BRATTLEBORO — What happens when a group of people of all ages come together to creatively express an abstract concept, an emotion called gratitude?
A mythical, musical community expression flowers like an autumn crocus the weekend before Thanksgiving in wild, wonderful Brattleboro ... the annual Gathering in Gratitude.
Gathering in Gratitude is an anchor event at Luz Elena Morey's Mahalo Art Center, an octagonal building near the corner of Bonnyvale Road and Route 9. Set back amid towering pines, the space's excellent acoustics, vivid carpets and wood stove create an open and inviting atmosphere.
This will be my third year working on the program. I must get something out of it, because the time and energy it takes seems impossible on the surface amid a busy work and parenting schedule.
Why volunteer to depict a crazed lemming on stage? Or expose in a dance about feeling? A dance? I'm not a dancer. And I've got dinner to make!
Then I call to mind the people I'll meet, drawn together by an inexplicable need to express an inexpressible concept.
I'll remember how it raises much-needed funds for Project Feed the Thousands just as winter approaches and Thanksgiving lies ahead.
I'll remember how important the ritual feels for our community at large, particularly in trying times.
But mostly I'll remember how the whole process has left me renewed and feeling like I've grown.
And before I know it, I'm taking the dive again.
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Gratitude is a feeling that is hard to describe.
A brush with disaster or the loss of a loved one can usher in a rush of gratitude that helps flush the pain away.
We feel grateful that our home is still standing when we see others' houses flying down a river, breaking banks you'd taken for granted your whole life. Strong winds spare a favorite old maple in the yard, and the color of its leaves never shine as brightly as they do the morning after the storm.
“The experience is special because the process is unique,” Luz Elena Morey says. “Everybody involved feels it. It is an honor we do not take lightly.”
Luz Elena developed the concept of Gathering in Gratitude 12 years ago after learning about the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Thanksgiving Address, an ancient practice at the beginning of a gathering of offering gratitude for the natural world to join people's minds and hearts as one.
Encouraged by the late Mohawk chief Jake Swamp to direct a sacred theatrical piece inspired by this practice, Luz Elena began her venture of offering this process and artistic happening to the greater community five years ago.
“It was essential for me to get Jake Swamp's blessing on the work,” Luz Elena said. “He put no conditions on how the expression of gratitude occur, because it gets defined by one's own time and circumstance. He asked only that I always make sure the process is authentic.”
More than 1,000 years old, the address is still spoken at all official Six Nation events. The words acknowledge that the world cannot be taken for granted and that recognition and communication of thankfulness to all living things must happen if people are to live in harmony with nature.
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Luz Elena, who grew up in Boston in what she describes as a very “dramatic and artistic” mother and family, recognized the power of the ancient words in a world where people at every age feel overwhelmed by the demands upon them and the dizzying pace of change taking place all around.
Being authentic means honoring the unique, if sometimes crazy, concepts each child, adult, and elder might “channel in.”
“The cast first relaxes outdoors, at each rehearsal, and asks the rivers, fields, and the forests to tell us what we need to tune into in this moment,” Luz Elena said.
“It is an awesome undertaking to weave the experiences of the cast members into a theatrical offering, and in such a small amount of time,” she continued. “It takes faith: knowing that something larger is guiding us along.”
As a drama therapist with the National Association for Drama Therapy, and a sound healer, Luz Elena has led workshops far and wide for more than 25 years.
Every September, she puts out the call for cast members and helpers. She separates those who come forward into groups by age.
Kids do guided movement, drama, singing, poetry, stage technique, and costuming once a week after school while also spending time outside.
They are encouraged to relax and play amid the natural world. Luz Elena also relates myths and songs to ideas and objects that the children discover outside.
Adults meet one night a week for a six-week period starting sometime in September.
What happened that first night for me reflects the process Luz Elena repeats each year.
The group sat in a circle and shared what brought us there. We dispersed into the night air for a while, quiet and alone among garden, forest, stream, bridge, and several impressively large rocks.
Sometimes, Luz Elena read aloud parts of the Thanksgiving Address out there. Sometimes she sang simple tones; sometimes she softly beat a drum.
In a sense, you are encouraged to receive “what's out there,” or what needs to be expressed from within for you that moment.
After a time, she called the group together in the cozy confines of Mahalo to share what came to each of us. Common themes always emerge, as does a feeling of inter-connectedness.
“I don't like to use the word 'healing' for what we do, but that is what cast and audience seem to take away when all is said and done each year,” Luz Elena explained.
“It's fulfilling to make that happen for people because we all really need it,” she said.
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This year's theme is “Going with the Flow,” where animals and humans discover how a river can be a dragon and how courage and coming together lift us from the sometimes-muddied banks of life.
We began our process in the wake of Hurricane Irene and most everyone kept coming up with water imagery. The children wanted to be underwater. The adults kept coming up with images of home, dragons, trees falling, and a river coming alive to sweep through the production.
The first year, I saw a vision of myself at the apex of the wheel of life, my daughter behind me rising and my mother shrinking and receding below.
Last year, the theme “The Night Passage” reflected themes of darkness and death brought up by more than a few cast members who had recently experienced loved ones' passing. My mother had just died. The show helped me navigate the grief.
I was a lemming last year. I found myself panting, running over the edge of a cliff, drowning in a sea, and ending as a pearl (all in two minutes!)
This year, I embody a dragon inside a writer struggling to finish the last chapter of her first book.
Sometimes juxtaposing what some may label more children-oriented themes; and those themes the adults bring in can make for a bit of an edge to the family-oriented Gathering in Gratitude shows.
By bringing the concept of gratitude to life each year as we approach the holiday season, the Gathering in Gratitude performances perform a vital community service. They feed the cast and nourish the community. And for that, I'm grateful.