Module Two: It’s all about love

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You and I will just keep going the way we’re already going unless something disturbs or disrupts us. And this is where art as movement comes in.

“Love is not a feeling. No matter how much you feel, love means nothing when unrelated to action. Love is action. In order to engage in effective action you must first find something that you value and put it in the center of your life. When you put your life in the service of what you value, that action will engender other values and beliefs. Through engagement, things happen. Movement is all. Keep moving and yet slow down simultaneously. In Latin this is known as festina lente, “make haste slowly.” Inside of this paradox, you make a space where growth and art can happen. Within the framework of art, you will find a special freedom and the space and time to explore complexities. It does not cost you anything. It costs you your life.” – Anne Bogart

Anne Bogart is a famous theatre director and a personal hero of mine. She writes so well about the act of making. As she states above, the core of moving people, for her, comes from love. If love is an action, then art must find its basis in love and then must work to move from the inside out … from the artist first and then to the audience.

As you think about your creed as it stands today, write (or paint, sketch, pray, sing) about putting your life in service of love, meaning, and movement.

  • I feel most of my life is spent on loving people, finding meaning (spiritually), and honestly trying to create “movements” of various sects of my projects. Loving, meaning, and movement honestly has been at the core. I’m starting to realize that maybe I’m only doing (almost everything) on behalf of other people, literally. I can create, perform, achieve, inspire, and relate to people through my work, and somehow my work or my projects come to completion when I dont think I ever fully have. I dont think I’ve loved, had meaning, or moved myself. My value has always rooted itself in direct correlation to the infulence or impact of my work. From my music career to film career, its always been about my “performance” in the work. Relating to a chapter in Blaine’s book, that “they” only care about what you make, may be at my core. I love and hate my why/creed “we havent seen everything yet” because it seems hopeful to the external world, and I’d love for it to be meaningful to the internal me. Trying to figure out where MY life is inside of that.

    • Meaning + Movement. These are powerful words! You’ve embarked on a great quest…trying to figure out where YOUR life is inside of what you’ve shared. May you be gracious with yourself as you move forward.

  • I feel that to put my life in service of Love, Meaning, and Movement is to take the time to understand my story and the stories of the people and things around me and let that be the driving of my life and art. If I truly care about the story I am better able to empathize and through that empathy I am empowered to live and create in a way that impacts lives.

    To create meaningful art I must first understand the stories of myself and those around me so that the art can build on and enhance those stories in some way. By building on those stories the art then propels me and others further and can create a continuing cycle of art creating growth, in story and life.

    The same is true in life. I want to know where I am and where I am headed so that I can create interactions that celebrate and build into my life and the lives of others.

    • Joshua, you are ahead of the curve here. Your words, “I must first understand the stories of myself and those around me so that the art can build on and enhance those stories in some way,” are spot on.

    • You really are on the right track here. So fun to hear you express this. Great work! Empathy is one of our absolute greatest tools…but it can be so damn vulnerable.

  • Jeremiah Raible

    I’m moved so often and so much – sometimes i think i’m an emotional wreck. So … this one is hard for me to identify exactly what it is that moves me. Hallmark can bring me to tears in a matter of seconds. is it possible to be stuck in this? Is it possible to for us to never move beyond emotionalism? I think one draw back for me is that, when I create, in my mind, it’s so moving and so powerful … but when it plays out on stage or on screen – it doesn’t hit others the same way. Or, the performers interpretation can never match my intensity. So much so, in fact, I often get told to “calm down” or “relax, it’s just for church (which is where I do most of my making). How can you let go of the emotional connection you have to your art? Just some questions and some thoughts flying around in my head as I go through this module.

    • Such a good question. Time is the answer for me. Over time, it’s not that I’ve learned to disconnect my emotions from my art, but I’ve learned when and where to push. As far as the “just for church” comment. I couldn’t disagree more with that sentiment. The church is where we should be seeing some of the greatest works for art.

    • Great self-awareness, Jeremiah. Why do you think you are so deeply moved all the time?

      • I think answering that question is really important before trying to figure out how to “divorce” yourself from those feelings.

  • I just read a in a book that the word emotion is derived from the latin “emovere” meaning to move. I was floored. Emotion is the essence of movement. A life in service of love, meaning and movement is one in service of emotion, deep guttoral emotionality, that gets right to the core of us. For me, as I work with dancers, this has a beautiful double meaning, being moved and moving (literally). I’m realising I’m here to help dancers realise their emotions are embodied in them, find ways to experience them safely, express them healthily and then use all that to move forward and to put that movement into dance, authentic expression etc. … exciting!

    • Oh my this is good. I love how so much of your writing FEELS kinetic. Makes sense because of what you do, but I wonder if you’ve ever noticed that!

  • My creed as it currently stands is ‘let go and dive in’. This in itself indicates movement, but as it stands it reflects my overwhelming need for movement that is not happening in my life. I’m currently suffering from feeling stuck, feeling that I’m not doing what I should be doing (i.e. what makes me happy and fulfils me). If I was to put my life in the service of love, meaning and movement that would mean huge changes for me, and at the moment fear of this (going wrong/being the wrong choice/making mistakes) is what’s possibly holding me back…although small changes are starting to happen.

    • I love the idea of “diving in.” Is that new for you? Have you always been a diver?

      • Hi Blaine! I’ve been diving for about 6 years, and it’s probably the best thing i’ve ever done. Being underwater is so meditative for me, I just with I could be a mermaid! :)

  • My first response was, “I work in ministry. I already do this!” Instead of calling it done I kept thinking about it in my open time, especially as my ideas for creed shifted.
    My thoughts here will center around a creed of “small things matter.”
    I need to be more aware of the small acts of love around me. I need to allow those to move me in larger ways.
    Small meanings is kind of a weird idea. Maybe my work could strive to show meaning in the mundane. Or perhaps my art focus should express smaller meanings or truths, instead of big ones.

    In the midst of processing this on my day off, I got a text from work that derailed my thought process and frustrated me (severely). In the midst of this frustration, I came back to “small things matter,” and I’ll be having a chat with my team tomorrow on how we can build this into our processes.

    • Ane C . Hegén

      I like it. So important to be faithful in the small things.

  • Ane C . Hegén

    I think that my creed is “Finding truth”. I find this so important, and looking back it has been driving me through several periods of my life. What is truth? Where can we find it? Is truth relative? (A question especially relevant in this time that we’re living in). I think that it’s not only me that needs a stable foundation to stand on. I need truth, an absolute foundation, that I can always rely on.

    And I’m not there yet. I am still looking, finding clues and hidden treasures, leading me closer. Not only searching for them, but actually finding them.
    I want my life and my art to be treasures and clues like this, for my self and others. Leading us closer to the Truth.

    To be able to move, I think that we need roots. To be grounded. If not we’ll just fly wherever the winds of the world takes us.

    • A great question for yourself might be, “why am I drawn to the truth? why is it so important to me?” I think digging into that will uncover some awesome things.

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