Artistic Nurturing in the Amphitheater

Reminder from Mano:
When you see a beautiful view, tell the elementals of that land that they are beautiful.

I have been doing Marko Pogacnik’s January meditation, “Staying Connected with the Matrix of Life” (you can find it on his website under “meditations”). As a first step, I become aware of my elemental heart, holding it upon my hands at the end of the breastbone and feeling its exquisite quality. Marko says, “The elemental heart is a holographic piece (a fractal) of the heart of the Earth. Human beings are recognized as beings of the Earthly Cosmos through the elemental heart.”

This meditation has to do with the responsibility humans have, in this time of change, to connect consciously with the earth’s energy matrix. The amphitheater and places like it all over the world serve as teaching centers, helping us hone our energies and skills in spots that are ensouled and inviting, so that we can then do this earth work wherever we are, in whatever conditions.

As I contemplate this amphitheater on Barbara’s land at the end of Jim’s Road, I am inspired to take my own experiences there as a holographic representation of its power and magic. Dedicated to creative expression and wholeness, the amphitheater has attracted thousands of people, each of whom could contribute a unique fractal. In considering my heart’s connection there, I extend love and gratitude from all these pilgrims to this enchanted place, the genius loci of the mountain.

Around 1984, a friend took me to one of Barbara and Jim’s sacred circle dance events in the amphitheater, and I have been to many since then. We repeated the simple dance sequences so many times that my brain could turn over the “right movement” to my body, to my feet, and free my head and heart to become one with the trees, the other dancers, the pulsing music, the soft air. It was, indeed, heavenly dancing.

In the mid-90s, when my first summer’s Waldorf teacher training was in Santa Cruz and I was staying with friends on a road just over from Alba, I took to stopping in the amphitheater in the late afternoons to practice the recorder, which I could already play, and eurythmy, which I found difficult and confusing. The atmosphere allowed me to let go, to relax, and to receive inspiration and support from the very soul of the land. I felt saved from middle-aged awkward uncertainty.

Ten years or so later, as a dear friend and fellow founder of the Waldorf School of the Peninsula and I were both leaving our work at the school, her longing was to create a Chartres labyrinth lit by candles. Barbara agreed to let us do it in the amphitheater. Our group laid the form with leaves and debris and lined it with hundreds of votive candles. We danced around the outside circle, then one by one followed the intricate pattern to the center of the earth and back out again, our heads caressed by dark shadows, our feet illuminated and alive. Afterward Barbara remarked that the amphitheater’s fire elementals had never been so honored and delighted.

In 2009 the Peninsula’s new Waldorf high school was on a beginning-of-school retreat at the nearby Quaker Center, and we brought the whole school to the amphitheater to meet Barbara and do circle dances around the fire. It was a bit of a risk—high schoolers confronted with gnomes—but I trusted Barbara’s stature in this bridging of worlds. When we descended into the amphitheater she was there, but whereas for such an occasion she would usually wear a colorful, exquisite ethnic outfit, this time she was dressed very casually with her long grey hair tumbling out of its bun. She was not expecting us until the next evening!

With great amusement and satisfaction, she told the students that she had decided to come down to keep her daily communication commitment to the gnomes, instead of going into town to buy groceries. Just before we arrived, she had entered the chamber under the amphitheater (in her mind’s eye) and had been tipped off that a surprise was coming (our group). The biggest surprise for Barbara, however, was that she had been prompted to prepare everything the day before. Her way of talking about the elemental realm and her interactions with it were so matter-of-fact, free of any trace of discomfort, honest and respectful of both teenage and gnome sensibilities—the students allowed themselves to give over to the place and to dance, dust rising from bare stomping feet and energy soaring. The gift was a suspension of disbelief, if only momentarily, and the teenagers were able to engage in a possibility. As we were leaving, Barbara remembers that two of the teachers spoke to her personally of their experiences with spirits of the land and thanked her for helping them remember.

Such events pull people in, whet their appetites, keep them on the alert for similar places and experiences. It turns out, though, that for me the most important times in the amphitheater have been the alone times, sitting in trees in the rain, coming down from Amity Cottage in the middle of the night, wandering among the redwoods, lying on the ground, shuffling through the leaves. Listening. Receiving.

Barbara adds this observation: “Each person who comes to the amphitheater is accompanied by a personal guardian angel and a body elemental. The elementals of the land gather around for a lovely exchange between the guest elemental spirits and those of the amphitheater. The air spirits often bring a cool breeze to the guests as a blessing to clear their minds, though people seldom recognize this breeze as a blessing. The angels and air spirits offer the greatest blessings when they blow the leaves of the madrone trees free to shower the guests and the floor of the amphitheater with leaves. We are totally unaware of so much that the elemental world is contributing.”

Mano’s input now stretches the concept of a body elemental to the plural—body elementals. He reminds us that our bodies are made up of all four elementals: earth, water, air, and fire. His way of teaching, Barbara says, “is to expand on what I know using language I understand, and then as my understanding grows he becomes more specific and expands my understanding to accept a larger picture. He has discovered that if the initial picture is too big, I, in essence, cover my head, roll up my toes, and go back to sleep. Waking humanity is a big job that takes enormous patience, and so Mano has learned to cautiously take one step at a time. Mary Jane and I are on this wake-up team. Mano’s blog is a small splash in a big pond. But it is making a splash and he appreciates us for our willingness to do this work.”