I went to see Warhorse last night. In Woking. Not the most inspiring of towns, but the theatre was fine, stuffed into a badly designed shopping mall that the English are so good at, shops crammed into odd spaces, compromised lighting and everything closed by six. The theatre was packed with school groups of loud teenagers trying to out-swagger each other, in their sweat pants and hoodies and Nikes, swooshing their hair, chewing gum, whispering behind their hands, being generally adorably teen. We sat two rows in front of them, and I stared, as I do, at everyone (luckily without my children to tell me not to). I love people watching. I love trying to imagine what people are thinking, what their relationships are to each other, whether they are in still in love, or whether they've given up. There were plenty of big necklaces, fleeces, and horsey women (I know this breed well as I am one of their ilk). There were plenty of family groups, plenty of couples who weren't speaking to each other. I thought about my friend Lucy, who has no boundaries whatsoever in a way that would be horrendous on anyone else but on her is lovely, coltish, affectionate. She would immediately start chatting to people next to her. She would offer to share her sweet and salty popcorn. She would make friends. I remembered that I was English and that the English aren't keen on that kind of thing. I remembered to move my elbows and not take over the arm rest on my right. "Do you have tissues?" said Charlie. "Why?" I said defensively. "Do *you* have tissues?" I asked rudely, like a teenager. "Well it might be quite emotional" he said kindly. "Oh, I'll be fine," I said, brushing it off, doing my best Kevin or Perry.
The stage was very plain, with a large swath of something that looked like a thick piece of ripped wallpaper in the shape of a sweet potato, which became an ersatz screen onto which pencil drawn animated scenes were projected: the village in Devon the boy comes from, the battleground in the Somme, horses galloping, drawn in HB pencil. A troubador woman in country clothes sings a ballad in a rich voice and the scene is set - a horse auction at a local town where our hero is bought as a colt by a drunken farmer who spends thirty nine pounds of mortgage money on the horse - a half draught, half thoroughbred. Joey. The farmer's son bonds with the horse and trains it. You know the story. I believe that my whole persona changed the minute the little colt, made of wood and metal and cloth, appeared on the stage. How does a puppet, so clearly animated by two or three people with sticks attached to it, move and breathe and flicker with something so closely appropriating life? How does the puppet colt look and move and twitch with such playfulness, such inquisitiveness, such a beating heart? I think I started to sob when the young horse makes a Herculean effort to show that he can pull a plough and didn't actually stop crying until most people had left the theatre. At one point Charlie said to me, "Are you okay, darling? Would you like to leave?" "No," I managed to sniffle back to him, my chest heaving, the breath caught in my throat.
Warhorse is transformative. You walk in as one person and leave quite simply as another. There is no doubt that a transformation takes place. For me, all the armor fell aside. It broke my heart open, as I think all good art does, to allow you to receive. It's also magic. You suspend your disbelief completely, as the puppeteers dance across the stage.
I've been listening to Michael Meade's podcast Living Myth today. I have a long drive every morning out to the horse, and this is an ideal time for listening. Today's episode is on gratitude and grace. "A broken heart is the only heart worth having," ie the eye of the heart is the seat of the soul (Cynthia Bourgeault has a book about this too.) Watch Michael Meade here. "Some people find it through a spiritual path, some people find it through creative arts, some people find it through making love, there's many ways to find it, but the idea is to find that which opens the heart...and that allows the soul to grow." - Michael Meade
But the idea of great art being transformative is a heady one. And perhaps that is why we pursue art.
Horses have an electro-magnetic field that is so huge, that just being a few feet away from them is transformative. (I just googled it. Ha ha.) My friend Angela, who is part of the morning riding crew said to me today, "how do other people deal with depression?" and I know what she meant. About three minutes after you are in contact with a horse, everything falls aside, all the petty worries, the little anxieties (the big anxieties), the tension, the tightness, the small things just disappear, melt into thin air, and you experiences wholeness; you experience your heart opening and you are suddenly part of a unity, not a tiny little lonely creature living with your own metallic worries, your fears, your rigidity. Suddenly, everything is possible. That place (also called flow, I believe) is where all good things come from. That place of vast abundance. So, greeting Bella this morning was hard without tears, after experiencing Warhorse. Horses give us everything they have. They allow us to - and give us a safe place to - open our hearts. I think that realization was brought home in the theatre last night.
Gratitude, even momentary gratitude, is a state of wholeness. - Michael Meade
(Here is the Living Myth podcast The Necessity of Gratitude.)
So, I'm thinking that those gratitude journals that everyone poo-poos might be worth it. Just a few minutes every morning, to keep us on track, to keep us aligned, before the world sweeps us up in its dramas.
Be safe everyone. I love you, LA.
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