tested, it withers. So get ready.
Goddess Opportunity – We don’t know everything. Even Jesus demonstrated surprise about the way things turned out. Be gentle as a dove, he advised, but wily as a serpent. Serpents can get out of anything. (Ask a herpetologist.) And so can you. It’s just a bigger world than we knew – both inner and outer – so get mapping. I guarantee you – IT GETS BETTER.
YOUR Personal Superpower: Our brains are constructed in a way that allows us to move backward and forward through time, watching and judging ourselves from the outside, always considering multiple possibilities, outcomes and problems. We have a tendency to regard this power as a burden and envy those whose lack of questioning seems to make them more carefree. But it is this exact superpower that designates us as Goddess.
Even When We Enjoy We Regret: There’s always something we could have done differently. And that unknown outcome is bound to seem preferable to the reality in which we find ourselves. Don’t waste time on regret. You drew the “Regret” card to remind you that time – even pleasurable time – is always limited. Restrict the amount of time you spend on regret! Congratulate yourself on your ability to play a multi-level game, forward and backward through time, peopled by a panoply of characters. Open up your Training Journal and take a God’s eye view of your world. See anything different? Fresh? Exciting? New?
There’s Lots to Enjoy About Autumn – It’s a beginning, not an ending! The world is freshening up to divest those tired leaves and grow some sharper weather! Always consider the exercise possibilities. Maybe you can stay out longer! There’s a lot of fellow Goddesses in the Polar Bear Club!
Models & Mentors – “I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than the things I haven’t done.”
– Lucille Ball
“There are no regrets in life, only lessons.” – Jennifer Aniston
“We have only one life, and the second life begins the moment we realize that fact” – Confucius
“I was designed by my Creator to not only feel pain and love but to become whole inside it. I am a Goddess” –Glennon Doyle
“Autumn, the year’s last, loveliest smile” – William Cullen Bryant
To Become a Goddess Is to Accept Your Power. But power is fearsome. We are all familiar with fires that escape control, rage-fueled emotional spirals, explosives that blow up their wielders and the dangers of endlessly escalating weaponry. Once the Goddess’ unleashes power, much can go wrong.
The Power is there whether you claim it or not. To abjure your power is to deny your personhood – something women and marginalized groups have always been commanded to do. If you try to get in touch with your personal power, won’t you tempt established Power to come after you?
Power is About More than Control and bending unfriendly circumstances to your desire and will. It is the process of fulfilling your natural growth pattern, becoming the person God always intended you to be. You have an immortal mandate but you must claim it.
You Are Iconic –Goddesses invoke more than magic, they exemplify the inherent magic that is especially, irreplaceably Individuated Self. You have a power no one else has, incorporated in your being, your possibilities, your desires and your memories. This takes a lifetime to accept because we all nervously want to be Someone Else and experience existence through the armor of Having only an Outside instead of just the very vulnerable Inside in which we all feel imprisoned.
Only Illegitimate Power Will Fear You – The Universe that God created accepts a glorious new creature fulfilling their immortal mandate, while stolen power – the desire to crush, to control and to drain – will be forced to reveal itself in the fullness of its jealous evil.
Dreams Will Instruct You – Your dreams bring all these passions together as psychic poetry, elucidating what you think you want, what you hope you want and what you are afraid you want. The ultimate magic is to seize conscious control of this potent power source.
Goddess Challenge – The challenge is to truly connect with others, reveal our world Inside, and avoid blasting their apparently impenetrable Outside with our terror, our longing and our fear. As the demons come after you, you will deploy the skills and techniques of dissembling, transmutation, transformation, mirror-magic and emotional mastery. The demons are hungry, pathetic in their eternal emptiness.
Goddess Danger – We cannot take hostages and we must never become a hostage. Freedom is a fine line to walk. If we wish to reach out, we must treat those struggling to stand upright with respect and demand like respect for ourselves. Accept your “experiments”; do not fear them but allow them to take you where you need to go.
Goddess Opportunities – There will be stumbles and terrors aplenty, also successes that LOOK like stumbles and terrors, but which we only realize on reflection were real leaps forward. This is why we must carefully assess our daily efforts without being harsh with ourselves. Speak gently to yourself as you would to a most beloved child. You are the Universe’s Own Beloved Child. It is not selfish to commit to this belief, it is simply placing the oxygen mask over your own face FIRST so that you can administer this life-saving force to others. Find someone with whom you can share your journey, without fear or judgment. This connection will teach us everything we need to know about how to connect with others.
Fear & Trembling: Where would we ever get the courage to become goddess? Human history begins with an enormous fear of the Almighty or whatever is causing all that lightning, those earthquakes and striking everybody down. Killing small helpless, pretty things was meant to be flattering and propitiatory to this God (I don’t get it either.) Then Jesus arrived with a message about how God was really loving, generous and wanted the best for us. We know how that turned out.
Becoming a Goddess: As children, we struggled to understand where we fit on the power spectrum. I tried killing a snake, and experimented with bullying other children the way I was bullied. I didn’t care for it. The only relief was in thinking about, researching and understanding the philosophical concepts about what was going on. My earliest researches, as for many children, were in astronomy and dinosaurs. The cold magnificence of the planets and the complete wipeout of the dinosaurs gave me a way to stand back from the immediate suffering of the schoolyard. I then moved on to the early Egyptians who tried to solve their problems through magic and art. The art was visually appealing and the magic was emotionally soothing.
Pick Your Battles: I saw that most schoolyard fights were a reaction to the immediate suffering of pain or confusion, and that they magnified, rather than solved, those problems. There was a manifest holiness about this discovery. It rescued me from the torture of everyday life and elevated me to a plane where every other contributing thinker had already become immortalized.
Study & Strategy: I read everything I could get my hands on in history and biography (research) and in fairy tales (magic). When I fell in love with the novels of C.S. Lewis and Rumer Godden, the world judged my taste good – when I discovered Agatha Christie, it did not – but it turned out everyone else was reading her too. Agatha is a short course on human nature (original sin) and a proponent of both the scientific and Socratic methods. She’s great training for a Goddess. I wrote it all down in my Training Journal.
Claiming Your Power: By the time you’re a teenager you can see you have some power – some mental, some physical. The question is developing it and finding appropriate gurus. It is key to step out of the dominance/submission game.
Keep Going – Recognize that you have been touched by the goddess and honor her by being grateful for the glorious gifts of life.
Models & Mentors: “I did not deceive you. I permitted you to deceive yourself.” Agatha Christie
“An Indian proverb says everyone is a house with four rooms – physical, mental, spiritual and emotional. Most of us live in one room or the other but if you don’t visit each room each day you are not a complete person.” – Rumer Godden
“You are never too old to dream a new dream or set a new goal”
Do your dreams pulse with some energy ripening inside you? You are gathering force for a great work.
You Are A Power – You struggle to take command of your force. You feel the power and strength of undefined wishes and an inchoate longing to create your place in the world. No guide exists to this wilderness, you will have to map this forest yourself. Be brave.
All Connection Is an Energy Transfer –When you make any contact – even exchange a glance – with another living being, a current of energy passes between you, even if the “other” has been ruled “non-sentient” by our limited – and limiting – standards. In the depth of your being, you feel the electric thrill. This is the basis for the healing behind “forest bathing” and “garden bathing.”
Energy Drainage – That fact sets up the possibility that energy – your life force – can be sucked right out of you. Recognize when this is happening – when you are being fed upon. Get away from the predator as fast as you can go.
Goddess Challenge – There are plenty of traps ahead. Do not become discouraged. Accept that the flow of energy pulses with your every heartbeat, with your sleep/rest cycle, with the obligations you willingly seek to smooth your path.
Goddess Danger – Some of these obligations become too heavy, others seek to deter you from your set course. Still others offer false maps that seem to promise the ease of “I don’t have to do this alone.” We are all alone inside our heads and you – and only you – must be satisfied with the map you create. If you aren’t there’s no fellowship or wealth that can compensate you for that loss.
Goddess Opportunity – We revel in and with our fellow travelers. There could be a soulmate among them – for a time or for a life. Accept the wisdom of others, the wisdom of the path, consult other maps in designing your own. Be prepared to alter your map – joyously – with each new and fresh discovery. There will be many. Salut!
How Did People You Admire Manifest the Life Force? Jesus spent an epic 40 day & nights in the desert. Margaret Mead lived in Samoa studying the Samoans. Carl Sagan describes his “defining moment” as visiting the World’s Fair at four years old. It exploded and expanded his mind. Who are your models? Research them and study their transitions and experiments.
Magic & Mystery: A you accept yourself and accept your changes, you are confronting the dynamic of change, which is the manifestation of energy in existence. We are all alive and moving. This is a dance and you are the choreographer and star. Erik Erikson said “A good life is like a weaving. Energy is created in the tension. The pull and tug, the struggle, is everything.”
Commit to tiring yourself out during the day with thought, exercise and interrelations so that you can enjoy healthy sleep at night.
Models & Mentors – ‘Every thought has an energy. Thoughts send out a magnetic frequency” – Rhonda Byrne
“Energy is the power that drives every human being. It is not lost by exertion but maintained by it – for it is a faculty of the psyche” – Germaine Greer
“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration” – Nikola Tesla
“The more positive energy you throw into the universe, the more positive energy you get back”
What kind of goddess are you? is the central question. Your body and spirit have a “grain” much like wood does – we call it “temperament. Going against this spoils your future. Your ego has work to do, figuring out who you are and what kind of strategy you excel at. What tools fit naturally to your hand? We think, we remember, we discuss, we write and we dream. Jung tells us that in your dream, you are everyone.
You Are A Seeker – You are self-defining and self-validating. You are on a quest. You wish to explore your possible incarnations.
Goddess Danger – The worst hazard of self-reflection is not navel-gazing (micro study can be very revealing) but solipsism. Aloneness may in fact be Hell. We can never lose touch with those around us because it is others we are fighting for, not for Self alone. Many warlords, sensing your promise, will try to recruit or outright capture you. Avoid warlords who fail to treat you with respect. In our increasingly autocratic world we are very familiar with Aging Babies who want the rest of us to nursemaid their fussy, immaturity because Growing Up is Ouchy. For God’s sake, for your own sake, for the benefit of the Universe and in hope of Eternity, don’t cater to or worse yet, BECOME one of THOSE. There is no shame in telling others you are “finding yourself.”
Goddess Challenge – Set a Spirituality Schedule to reflect your needs and interests. Appoint time to be absolutely alone, for meditation and reflection. If you cannot find a room to yourself, a closet will do. You can sit in the meditation position or assume any position that allows you to be comfortable enough to become physically forgetful. Concentrate first on building a life that allows both inner and outer growth. Surround yourself with people who respect this decision.
Goddess Opportunity – This is a journey. Accept it. Begin a journal with 1. “I” and write down your meditation thoughts and desires. This can be a poem, a fantasy, a checklist – whatever pattern occurs to you as supportive of your desires. Make a list of goals. Accept that it will evolve, transform. Push shame away. This is about YOU. Of course as you mature, your goals will evolve, and your journal will reflect that. When you have completed your Time Alone – ten minutes to an hour – whatever works for you – pat yourself on the back. What an achievement! You are started on a path of making changing Nightmares into Dreams and making dreams come true.
Planning & Mapping: Goddesses lead a designed life. A diary (also called a Training Journal) offers the ideal format in which to plan. Attempt to quantify the difficulties that you feel and assess possible reactions. Just because a situation is tough does not mean it shouldn’t be explored – on the contrary:
– A goddess repels takeover – You are your own goddess – not somebody else’s hired emblem.
A goddess feelsinstinctivelywhat she needs to defend – your soul will reveal it to you – through relationships, through instinct, through time and through dreams.
A goddess knows when to let down her guard – there are times to connect, to share, to Love.
A goddess learns from mistakes and hones her art. There is no Failure: only Learning. All education is precious.
Goddesses look for opportunities – Resistance training sharpens our game. We are each other’s cuttle bones, as well as cuddle bones.
Goddesses aren’t afraid of difficulty – the more time it takes the more fun it is. Your life is a long story, full of exciting challenges. Goddesses love gathering around the campfire to share adventures.
The First Resistance – Often savage, it comes from yourself. Slowly we realize we have hijackers inside our brains wrestling for control. You can recognize these by their negative content. They clearly wish to subdue us into clones which is NOT HEALTHY.
Becoming a Goddess – It is this resistance that first marks our goddess status. Congratulate yourself. You are on the road.
Training Journal – Carefully assess your desires versus the demands on you. List expected results if you gave in to either. Develop a concept of health. Is “freedom” staying up all night, consuming whatever substance makes you “feel better”? Clearly not. Assess the negative voice; “You’re weak”, for example. Being “in flight” from the negative voice is actually giving it mastery, so you must stand up to it. Learn to answer back – “I’m in training. I did better today than yesterday.” Keep track of your achievements. Even really small ones: “I meditated for 10 minutes” are significant.
Accept mystery: Life isn’t “win or lose.” It can’t be quantified because we are magical souls with magic coursing through us. Sometimes it’s impossible to figure out and must simply be absorbed, not rationalized. Learn to enjoy art and accept the relief it offers. Reflect back as much magic & mystery as you can muster. Your tastes will develop according to your growth – that’s a good thing. Treat yourself like a loving sensei who wants the best for you.
Models & Mentors: Always survey possible models. Who do you admire?
Is it
Bruce Lee? “The difference between a goddess and an average man is laser focus.”
Is it Carl Jung? “I am not what happened to me I am what I choose to become.” Read. Study. Educate yourself. Develop your own models.
“Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego falls with it” – Colin Powell
“Don’t let your ego get in the way of your success”- Tony Horton
“The ego seeks to divide and separate. The spirit seeks to unify and heal.” – Pema Chodron
(Ordinary dorm room with desk lights, two twin beds, built ins. JAZZ feels her body as if to reassure herself that it’s still there. CORSO – bare-chested –is sitting on one of the beds, studying a laptop)
CORSO
Lose something?
JAZZ
I lost everything. What are you doing here?
CORSO
Installing fun software. You seem distraught– your mood begs improvement. Come over here into the light and let me look at you.
JAZZ
I’m not distraught, I’m disgusted. Hey, that’s my laptop.
CORSO
Nothing human disgusts. Take it from me, you’re going to love your new social media interface.
JAZZ
The thing that disgusted me wasn’t human. Is your software a game?
CORSO
Everything worth doing devolves into game. As your administrator, I’m in charge of upgrades. We’ll do Mr. Quinn next. Any idea where he’s been hiding?
JAZZ
Stevie Farrell, din’t you mean? How did you get in here?
CORSO
I’m loco parentis, poor, suspicious little Jazz, just checking up. You’ve been keeping such bad company. And Stevie’s not the worst of it – there’s a prowler around campus who seems to have it in for you. Let’s hope it’s not too late to put your feet on a better course.
JAZZ
I’m leaving if you’re not.
CORSO
Poor Jazz, what can we do to mitigate these fears?
JAZZ
(Throws herself impulsively on the other bed)
I’m not afraid of you.
CORSO
I see we have much work ahead.
JAZZ
(She finds his shirt – reacts like it’s infectious and throws it at him)
Why can’t you keep your clothes on?
CORSO
(Catching the shirt effortlessly)
Stevie and I were very informal; I was hoping we could be informal too. I gather he confessed his proclivities to you?
JAZZ
I heard a lot about how you can’t be trusted.
CORSO
Credulous Jazz! We must teach you discernment. Education is challenge, not safety or comfort – I strengthen minds and bodies to appreciate, manipulate and surmount reality. Recreate your own world. If you don’t want those things, then you’re fodder like the rest of them.
(fans himself with the shirt)
These rooms are very hot. Do you know the trick to opening these windows? Aren’t you feeling overdressed?
JAZZ
I saw your game.
CORSO
I borrowed bodies that weren’t being used! And aren’t you the better for it? Restful sleep, interesting dreams, AND a paycheck, now there’s a deal. I’ll throw in little Stevie to be your guide.
JAZZ
How can we converse when you pervert language? You pervert language and ideas. You pervert bodies.
CORSO
Debate’s not your forte, Jazz. I can assist with that. You entered this room requesting an upgrade in your selective amnesia. It’s something we all must have, otherwise none of us could function. I can help you control it.
JAZZ
If it comes from you, I don’t want it.
CORSO
Poor little Jazz! Who could you be channeling – me or him? Or perhaps it’s that desperado asking everyone for scuttlebutt?
JAZZ
I went with the flow till the flow tried to drown me. I’m becoming my own person.
CORSO
All freshmen think that. Is the real Jazz so robotic? You used to be so much more fun. You were quite the adventurer.
(laughs)
Let’s laugh together. Why so serious?
(mimes a ridiculously pulled down clown face)
Life unlocks all its secret pleasures once you master the key.
CHASE
(Bursts into the room)
Is the key murder? Soul murder, followed by physical murder to make sure the souls stay dead?
(JAZZ vaults to her feet, they hug, obviously drawing strength from one another)
CHASE
Stand up, you bastard.
CORSO
Oh, can the paranoia, little Steve. Victimology is so limiting. Jazz and I aren’tinvolved, if that’s what’s bothering you. We share a strictly business relationship. There’s room for you, too if you down your tools of self-destruction.
(Rises imposingly. He’s bigger thanCHASE)
CHASE
We have all the proof we need. You can’t get away with it.
JAZZ
The bodies are piling up.
CORSO
But they long to pile, and not feel guilty! Everyone wants to be a porn star!
CHASE
We know what you did.
CORSO
What a shame, then, that you felt the need to mime unconsciousness. When will feel your feelings and live your truth? Isn’t that what youth is all about?
JAZZ
Being drugged isn’t truth!
CORSO
Yet you – both of you – acceded to all of it. Names along the bottom line. The law says you’re adults.
JAZZ
I know what you did is illegal!
CORSO
Fashion to law, little Jazz, and with such startling speed! Too bad the law is amorphous, the law’s in transition, it’s a creature of fashion just as you were. Things that were illegal last year are perfectly legal today. People go to court and bankrupt themselves to “win” – ask your sad friend – but the law doesn’t help them feel they have won. They spend the rest of their lives trying to recapture the glow of surrender.
CHASE
You are vile and despicable – everything about you is saturated with evil.
CORSO
I see that you two have made loserdom your bond. It’s so unhealthy, all this focus on the past. You could enjoy both youth and wealth, but you consciously choose misery. Let’s try ratiocination for a change. Who gives benefits and who gives problems? Haven’t I made all your tiny dreams come true? You can have Mr. Quinn if you want him, Jazz, anyone can. Now let’s concentrate on upgrading these immature fantasies.
CHASE
What if we tell the Dean?
CORSO
Who, Bernie?I’m sure you’ll find Bernie doesn’t expect me to police my students’ very randy sex and dream lives.Bernie and I understand each other perfectly. People loveporn, everyone wants an avatar and to feel like a creator. Let’s consecrate all this blood and shit to transcendental purposes.
JAZZ
You use words you can’t understand.We’re soulmates. We’ve seen worlds of possibility, of universe and time.
CORSO
You’re welcome!
JAZZ
You’ll never know what we can do.
CORSO
Pretty sure I can guess. Everything except freedom?
CHASE
Your freedom is all fake. You’re nothing but an appetite. All youcreate are slaves.
CORSO
Oh. Slaves! In a limitlessuniverse, slaves are no fun at all. It’s such a bore always having to direct.
(fanning himself)
Jazz, how can you tolerate this hideous heat? I know there’s a trick to these windows.
(Successfully opens window)
Stevie, get us a drink. Let’s sit down and talk this over like grownups.
CHASE
Not a chance.
(BEXappears spot-lit on the TOWER LIFT, scanning with his binoculars, holding his shotgun at the ready. He sights his quarry & racks his slide)
JAZZ
Look out the window, Dr. Corso.
(She pulls CHASE away)
Tell me what you see.
CORSO
(Peering)
Who’s out there, Jazz? Bile stained, piss stained revenants skulking home for parietals?
(BEXclimbs awkwardly out on the tower lift, hooking his leg, trying to get a good shot)
CORSO
(Waves out at the world)
Run home, littleoneironauts! Your memory cards expired!
(JAZZ grabsCHASEand pulls him to the floor. Shots ring out.CORSO, looks down at his chest as red stains bloom across his back. Plummets slowly out through the window. Recoil causes BEXto lose his footing – drop his gun – throw his arms up – cry out – fall)
JAZZ
Set a demon to catch a demon!
CHASE
May the aspirations of murderers always overreach.
JAZZ
And those of lovers override.
CHASE
Time to free the others? Whether they like it or not?
JAZZ
Kiss me.
(They kiss.Sacred music, pink glitter.DARKNESS. FINAL CURTAIN)
Back in DREAM LAB – CORSO calling with baton and headphones)
CORSO
Children! Come back! Playtime is over! Wake up, children! Don’t get lost in NeverNeverLand!
(CORSOconductsFlight of the Valkyrie. JAZZandCHASEare sucked apart to opposite sides of the stage. Lowlights come up on Dream Lab. CHASEfalls back on his recliner. Other students thrashing and moaning. JAZZ falls to floor, CHASEstruggles to her side to help her up)
JAZZ
(Retching)
I think I saw death.
CHASE
And I saw the face of evil.
CORSO
(Appearing with a roll of paper towels and a bucket of water bottles – lights up all the way, music down)
Rough sleep?
CHASE
Yeah. But was worth it.
CORSO
I’m talking to Miss Suzino. Gave yourself a bloody nose there, sport.
(CORSOhands out bottles of water)
JAZZ
(feels her face)
I did? Is it my blood?
KOO
I’m definitely going to throw up.
CORSO
First times are always the worst times. Care for a basin?
KOO
No, I want a bathroom.
(Staggers off futon, SOLIZ reaches out to her)
SOLIZ
I’ll help her.
(They lurch off behind Ladies Locker)
CORSO
Any more foreheads require mopping? Allow me to audition my Florence Nightingale impersonation. I’ve been universally praised for my bedside manner.
JAZZ
(Mopping herself)
Maybe I’m the one who died.
CORSO
Forget the safe word?
RAD
There’s a safe word? Now he tells us.
CHASE
How about “Stop”. Or “No”?
CORSO
The problem with that is behind the fear lies the wish.
CHASE
Behind the wish lies the demon. So there is no safe word.
CORSO
How about “I quit”? Is that what you’re trying to say, Mr. Quinn?
CHASE
You first.
CORSO
(They glare at each other. Horrible retching noises from locker room)
Now, now, now. Just when we were getting along so well.
(ZANEhas stood up and is lurching around as if sleepwalking.)
CORSO
Mr. Braden, assist your colleague back to his launching pad.
(RADstands up, goes toZANE, wakes him, and leads him to his futon to sit.SOLIZbrings a green-facedKOO out of the Ladies’)
RAD
My name is Borden.
CORSO
Now wasn’t that fun? Good times. Upchucking can hardly be an unusual experience for you, Miss Loflin.
SOLIZ
Don’t give her so much next time. She’s little. She can’t get the same dose as everyone else.
CORSO
I wish the guinea pigs would stop wrestling with me for control of this experiment. I make the decisions around here. The doctor knows what he’s doing.
SOLIZ
Sorry.
CORSO
Now I posit the ultimate question. Anybody “fly”? Did we achieve liftoff?
SOLIZ
I think I fell. It seemed so real. Maybe it was only a dream.
CORSO
Only a tear in the fabric the universe, a burp from the hippocampus, a haiku from the collective unconscious, an oracle of future empowerment? Speak to us, Miss D’Accosta. Tell us everything.
SOLIZ
(Stands up to act out events she describes)
I was in the elevator at Hadleigh – for some reason I was in a big hurry. I remember looking at my watch but my watch had stopped. It was an analog watch without any hands.The elevator opened on the top floor and I rushed out. All these people were staring at me and they started to laugh. I realized I was naked. I couldn’t get back in the elevator – the doors had melted. The floors were melting and the whole building lurched to one side. I panicked. I was thrown against people and I hate people touching me but I was helpless. No soulmates, just a gang. I’m scared of gangs. They were herding me. But there was the window so I jumped right through, thinking, maybe I can fly. I felt the glass tearing apart my body. At first I felt this great release. A sense of excitement. Like I can do anything I want, like I got away with it. I was trying to move my arms and legs – it seemed like slo-mo – so I pumped and pumped – moving more frantically – but I knew all along it wouldn’t work. It doesn’t work with swimming. You’ve got to find the peaceful center but there was no peaceful center. So I fell – knowing you’d be disappointed and maybe flunk me but hoping my crushed body could tell the scientists something. That second before I hit I was – it was the most disgusting feeling – suspended, staring at the chalk outline where I my corpse would be. I remember thinking, “I hope we get a second chance” but all I heard was laughter. Others were getting it. Others were doing it. Splat! Face-first into the pavement. I felt my face pushed into my brain, my spine crumbling– body turning inside out, I became “the visible woman” with her organs on the outside. That was right before my organs exploded like water balloons and there was nothing left. I was completely gone and so there was nothing left to go to heaven, no welcoming light, no happy faces. Just sadness and loss; a night of blackout drinking. That couldn’thave been an out of body experience. It was more like a nightmare. Right?
(SOLIZ’s face is sweaty, anxious. CORSO, hand to chin, considering)
CORSO
A classic shame dream. You felt humiliated by your naked body – a very nice body I might add – as if by some unwilling revelation of your essential self. A common anxiety dream, I assure you. Hampered by cultural imperatives your attempted “escape” was disguised as self-punishment; you “looked down”, ergo tumbled and fell. Almost Greek in its simplicity. I especially liked the note about the handless watch. Very Dali-esque.
RAD
I’m all for naked dreams.
JAZZ
Our naked selves aren’t our essential selves.
CORSO
(Looking at her very displeased. Those guinea pigs again)
How so, Miss Suzino?
JAZZ
I mean, everyone’s naked body is alike. Choices reveal our essential selves.
CORSO
Spoken like a fashion major. How jejeune.
CHASE
I know what she means. It’s why people get tattoos.
CORSO
Says a tattooed denizen of the underclass.
ZANE
Everybody’s naked body is not alike! I wish!
RAD
(Trying so hard to be ZANE’s buddy)
Right! I mean, if only!
JAZZ
I mean generally.
CORSO
We split hairs. Nevertheless you expose the dangers of word selection, Miss D’Accosta. Forget “flying”. Who went elsewhere? Absolutely elsewhere? Just tell me that.
(Perceptual Studies Student Lab at College . Enter CORSO in Burberry, cap and scarf)
CORSO
Sorry I’m late. I’ll make it up. Time’s our bitch, but that’s what we’re here for – get on top of it. I see you’ve met my teaching assistant, Mr. Quinn.
(IndicatesCHASE)
CHASE
I thought you fired me.
CORSO
But you’re so charming as my warm-up act. Who could resist you? Consider yourself re-hired.
ZANE
(Pointing at CHASE)
Ringer! Ringer!
CORSO
(Opens a door)
Welcome to Paradise. After you.
(Lights up on DREAM RESEARCH LAB ; six recliners arranged in a circle – lockers to either side– students study their environment. Glittering disco ball lowers from ceiling shedding fractals. Padded floor; students step gingerly. At center of recliners a black chalice on a tripod emits dry ice smoke)
CORSO
(Slams door aggressively)
Now you’re committed.
RAD
My folks always said I’d end up committed.
ZANE
And in a padded cell.
CORSO
God forbid you should fall down in your dream-throes and sue the institute that birthed your intellect.
CHASE
Where are the sensors?
CORSO
Everything’s wireless these days, poor Mr. Quinn! What are you worried about? Nobody would dare to censor you.
KOO
(Gestures at the disco ball)
Is that a camera?
CORSO
The Eye of History.
(Claps hands)
Chop, chop, little ones – Enough rubbernecking. Time’s a-wasting. Male locker room there, females that-away. Discard outerwear and belongings. Let’s get going.
(As CHASE passes him, CORSO says dryly)
The old razzle dazzle? REALLY?
(Banging of locker doors)
CHASE
We’ll see.
CORSO
We certainly will. Now, if you children would arrange yourselves male, female – thusly.
RAD
Like some antique dinner party?
CORSO
Sacred geometry. We need all the energy we can harness. We are immersing ourselves in the flip side of reality- the Unseen.
(JAZZandCHASEare side by side. CORSO distributes mugs)
CORSO
Tea time!
CHASE
What is this stuff?
CORSO
Sorry, Mr. Quinn, research is not a democracy. All that’s guaranteed is, you sleep on cue without allergic overdrive.
ZANE
I’m not allergic to Nurse Howk, either. Yowza!
RAD
(Shaking his hand as if from a burn)
I know, right?
CORSO
Drink up and settle down. I am collecting mugs so I will know who’s been naughty and who’s been nice.
JAZZ
Yuck! This stuff tastes like bark.
(RADbarks like a dog)
CORSO
Shotgun it, Miss Suzino. Knock it back. Isn’t that the college way?
. (CORSOcollects mugs, turning them upside down to be sure they’re empty)
Musical selection? Classical or non-classical?
ZANE
Anything so long as it’s not classical.
CHASE
Anything – so long as it’s classical.
(They glare at each other. CORSO laughs)
CORSO
The bulls do clash! Ocean sounds it is!
(He conducts the music)
Everyone hold hands and close eyes please. Let the bonding begin!
CHASE
(Muttering)
Bondage, more like.
CORSO
Mr. Quinn! Must I gag you? That can be arranged!
(CHASE finally closes his eyes, rocking back and forth to get comfortable. Lights go down to twilight level on DREAM LAB. CORSO ascends on TOWER LIFT, wearing earphones and holding a conductor’s baton)
CORSO
Welcome to cosmic dreaming. You will dream at such a depth your mind will burst the bonds of selfhood and explode free and untrammeled into the universe. Free from the chains of time, from identity itself, we uncover the truth the quotidian obscures; we are one. Think on it. Think what it would means to be freed from debt, obligation, relationship, guilt, regret or loss. There are no mistakes. Without identity you are released from suffering. Everything you have ever wanted we can achieve together, effortlessly, and in abundance. Desires and longing are the fuel that rocket us to the stratosphere of rarest air. Once we merge in the great Oneness, we will dream uniquely and together.
(CORSOturns a page on his music stand)
Learning to harness our dream, we will control it, uniting our powers generously to become a potent force of reckoning. Prepare yourselves for the ultimate luxury – surrender – lost in the imaginative union that has always been your birthright. Time to claim and master your entitlement. In our relaxation mass consciousness will seize control…But you must be quick!The garden door is closing and you’ll be left behind… See, the stars are out. The world inside and the world without await your signal – longing to merge. Only the clatter in your head prevents the natural fruition of your indissoluble longing.
Doesn’t it feel good leaving the world behind? The universe itself is lost beneath you now. Now flesh itself melts away as invisible imperfections open themselves to perfection. Accept the freedom you are offered. When you open your eyes, you will be gazing down at the husk of your unwelcome, banished self.
(CORSO’Sspot is extinguished, spot rises onJAZZwho stands up eyes closed, feeling out in front of her like sleepwalker. She feels her way to the edge of the stage. No other students stir. CORSO’s voice orates as if from space.)
CORSO
Now the room itself vanishes, your earthly fears becoming someone else’s problem. Release those worries. Look how tiny they seem, as they disappear over the horizon.
(JAZZshakes head impatiently and crabwalks down the steps toward audience.
JAZZ
Where is this place? It smells like death. The end of everything.
A trial is a cutaway of its time and place, a look not just into mores and modalities but secrets and sewage. Two of the most interesting trials I have seen – and I watched every day – were Beth Carpenter’s trial in New London, CT and Michael Peterson’s in Raleigh, N.C. (both 2002, both for first degree murder.)
Each trial exposed the inner workings of a family (two families in the Carpenter case) and were so enormously influential for me that I wrote fiction about them.
Both trials revealed levels of shocking hypocrisy so deep we could have been in Victorian London; these accused would do anything to get what they wanted while maintaining social appearances.
At the time of his wife’s death Michael Peterson was gay sexting on hotmilitarystud.com; and although he insisted his wife knew about his affairs her daughter (who lived with them) did not think so. But the real shock in this case was that an identical death was exhumed from his past – another woman who died on bloody staircase. Both skulls revealed seven blows to the top of the head.
The first woman’s daughters – whom Peterson acquired along with her assets – thought she had died of an aneurysm. What would it feel like to see their mother’s real skull revealed in court for all the world to see? That was the genesis of Depraved Heart, though I changed everything else to create my own world.
In the Carpenter case, Beth came from a family of strivers who felt soiled and humiliated by their other daughter’s marriage to a part time stripper tow truck driver. Beth was accustomed to ordering her boyfriends around – two of them testified that she took over their cars and bank accounts as soon as they showed interest. Her boss, Hayman Clein, a successful Connecticut real estate attorney, fell for her attractions and became her virtual slave. When she asked him to find her a hit man, he offered up his coke dealer – and the three of them went down for the crime. That this simple ask keeping her own hands clean made Beth a murderer too is something she should have known – she also was a lawyer.
I used aspects of her overpowering character to create my Queen of Swords.
It’s a truism that real life needs to be toned down for fiction: no one would believe it.
VIRGINIA I should never have married you. Women see the worst of men, how cruel they are at home, how they believe in ranks and ceremonies, how they demand praise and management. We bring out what’s bad in each other. We should live separately.
LEONARD Virginia, I admit I have been a brute. I told you that before you married me. I have faults, vices and beastlinesses. I am lustful, a whorer, a gazer after women, a vicious man who has loved the refinements of vice. I have seen the filth of the brothel, know that it is filth and still I’ve lain with the ugliest whore. I have been selfish, jealous, and cruel. You are the most beautiful, most magical among women. Yet I must have you, and not some inferior female who would enrage me with her inferiority and submission. I am terminally and unconditionally in love with you. God, the happiness I’ve had being with you and talking to you – mind to mind and soul to soul. I don’t care so much for the physical part. You are the best thing I have ever had in my life. I will never be content, now, with second best.
VIRGINIA And here am I, a failure, childless, no writer and insane. You confessed your sins before we married, but I knew I was insane with a mad sister and a madder uncle and yet I married you.
LEONARD Tell me the truth. Why did you marry me, the penniless, trembling Jew?
VIRGINIA Perhaps only because you were my beloved brother Thoby’s best friend. He said, I’ve met a man so violent, so savage, he trembles with contempt for the whole human race. And that was you.
LEONARD Thoby was so beautiful it was difficult to speak with him of iniquity or despair.
VIRGINIA Thoby had the kind of beauty that defends itself from caress.
LEONARD And you’re the same. With such gestures one falls in love for a lifetime.
VIRGINIA Thoby and I were so close until he went away to that school, where the boys fought and buggered. When he came back he was so different, harsh and cruel. He beat me. I just stood there and let him pound me with his fists, feeling the most awful sadness; why hurt another person? He showed off by abusing me. I refused to surrender the space we used to have, but he said, Girls must give up. That’s what it means to be a girl. It was essential for the fellowship of men that I be kept out. Because you were his greatest friend I hoped the best of him lived on, in you. But you are nothing like him.
LEONARD The Goth was always a law unto himself. He didn’t acquire friends, he annexed worshippers. You and Vanessa looked so like him our Circle called you “Visigoths.” Misses Virginia and Vanessa Stephens, so beautiful that dogs turned to look at them in the street.
VIRGINIA Trust me, it’s not that pleasant having dogs turn to look at one in the street. So, you married me, thinking I was like Thoby and you were disappointed.
LEONARD Virginia, you must stop thinking everything is your fault. We were primed to fall in love because of our friendships, but we actually fell in love because we saw each other’s true selves.
VIRGINIA I saw how shocked you were when you realized you had married a madwoman.
LEONARD Life may be an obstacle race but that doesn’t mean one would want the obstacles removed.
VIRGINIA I should have told you!
LEONARD Did I tell you my tremor is hereditary? My father had it, too. Should I have confessed that? We didn’t want to talk about our families. We wanted to revel in each other’s hopes and dreams.
VIRGINIA When we talked, I forgot everything except the joy of our conversation. Originality and freedom, purity and restraint, we discussed it all. Here’s someone who cares, I thought, about the hidden pockets of emotion, someone who wants to work like a steam engine at uncovering the truth. I needed to know that when I weep, I am not the only weeper. You almost persuaded me we could change the world with just our two brains.
LEONARD Nothing’s more important than the two of us united.
VIRGINIA Yet somehow here I am, locked up in a madhouse.
LEONARD Virginia, this isn’t a madhouse and you are not insane. But we need the doctor’s permission for you to leave. We must figure out, the pair of us, how you can assume control. I don’t believe in guilt or apologies. I know what it is to be driven beyond endurance but I know I can avoid the whirlpools if you help me, Virginia. Let me help you learn how to assume control.
VIRGINIA What’s the use of men talking to women, we’re too different. We must hate and fear each other. Women can’t even step outside their doors with any safety. If you could strip off my skin you would see my nerves gone white with fear of you.
LEONARD You’re talking to the member of a despised race rooted out as pests wherever we settle. My nerves should be white with fear of your kind. It’s a fetid, sordid world. Yet we two are somehow different. In Ceylon, I took out my gun to put an end to the utter foulness, the stupid blind vindictive foulness of everything. You see, we have that in common.
VIRGINIA You did? You really tried to shoot yourself?
LEONARD I thought that the only reason one doesn’t commit suicide is that one is either a selfish coward or already dead and rotten. The one thing that saved me was a vision of you, the beautiful Miss Stephen who wrote like an angel and quoted Plato. I longed to meet you. But I was so afraid of making a fool of myself my very soul and stomach trembled.
VIRGINIA You stayed alive because of me?
LEONARD I did. So you must return the favor. Lytton Strachey and I wrote long letters back and forth. He argued against suicide and insisted that I propose.
VIRGINIA Lytton asked me to marry him once. Thank God, I didn’t. The very idea of his criticisms would have kept me from writing anything.
LEONARD He understood all that. He said the only person who was right for you was me.
VIRGINIA But he didn’t know about my spoiled, ruined body.
LEONARD You have a perfect body!
VIRGINIA Currently being stuffed like a Strasbourg goose, thanks to you. Strapped down, force fed, shot with drugs.
LEONARD All because you refuse to eat. Let me order dinner right now and feed it to you. How about that?
VIRGINIA I’m not hungry. Oh, let me die, Leonard! Let me go! Find a girl who can love you properly! I failed in the bedroom – you made that perfectly clear.
LEONARD Perhaps copulation is inherently degrading. Really, horseback riding is more pleasurable.
VIRGINIA But there’s children to look forward to, surely.
LEONARD I don’t want children and if you really read The Wise Virgins, you’ll know why.
VIRGINIA But we won’t raise them in a strict Jewish home!
LEONARD There’s your prejudice again! It wasn’t the Judaism, it was the endless striving for dominance of tiny minds. How I hated it!
VIRGINIA Father shrieked and screamed that we were sending him to the poorhouse with our expensive household bills. I brought him a catalog of King’s College classes for Ladies but he said he couldn’t spare me because it was my turn to pet him, soothe him, cut his meat! I wanted to write, but I couldn’t keep it private. Once I had a diary with a lock but Thoby stole it, so I pasted my secret pages into a book.
LEONARD After my father died we really were headed for the poorhouse. My brother had to work to support the family.
VIRGINIA Don’t you think every family is a lonely caravan, absolutely private, silent and unknown? I see us wedged in together, surrounded by vast space we couldn’t cross. It seemed impossible to break through the dark cloud and shed light on those shrouded, curtained rooms. Censors, visionary figures everywhere admonished us. Father told me no intelligent being had any right to believe in God, but when I was six years old, I dreamed that I was God.
LEONARD And your mother?
VIRGINIA Mother said there couldn’t be a God because no just God would have killed the splendid Herbert Duckworth, her first husband. She loved him so. She never told my father she loved him.
LEONARD
Never?
VIRGINIA
Never. I wrote stories in which clever, courageous children rescue their families and bring hope to the sick. Do you believe in God, Leonard?
LEONARD No one believes in God. Virginia, we must refuse to be determined by our pasts. Our parents had too many children to cope but we won’t make the same mistake. Don’t you want to be free, Virginia? With so many mouths to feed, freedom’s never possible.
VIRGINIA I know you’re only saying that because Dr. Hyslop insists the mad should never propagate.
LEONARD I swear I’m not. Nessa has children – and with all her lovers looks to spew many more – wouldn’t that be enough for you?
VIRGINIA (turning away)
Surely loneliness destroys us. Futile and infertile – aren’t those more than adequate reasons for self-murder?
LEONARD We’ll never be futile, not us. You’ve written a wonderful novel, Virginia. I know you’ll write many more.
VIRGINIA Received by my family in complete silence.
LEONARD They’re barely literate. My whole point is that family shouldn’t matter. I’ve freed myself – I never see my mother if I can help it. Remember how upset she was to be excluded from our wedding? Surely an ambitious person’s gaze should widen, take in more?
VIRGINIA Take in who? Society, like the Countess of Carnarvon? Publishers like Gerald?
LEONARD How about other modern thinkers, trying to do what we are doing? Finding new ways to be, see, think, do, connect. Roger Fry with his “significant form”. Maynard Keynes with aggregate demand, E. M. Forster’s clever novels. The literary impressionism you attempted in Voyage Out.
VIRGINIA Forster isn’t clever. He thinks women should be banned from the London Library Board and never allowed on the grass at Cambridge. How on earth can dry, dusty books ever make up for real, live children?
LEONARD Was your childhood really anything you’d care to revisit, Virginia?
VIRGINIA Yes, yes, yes. If I could only tell you, or anybody. Oh, the magic summers at St. Ives! Lost, gone forever. Paradise before, catastrophe after. Now whatever it is I want I cannot tell. I was born with extraordinary capacities for feeling, but you say bury my emotions or they will never let me out.
LEONARD Not bury them, Virginia. Manage them. We need to convince the world that you are fine and well. Let’s get to the bottom of the ideas that torment you. How many years was that paradise of childhood, really? Two or three? We have our whole, long, fruitful lives ahead of us.
VIRGINIA It was paradise before the deaths began.
LEONARD There’s no escaping death, Virginia.
VIRGINIA You intimate that children would drive me mad?
LEONARD They would certainly stop you working. Can you see a house filled with nannies, nurses, servants, their followers and lovers? Cockney quarrels and endless Bedlam difficulties? You once described your nursery as a cage where you were forced to perform compulsory tricks.
VIRGINIA And what do you call this damnable house? Cousin Madge says you’re mean and think of nothing but money.
LEONARD Madge is an idiot. Let’s resolve to cut all idiots on principles of health.
VIRGINIA If that were only possible! Here I am in George’s house, sentenced to eternally hawking Gerald’s books!
LEONARD But George isn’t here. And there are other publishers in the world besides Gerald.
VIRGINIA Worse ones, doubtless. Did you read Gissing, or even Meredith?
LEONARD Then we’ll publish our books ourselves.
VIRGINIA (turning to face him)
Could such a thing be possible?
LEONARD Of course, it is. You know your Women’s Cooperative promotes apprenticeships. I think the Working Man’s College teaches printing.
VIRGINIA Oh, imagine if that were so! How I’d love to print! I used to bind books, I liked that. The tools were so beautiful. Papers from Italy, leathers from Africa. The smell alone was heavenly.
LEONARD Don’t these doctors recommend handiwork?
VIRGINIA Tat-work! Or crochet!
LEONARD Let’s defeat them, then. Can’t we, together, push the world our way? Or at the very least carve out a tiny corner where we can live and thrive?
Alysse Aallyn 