I think someone has planted an idea in my head!!

I just saw the movie INCEPTION and totally dig the idea of how powerful an idea can be, once planted. I know these ideas. Sometimes they say, "Make me a story." Sometimes they say, "Make me a play. No, wait, a MUSICAL! I want to be a musical!" And sometimes, like today, they are saying "Change your life. Do it. You are turning 50 next year. What the hell?"

I also know that right now, the cosmos is in a turmoil and is making most everyone on the planet feel this way. In layman's terms, I understand this summer is one giant astrological cluster f*&^k. Most everyone I meet is feeling a bit, or a lot, like just ditching their lives for something more ... um ... well ... different. That's the crazy thing about this idea. It is insisting on change and it doesn't even know what sort it is looking for.

So today, since I am feeling completely crazy and unsure about what voice to listen to, I am instead returning to the things I know that will help me sort it all out, the things that will help me ease into a knowing. That means I need to eat, sleep, breathe, read, move, dance, pray, love. I need to take baby steps. I need to examine my feelings of fear and frustration. And I need to ease up on myself.

And how about you? How are you holding up this crazy summer?

I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees.

This is not my line. I wish it was. It is from a song by The National. And I am obsessed with it.

I am gearing up for entire week of workshopping a musical I am working on called THE VIVIAN GIRLS.

You can learn more about it here .... http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1044012638/the-vivian-girls-a-musical.

It is based on the mythology created by outsider artist Henry Darger. I am writing the book and lyrics and the magical Peter Adams is the composer. Heather Britt is the choreographer. And now, for the next week, 12 actors, a director, music director, etc. will be working with us to see what this piece really wants to be.

I am trying today to get prepared. I am done writing so I am trying to clean out the cobwebs in my brain, anything that is pretentious or fearful, and calling in everything that speaks to beauty and truth and the deep knowing available to us. If we listen carefully. And good.

I am getting there by reading beautiful words and listening to beautiful music and staring at beautiful pictures. I am asking The National and Rilke and James Salter and Henry Darger and Amy Cutler to let me in the club, if only for a week, so I can stay true. So I can listen. So I can get out of the way of the story that already exists.