The Direction of Intention

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[continued from 164]

There’s more to be said about the experience of being “in” the play or “out” of the play, being “in” life or “out” of life. It is more than just where you place your focus. Something happens, something distinct, important and tangible when your focus shifts from an internal to an external placement. A space of inclusion is created.

I understood early on that actors who were pretending, actors who were concerned about how they looked or were trying to determine what the audience saw, were actually blocking the audience from entering the story. If an actor’s focus was internal, they literally shut the audience out of the play; the audience could view but were blocked from participating. Transformation is a participation sport.

Like all forms of art, the theatre, in its essence, is about a coming-together, a group of people stepping into a shared experience. This space of coming together, this space of inclusion, is a step toward unity – this is a great definition for a sacred space; sacred space is a place of joining, a place where we transcend our little selves and we experience ourselves as something bigger. Sacred space is created – by us – when we place our focus outside of our selves. This joining is what art is all about. It is what life is all about.

I suspect that art, to truly serve its function, was never intended to be separate from day to day living. We are, after all, actors in our own play. And to be useful, to be transformational, living (presence) begins with learning to place your focus outside of yourself – in service to the creation of a space of joining.

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