What is Avalon to Us?

Performance photo courtesy Opera House Arts.

Ah, Avalon. The magical Isle of Apples. Where King Arthur goes to heal, and from the mists of which he will come again. Sounds heavenly, no? Imagine the sweet crisp smell that is apple in salty, misty air.

The problem for us moderns, in this 50th anniversary year of Woodstock, is that we've yet to get ourselves back to this garden. When patriarchy crushed matriarchy, Christianity crushed the Druids, and life became about nothing so much as conquering and consuming to show who was right and called by God we lost an awful lot.

The newly commissioned, world-premiere, site specific performance "Avalon," written by Melody Bates in collaboration with the work of sculptor Peter Beerits at his unique sculpture park, Nervous Nellie's Jams and Jellies, and produced and presented by Opera House Arts at the Stonington Opera House, wants to remind us of what we have lost--and to what we still might get back.

Beltane: the celebration of the beginning of summer, when the cattle were driven to field, great fires were lit, and our ancestors danced around the May pole. This evolved into the Christian feast day of Pentacost, marked by the tongues of those same great fires signaling the arrival of the Holy Spirit in the apostles after Christ's death.

There's no question that something holy becomes visible to us as life is reborn in the blooming of the spring fields.

Our shadow selves -- Mordred in legend and play, he who is ultimately responsible for killing the King Stag, Arthur -- are very visible in "Avalon." How easy to indulge the adolescent, narcissistic shadow, how difficult to keep it at bay. Yet at the end of this play, it is Mordred whose speech holds the biggest moment of truth for attendees: it is not he, he points out, (or Trump) who is responsible for the blood tide of war in which we live. Our choices -- each and every one, small as well as large -- make the tide. Giving more life to Mordred, our shadow selves, is a part of our collective will -- or lack thereof. And Mordred (played smartly by Shawn Fagan) is real, and therefore loveable, as well.

Neither the wizards nor the Druids (nor later, the native Americans) knew how to defeat the bloody tide of the Anglo-Saxons. Their relentless, irregular warfare -- their ability to commit genocide and still consider themselves Christians, in combination with their hatred of women -- drove civilizations and their peoples into the ground from which we have yet to emerge. We are stuck in a blasphemy of unholy leaders: men who, like their slave-holding kin before them, will let no life go unscarred, no lie be untold, in their quest for power and personal gain. The sad, lost culture in which we try to honor each other and the earth is one of taking rather than giving.

We need, collectively, to dream a better dream -- and wake to join the dance that brings it to life.

"Avalon" points the way. And for those of you who simply want to be a child again, and play in the magical woods: come wander.

Avalon
an Opera House Arts at the Stonington Opera House world-premiere production
every evening at 5:30 p.m., now through August 25
Nervous Nellies Jams & Jellies
Sunshine Road
Deer Isle, ME

Our Journeys Under Sea and Beyond

As we prepare to return home to our island after a six-week writing sabbatical, I’m fondly remembering our big summer production, “Burt Dow, Deep Water Man,” and reflecting on the power of “being away.”

Going away and coming home is a huge privilege for most of us, a by-product of the wealth and mobility of our North American culture. How then might we use this privilege to deepen our own consciousness of who we are and what our roles in this big world might be?

For centuries, in different cultures and traditions, journeying has had more of a mythic than an ordinary quality. Journeys are often quests to reach a mystical “holy grail.” Think King Arthur and his knights (about whom we will hear a solstice tale, “The Loathly Bride,” read by Judith at the Opera House’s holiday event December 18); Odysseus; Jonah and the Whale and thus yes . . . Burt Dow, Deep Water Man. In the ongoing tradition of Jungian analysis, these stories and dreams exemplify no less than our own journeys to develop self and perhaps most importantly, with the individual self, community and culture.

But our modern, western culture becomes less and less about self-development (in its most superficial sense, education and the aspiration to continuously improve) almost by the minute. In the U.S., we don’t want to be challenged by the fantastical, alluring mysteries of what we don’t know; we prefer to surround ourselves comfortably only with what our rational brains and senses are already familiar. This is perhaps most evident in our love of national chain stores and restaurants, which make one American place look, taste, and feel just like the next. And as Thomas Friedman recently reported in his satirical column “From WikiChina” (from an imagined Chinese perspective), Americans “travel abroad so rarely that they don’t see how far they are falling behind.”

“Jonah was unable to speak with sufficient wisdom until he had made a journey under the sea, that is, until he had explored his unconscious,” wrote famed Jungian analyst Joseph Wheelwright more than 30 years ago. What was it, I wonder, that Burt Dow and his Giggling Gull brought back to Deer Isle after evicting themselves from the belly of their own whale? Was it the artistry and creativity Burt discovered there, as he splashed paint like Pollack? McCloskey’s legend of the real man has gone on to give our community gifts for generations.

What gifts do we bring back to our communities when we return home? What will I bring home this week?

Desert Winds

There's something about dry.

My people are Yankees: i.e., east coast people and before that western Europeans.

We don't really know what to do with dry. We know humid.

The Southern California desert I'm currently writing from--Palm Springs, to be exact--is dry 354 (!) days a year. Dry and bright. Clear. The edges of the glorious date palms crisply glistening light against blue sky and brown hills.

But the dry desert brightness is only part of what fascinates about this place. Inhabited forever by the Agua Caliente band of Cahuilla Indians, who remain Palm Springs largest landowners, it is a place that reminds one daily that heaven is right here on earth (according to local legend, it received its current name when a Spanish explorer referred to it as "the palm of God's hand"). Grapefruits growing in the front yard, oranges in the back, etc. More recently for design fans it has become known as "an oasis of modernism in the desert" and some of the 1950s-60s architecture, objects, and decor are definitely swinging.

That's when the place really took off for white people--the 1950s and 1960s--when Hollywood stars suddenly discovered its proximity to Los Angeles and began to flock here in droves for drinks, golf, etc. Frank Sinatra lead the way with his "Rat Pack." Dean Martin, Cary Grant, Debbie Reynolds and yes, Dinah Shore--whose legacy remains in the annual spring golf tourney and "women's weekend," a.k.a. the largest lesbian bash in the country which bears her name--all owned homes here.

The stars got distracted and began to leave in the late 1970s at a time when Palm Springs threatened to become the Fort Lauderdale of spring break California. Now its retiree heaven and really, why not? I know we who live on Deer Isle, Maine extol the high quality of life in Maine, but during the winter its got nothing on Palm Springs. Yep, there are definitely more people and traffic here than in my very rural home; but many of us are crafty enough to avoid traffic and people when we want and need to.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the Springs is that it manages, despite the excesses of second home owners and tourists, to retain a somewhat down-at-heels feel--something which makes it a sister of sorts to Deer Isle, although in truth many lobstermen make more than the average median incomes for Palm Springs. The median income for a household in the Springs was $35,973 and for a family $45,318. The per capita income for the city was $25,957. These figures obviously don't include the second home owners. About 11.2% of families and 15.1% of the population are below the poverty line. Important lesson: beware, communities, of creating economies dependent solely on the tourism/service sectors.