The Taming of the Shrew – currently on at the RSC in Stratfod

I have seen productions of this that seemed to license rape and brainwashing. This one, directed by Lucy Bailey, saves Petruchio from being a monster and unveils a far more subtle play about love and desire and liberation from slavery to falsely-directed desire. Of course, Katherina’s ‘shrewish’ behaviour at the beginning denotes as big an unfreedom as her sister’s obedience: rebels are no freer than slaves. Petruchio’s strategy of reverse psychology to begin with frames everything she throws at him (literally!) as evidence of her desire to be lovable, and to be able to give love. There are moments that hint at reasons for her being trapped in this ‘attack is the best form of defence’ frame, from her reproaches to her father that the lovely Bianca is his favourite.

Act Four is the really hardcore part, the ‘training’ of Katherina. The staging of this in this production let the whole thing appear to be in a dreamlike or liminal place, so that Petruchio isn’t so much the husband as the hierophant in an initiation, which involves deprival of sleep and food. The fact that it culminates in the walk through the woods and Kate’s acceptance that sun and moon are interchangable, that the reality I experience is in part at least the product of my own way of seeing, adds to this atmosphere of the mystery-temple. And the reverse psychology continues – Kate seems to grow in compassion, the more Petruchio grows in an outrageousness that mirrors hers in Act One.
And the denouement? Katherine’s submission is hard to swallow if one thinks Shakespeare was writing the manifesto for 21st century marriage. However, she has found freedom in accepting the reality of 17th Century marriage; and in this production, when she abases herself to unlace Petruchio’s shoe, he falls at her feet before the famous ‘Then kiss me Kate’ line, and abases himself before her in turn. The husband’s leadership turns out not to be tyranny but servant leadership. There is a connection here to the words in our sacrament of marriage: leadership in the light of Christ surely has little to do with coercion and control, and everything to do with service and self-bestowing love.

Link to the RSC website.

When we realize that intercession is an exercise in awarness it brings a great change to our understanding of it. When praying for others we allow ourselves to be caught in the current of communication which the Spirit gives between us and another, and most of all between us and God. … True intercession places another person more firmly in the arms of the divine love which will never infringe that person’s freedom, but which works through bestowals of awareness and recognition, through evocation and response, through the offer of choice and the glimpse of possibility. John Taylor, The Go-Between God

Folk spirits and love

We have already begun to describe in our preceding studies what we might call the tissue, the network of love; and this web of love must be so woven, that the principal threads are woven into it by the normal Spirits of Form, that being their fundamental mission. Then the abnormal Spirits of Form, who are in reality Spirits of Motion, weave into it that which produces the races. Then the normal and abnormal Spirits of the Age weave into it the historical evolution, and the Archangels, both of normal and abnormal evolution, the several peoples and languages; and lastly those Beings who put man into his right place on the earth, the Angels, also co-operate in the weaving. In this way is spun this mighty fabric of Love.

From The Mission of the Folk-Souls, Lecture 5

This is a liberating lecture-cycle! It has the power to liberate us from thinking that we have to choose between being nationalistic and being world-citizens. We can learn to acknowledge how much of our being is given to us by our belonging to a particular ‘folk’, and yet to see that the fulfilment of the folk-spirits lies in their cooperating together to create a future humanity.

Arthur Zajonc’s book

Arthur (here’s his website) gave a talk in Stourbridge this week, so I finally got round to reading his book, which was a kind gift from people I stayed with on one of my journeys (rare to get given a gift by one’s hosts). Here’s the link to the book:

http://www.steinerbooks.org/detail.html?id=9781584200628

Arthur’s gave a great introduction to some of his thoughts from the book. I am very interested in his ‘modern yoga’ idea, the breathing of attention, living in the oscillation between focussed and open attention. This seems to offer a very good way of making a contemplative mood in which to ‘hear’ a verse that one wants to work with. I would be very interested to hear any comments and experiences. I’ve also just discovered Arthur’s blog on Psychology Today, which has some really interesting-looking articles.

Wired to connect

Neuroscience has discovered that our brain’s very design makes it sociable, inexorably drawn into an intimate brain-to-brain linkup whenever we engage with another person.
Social Intelligence, Daniel Goleman

The neural physiology of koinonia?

 

Deepest desire

It is impossible for any created good to constitute man’s happiness. For happiness is that perfect good which entirely satisfies one’s desire; otherwise it would not be the ultimate end, if something yet remained to be desired.  Now the object of the will, i.e., of man’s desire, is what is universally good; just as the object of the intellect is what is universally true.  Hence it is evident that nothing can satisfy man’s will, except what is universally good.  This is to be found, not in any creature, but in God alone, because every creature has only participated goodness.  Therefore, God alone can satisfy the will of man, according to the words of the Psalms (102:5): “Who alone satisfies your desire with good things.”   Therefore, God alone constitutes man’s happiness.” (Summa Theologica Part 2. Q.1. Article )

Weekly Review in GTD

Why is the weekly review so frightening? I know people who can’t bear to implement a full GTD system because of what the weekly review represents for them.

It’s frightening because it’s time out of life – resisting the pressure of events that carry us through the day.

More important, it’s a confrontation with promises I’ve made myself. If I my GTD system is watertight, then every initiative will have been noted as project. Every next action step will be in there. In the weekly review, I see my promises, and am confronted with what I’ve done with them. Why does this project have no next action? Maybe I didn’t really mean it, that I wanted that to happen. Why has this N.A. been on my list for 3 months? Is it not actually a single action but a multi-step project?Recently, I’ve started trying to integrate higher horizons. I haven’t even started on that audit yet – but I can feel it coming: why does this area of focus not have any projects… Why does this goal not have an area of focus?

Basically, the weekly review brings me into connection with my intentions. Writing a lovely purpose-statement can be just that – lovely. Noting things down on lists can just be displacement activity. Getting everything connected and being honest about my intentions means meeting myself. Just like the Guardian of the Threshold says: until I take responsibility for what I am, he will seem a monster. I suppose I’ll stop feeling frightened of the weekly review when I’m prepared to take full responsibility for every commitment I make to myself and to others. The moment when one has finished the Review always feels a bit like that.

Self-responsibility

Yet my Threshold is fashioned out of all the timidity that remains in thee, out of all the dread of the strength needed to take full responsibility for all thy thoughts and actions. As long as there remains in thee a trace of fear of becoming thyself the guide of thine own destiny, just so long will this Threshold lack what still remains to be built into it. And as long as a single stone is found missing, just so long must thou remain standing as though transfixed; or else stumble. Seek not, then, to cross this Threshold until thou dost feel thyself entirely free from fear and ready for the highest responsibility. Hitherto I only emerged from thy personality when death recalled thee from an earthly life; but even then my form was veiled from thee. Only the powers of destiny who watched over thee beheld me and could thus, in the intervals between death and a new birth, build in thee, in accordance with my appearance, that power and capacity thanks to which thou couldst labor in a new earth life at the beautifying of my form, for thy welfare and progress. It was I, too, whose imperfection ever and again constrained the powers of destiny to lead thee back to a new incarnation upon earth. I was present at the hour of thy death, and it was on my account that the Lords of Karma ordained thy reincarnation. And it is only by thus unconsciously transforming me to complete perfection in ever recurring earthly lives that thou couldst have escaped the powers of death and passed over into immortality united with me.

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA010/English/AP1947/GA010_c10.html

I find it simply amazing that this is what the Guardian wants to tell us – nothing more and nothing less than that we will be able to advance once we take full responsibility for ourselves. I am reminded of a wise man telling us of his amazement at his capacity to find the person, the family, the organisation, or the world that was responsible for his experience of reality being how it was; and his even deeper wonder at the liberation that comes when he manages to realise that he and only he is responsible for his experience of reality.

Desire

There is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it’s because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It’s your mission on earth. * * * To realize one’s destiny is a person’s only real obligation. All things are one. And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.

Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist, A Fable About Following Your Dream

So – getting in touch with our real desire means getting in touch with the universe. This is one of the hardest things to get our minds round: doing the good, when we are doing it out of our true being, is not unpleasant. In Theosophy, Steiner describes the transition from the Consciousness-Soul, which beholds the good and the true from without, to the Spirit-Self, which brings them forth from themselves. It’s part of the heritage of the battle between Augustine and Pelagius that we in the West are so suspicious of our desire. Of course if we think the only desire is plant-like or animal drive, we’re going to fall short of our potential. Augustine himself says, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” What can this mean except that our deepest desire is for oneness, for communion with God himself?

 

Quotation on Freedom

[The words of the Guardian of the threshold]

Yet my Threshold is fashioned out of all the timidity that remains in thee, out of all the dread of the strength needed to take full responsibility for all thy thoughts and actions. As long as there remains in thee a trace of fear of becoming thyself the guide of thine own destiny, just so long will this Threshold lack what still remains to be built into it. And as long as a single stone is found missing, just so long must thou remain standing as though transfixed; or else stumble. Seek not, then, to cross this Threshold until thou dost feel thyself entirely free from fear and ready for the highest responsibility.

From Knowledge of Higher Worlds, The Guardian of the Threshold

I am amazed how clearly Steiner sees the Guardian being connected to our freedom. I am reminded of Bruce Irvine speaking of our profound longing to find something outside of us that is responsible for our experiencing reality as we do; and of the terrifying liberation that comes when we realise that we ourselves are responsible for our experience.