Many years ago, I heard the speaker Marianne Williamson talk about how, after she had a spiritual awakening, she wondered what she would do for a living. It hit her one day that she was not going to find God's calling for her in the help wanted ads of her local newspaper! She asked God what S/he wanted her to do and she got a clear message. Go speak. She did not know who would show up in her audience, but she knew she had to do it. Of course at the beginning, it must have felt like a huge risk. But she rented a hall in NYC and began to give weekly talks on a by-donation-basis....and went on the become one of the foremost spiritual speakers of our time.
In 1999, I had a similar experience. I was thirty three years old and although I had begun developing my own solo performance shows, I still wondered where it would take me in terms of the bigger picture in my life. Also, I had a 2 year old daughter and at the time was only performing a few times a year and assumed that I would mostly be a stay at home mom until my daughter entered kindergarten...Then one day, everything changed. My daughters father called me from a business trip and said that he wanted a divorce. No discussion. It was over.
After a few hours of sobbing hysterically, some of the emotion wore off and stone cold sobriety set in. I had no way to support myself and my daughter. What would I do for money? Because I had a theater background, had not worked a conventional job in 10 years, and lived in a small town in the middle of the country, it would have been easy to collapse entirely. And that night, I did. But on my way down, I called on my faith. I think my prayer was simply "Show Me, Please, please, please show me" before I fell asleep.
The next morning I awoke from a very vivid dream. I saw the words "The Cancer Monologues" floating over Lincoln Center in NYC..It was very clear to me that I was to offer autobiographical monologue workshops to people with cancer. Which I did. In the beginning I was so uninformed and naive about business that I didn't even try to follow a regular model...I just showed up at our local Cancer Center and said that I wanted to do this. A small grant of $2,000 from the city of Santa Fe, provided the seed money for these free workshops....10 people signed up to write with me to share their amazing, devastating, poignant, funny, loving, angry and hopeful stories of living with cancer to an audience of friends, family and community member who were laughing and crying all night right along with them. The theater was so filled with light that night that I felt that the building might lift itself right off it's foundation and float up into the heavens.
When the audience rose in a unanimous standing ovation and the monologue participants took their bow, I was shaking all over. I was crying uncontrollably again, but not from fear, or desperation. From love and the knowledge that I had clearly been given my path. It was a gift, one that I could have never dreamed up on my own. It continues to bring together what I love the most...theater, healing, transformation, deep intimacy, connection and new ways of looking at a situation. I've gone on to do this process with people with HIV, mental illness, new mothers, Veterans and more....The road has taken me on many scenic by-ways and continues to shift and evolve. Right now, I am about to begin the journey of training others in this work.
For me, the answers to my big questions come from the depth of my connection to a spiritual presence beyond myself. It has given me everything really, and a creative life that does support me and my daughter in our financial needs as well as giving me the great gift of having a greater purpose to follow in this world...The gift of creative service and deep, fulfilling personal expression.
There is a miracle waiting around the next corner for each one of us. If you are wondering what your purpose is, I encourage you to write daily and ask for answers. Ask for a dream, then be willing to receive the answer. Follow signs, energy and messages that resonate. Then be prepared to receive the greatest gift possible...your authentic life that cannot be found in any help wanted ad, but is already written on your own heart.
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