I have had my first whirlwind of theatre and maxed. I have been shooting up theatre every night for weeks now. AND, as all good addicts, I have to find a bit of rehab to run to two recover my senses – and, of course, prepare myself to willingly fall off the wagon in a few days. So for rehab – – I have recently begun a yearly pilgrimage to Omega Institute for Holistic Studies in upstate New York. This year I signed up for a 5 days of “R and R” where I am making up my own daily agenda from all the workshops that are possible and all the non-workshop things that are available – – such as sitting in hammocks by the lake or taking a book into the wild flower garden. Here is what I did with my day today. I have a single cabin at the edges of the campus. The house is on stilts, has no AC, has no TV BUT has a sacred fan that does its best. Quiet hours begin at 10pm so I am in my little bed in my cabin on stilts and usually asleep not long after dark. There are no curtains (none needed in that I am high off the ground) so I am woken up by the sun. Sleeping at nightfall – rising with the son. A bit like camping but with plumbing and all that . . .
I shower and go to a cabin a bit further down the hall that serves coffee in the morning. I know that a “good” camper would have woken up and gotten moving by 5am to get to yoga and chanting services – but I treated myself to bed lingering. I took my coffee to a quiet garden full of wild flowers and read some literature of workshops that I will take later in the week to bring out “authentic self” – – an on-going project I have in my theatre class, Company.
Lunch time and I climb the hill – and I mean hill – to the cafeteria. They figure out that a good diet plan is to put the cafeteria on the tallest hill around – and if your sad ass is that hungry then you can hunker up the energy to climb. I climbed to lunch.
Lunch here is one giant salad three times a day every day for the week. There are no sodas, no refined sugar, no desserts, precious little meat (chicken, maybe every 3rd day), no bread and nothing that resembles the bad food from home. This food looks usually awful – – but really I have grown to be okay with salad, salad, salad. They only want you to eat what they have been able to grow on their own property. It’s either eating healthy or not eating at all. They win.
After lunch I read a new set of acting book on Meisner’s work and am truly inspired to start teaching in the fall – – I mean I am excited. After an hour or two I went to a workshop on Labyrinths and their historical and spiritual context We walked a beautiful labyrinth that they had on campus and had a wonderful spiritual afternoon – just putting one foot in front of another.
After the labyrinth, it was back to another book on working through authentic self.
Then before dinner I had 90 minutes of deep tissue massage by a very gifted man at one of the healing centers that they have on campus. Quiet, intimate, challenging, and joyous. Every day should have a 90 minute massage squeezed in between noon and night.
Then dinner of salad and – – salad and – – salad – – oh, please call it a thousand things- it was just salad – and not bad . . .
Then to cap off the evening I walked to my final event of the evening on the far side of the campus. I walked by one group of musicians working through Woody Guthry’s songs and another group of circus folk giving students a chance to be on the trapeze and fly . . . Both in the same little park that I walked by.
My final treat of the evening was an Akashic reading – – a channeling of my soul’s journey by this wonderful mystical woman – an easy, relaxed, reflective evening.
Then back to the computer for the hour I allot myself to write and, as it is dark. Sleep.
This is fun for me. More and more I am liking to share my journey. Who knows?

Are there any productions out in the woods? Any Playbills? Any usher? . . .