Meeting Places

May 2014

“Children, there are words pasted to the undersides of leaves that match your secrets” - Daniel Lusk

How do I begin to tell the story of secrets shared?  Our job in Myanmar recently was to carve out a space and hold it without judgement: to listen.  This is harder than it sounds.  I think it’s a greater gift than any of us realise to listen with the spirit and not make a judgement with the heart.

Creative practice and creative partnerships offer the gift of space for listening to secrets sometimes spoken, sometimes sung.  Our task as creative people is to listen and respond to something different from that of our experiences, and of our own ideas.  This can seem threatening to our closely held beliefs, though perhaps that’s ok.  Whatever the beliefs, if they have integrity and hold value, they are not in danger of disintegrating.  So we can risk a little authentic listening in the meeting places.

The thing to keep in mind about this kind of meeting place is that it is guarded.  It can only be entered because space has been created for a safe encounter with another.  This doesn’t happen randomly.  It takes preparation, discipline and commitment to the wellbeing of others.  It also takes a willingness to sacrifice your own agenda to hold the invitation for someone else to be heard.

Our job as remnant creative practitioners lately has been to hold the meeting places long enough for the stories of incredibly precious individuals to be told.  As artistic practitioners, our work has been to use the language of dance and music and visual arts to engage in a conversation of depth in these sacred meeting places.

 Photography by Amanda Humphries, 2014