Finding the Stage

Finding a Stage:

Creating Spaces for Action

Jesse Hindman

Prescott College

Spring 2015

It is some time around eleven o’clock, though the exact time eludes me. I’ve taken one too many drags off of a joint, feeling consumed by its effects. My body feels heavy, weighed down, and I find myself unable to stave off the convulsions of anxiety. My body and mind are overwhelmed – haunted – by the overarching questions of the era in which I live. 

Questions like: 

“How can I do my part to shift the destructive patterns of my society?” 

“What am I doing to contribute to these patterns?”

“Will we make it out of the ecological crises alive?”

And…

“What is my true purpose in this life?

These questions haunt me from within, but are also mirrored all around me, as I feel immobilized on the brown couch; I sit watching, listening to other seekers in discussion, standing before me while they elucidate their own answers to these difficult questions. My new-found friends Jeremiah Youngtree and Region Lewis are animated as they discuss their view of the world and their place in it. Due to the nature of my reality-bending experience, I am unable to completely follow their train of thought; their words slip through my grasp even as they are spoken. I feel a spectator, locked in my seat, witnessing the discussion unfolding; I am not a part of it. They cite grand philosophical gestures of the way the world is.

We are just outside of San Diego at the Jungle Palace, the old family house of a nursery, surrounded by hundreds of palm tree starts. The life flourishing around us is mirrored in the passionate discussion before me, creativity abounding. Two days ago, we banded together in our common pilgrimage to the Sheraton Hotel in San Diego to attend the second annual Permaculture Voices conference (PV2), and there is already more than enough fodder generated by the conference to bring rich discussion to this living room.

I feel inadequate as the discussion unfolds; I’ve smoked too much weed. There is tension within me; I know I have a lot to offer, and yet I am paralyzed. I cannot speak, self-doubt and worry drench my thoughts, disallowing me from generating the confidence needed to participate. There are strong, screaming voices within telling me that I have nothing to contribute, that I do not deserve the space to speak.

The voices overcome me.

I am literally shaking, anxiety crawling up my throat, constricting my words. The things my fellow truth-seekers are saying are so beautiful, and I am just beyond reach -- their only audience -- in the back row, viewing their glorious stage from obscurity.

Finally Jeremiah addresses some things that strike a chord; he begins to discuss the importance of acknowledging the grief that each human has for the destruction of the planet, begins to talk about creating contexts in which to feel this grief in order to understand more fully what it means to take action anyway. I already know well what he is saying: he articulates words I often speak; there is resonance, this is my chance!

I watch myself present my thoughts to Jeremiah, all the while my voices continue on inside of me juxtaposed: self-doubt and self-actualization happening simultaneously. Here is a tension between the two, my articulation generating forth as a result. The process reveals the true nature of my voices, showing the forces within me that would keep me silent, keep me obscured, disconnected.

I keep allowing the torrent to flow, the words I speak different than my internal reflections. All the times I’ve felt powerless come to mind, the times I’ve felt unable to participate in the movements I perceive to be worthwhile. My mind and my spoken words continue to be separate, different.

While attending PV2, I watched in awe as speakers climbed atop their stage—the stage that was set for them—to frame an activist’s plight in palatable terms. I took in the audience around me that traveled so far to be inspired, to engage, and ultimately develop ways they can actively participate.

As I sat in the audience of various keynotes throughout the conference, I took in the words being spoken and imagined what it means to find my own stage. I have attended a good deal of conferences and shows where I see incredibly inspirational speakers stand atop their stage, and yearn to have that opportunity myself.

Even though I know better, I fool myself into thinking it is easy for these people to manifest their stage, to manifest an audience on the edge of their seats. But of course these amazing speakers have done (and continue to do) a lot in their lives to gain the attention and the followers required for the stage to be set.

 

I haven't found my stage... yet.

I want a real stage in which to share and inspire, but also want to develop the stage within, to operate and share with confidence. Finding my stage also means finding my place in the world, my function, a way to participate that feels aligned and engaging. I’ve lost my sense of self, and I avoid the pain. I have all the pieces, all the proverbial scrap wood, nails and tools to build my stage, but every time I try to lay out the blueprint, I get stuck.

I smoke pot and watch T.V.

 In the living room with Jeremiah, all of this coalesces within me. All of it condensed into my stoned processing, happening just behind the scenes as I articulate. I feel inclined to push past the “coffee shop revolutionary” phase and into one of real action. I am passionate about the food system in the United States, and its flaws. I am passionate about our economy and its inherent destructive principles. I see the flaws and yet I still participate in them, still wrapped up in the capitalist conditioning, trapped in a system that clearly no longer serves.

How do I come into loving acceptance of myself and my circumstances?

The THC continues to pulse through my veins, I’m cold. I wrap my hoodie closer to me, and continue to shake. I feel a special kind of paranoia, constricting my chest and incarcerating my spirit, while simultaneously the words I speak banish the disease of addiction, thrust me into who I’m meant to be. My intuition tells me there are ways of finding joy even in the darkest depths of an identity disenfranchised.

Where is the joy?

Jeremiah’s eyes light up; I read his body language; his heart opens.

How can I connect to it despite all the suffering of the earth and its inhabitants?

I stand, move closer, into more intimacy as our discussion unfolds.

How do I find joy without avoiding the pain?

We embrace, his long red hair pushed against my cheek.

How do I honor and acknowledge the pain while finding beauty?

We silently recognize the depth of wisdom in each of us.

I am being pushed through a threshold, the split between my immature, adolescent self, and the adult I’m becoming. As I turn 29 in a week, I reflect on this last year of depression. It has been an initiatory process, a rite of passage. I have overcome adversity enough in my life to understand its function, to know how it shapes me, how important it is. The stagnancy, the inertia pushes away from me, my life unfolds in the Great Turning. I am no longer a boy, and yet I am not quite a man. The tension pulls at me between these two spaces, the threshold pushing down on my crown just as my mother’s cervix did all those years ago. I feel the cool air on the other side, waiting for me to take my first breath.

I am discovering what it means for me to become a man.

The friends and speakers I met at the conference show me the way through this threshold by showing up in authenticity. They engage in conversation with me, they stand atop their stage orating powerfully. Their messages are rife with self-actualization, concrete action steps, and open-source ideas. They share what they share not just to inspire, but in hopes that other people will build upon what they have already constructed.

I may be lost but that loss proves my path.

My loss brings clarity, defines the contours, and illuminates the stones. I can see the prints of small animals etched in the dirt, a canopy of ferns, oak, and redwood towering above me.

I belong with these people, sharing, loving, laughing and connecting. This is where I thrive, this is my stage, it has been set all along; it's here beneath me, myopia preventing me from truly seeing. My stage is in the mingling with other powerful souls, deep in their process and responsible for their own healing.

The dark voices within still won’t cease, they tell me that I don't belong here, they are so powerful. I have no idea from where they come but they are so strong, so convincing. When I connect with the soul tribe—deeply compassionate and caring people—the voices are silenced, rendered obsolete.

Jeremiah and I embrace in the dimly-lit living room.

Our connection saves me.

Our hug disproves my self-doubt, calms my worrying mind. We let go, separate. He tells me my words resonate with his own journey, his own mission. He matches my passionate words with equally powerful statements, expressing a desire to work with me. He literally offers a stage, a way to articulate my philosophy, to begin the process of learning to inspire and educate a crowd. He has two projects already in mind. I am in motion.

The Permaculture Voices speakers go up and say the same thing they say to their wives, husbands, children, their colleagues, their students; they speak about their life and how they live it. It is not disconnected or theoretical. They offer concrete evidence of their work. Those I most admire – those that are a part of the true calling – teach not high on a pedestal but amongst their listeners. They teach and they listen.

I've been waiting too long for my turn to speak, I haven't been listening. I've found my stage but am working on learning how to stand on it, to respect the responsibility of being offered that space. I'm learning how to be impeccable with my words, not to waste anyone's time.

When I gather with fellow activists, I feel as if I am coming home. I am interacting with family, like there is a powerful recognition that I belong. This recognition is the key to our survival as both individuals and as a species: it is identifying soul-tribe. We gather with our tribe to draw strength, to love, and to support one another.

Each of us has the ability to create our own stage, and to formulate our performance atop it. We are all authors of this life, writing the literature of a living planet: the literature that lives within; the wisdom that stirs in the deepest, wildest parts of our selves; the literature of song, dance, poetry; the prose of a kiss for a lover; the pirouette in a gesture of gratitude; the thesis of a speaker on top of his stage; the iambic pentameter of a woman with a paintbrush.

My work is to inspire others to pick up the pen, and the mic. As I face my darkest fears, as I reconcile the parts of myself that don’t serve, I can still create beauty. I choose to show up, however I look. I choose to show up, even when I can’t stand. I will crawl up, and lie atop my stage if I have to. I commit to the living world, to the metamorphosis, I commit to the universal force, the propulsion of energy into the great, living planet.