Success-omania, Approval Addiction? My Alleluia for "Hidden" Genius
Genius at Play
Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting,
sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.
~ Kurt Vonnegut in MORE LETTERS OF NOTE
This spring, a strange hunger awoke in me. I missed being seen as a dancer with strong choreographic ensemble sensibilities, in-the-moment craft, and wildly expressive, soulful love. I missed my old performance group. So, for my birthday, I created a reunion with some of them.
For thirty years, Phil Porter and I led Wing It! Performance Ensemble, an improv lab, and home ground for all things InterPlay. In alchemical collaboration, Wing It! folk danced up the hidden genius behind the InterPlay movement. People like Amar, Beth, Leo, Debra, Massankho, David, Penny, Michelle, Coke, Soyinka, Jonathan, Alison, Julie, Susan, Julia, Bobbie, Sahib-Amar, Connors, Megan, Randy, Marcia, Enver, Annie, Angela, Daniel, Suz, and others fed their bright gifts into a beingness that shines greater than any one of us.
Hidden Genius! The Latin for genius means "guardian deity or spirit which watches over each person from birth" or "innate ability."
Genius is something we have rather than something we are.
Genius is everywhere. It fuels care workers, entrepreneurs, activists, monks, clowns, scientists, healers, writers, consultants, parents, artists, people who are plain old present, creatures of all kinds, and on and on and on.
Genius plays at the heart of everyday miracles.
Because we all have genius, and it's so wise, fun, and powerful, it grieves me deeply when we fail to look for it in one another, mentor it, and build systems that call forth the emergent genius of our time. Even worse is when abuse, neglect, overwhelm, and injustice shut down body and soul. I believe some of the most significant suffering comes from shunning one another's genius.
When leaders and systems lean into individual genius, it causes their groups to blossom. I know from decades of experience and from InterPlay as a fertile space for human genius. People of all kinds get a better sense of who we are each meant to be. The only problem is that genius is still so countercultural, especially if our culture requires us to be serious, good, or different from who we are.
Genius is not hard work, and it is not only about us. Playmates, mentors, ancestors, and the community inform and contribute to our genius each time they say YES to us in our entirety.
Genius is generative. Genius is communal.
Absolutely nothing satisfies me more than seeking out and nurturing genius. As I do, I encounter gads of people who change the world without claiming or requiring celebrity status.
Celebrity is rare. Genius is rampant.
When I was a teen, my genius whispered in my ear, "Yes, you can do great things." Over time, though, I found that my genius is impotent without community.
Should I try to be popular? Famous? Wisdom coxed, "Celebrity? Let that go."
I intentionally let go of fame-aholism every day as an artist living in gigged-up, ambitious times. I remind myself to relax into the cosmic dance of Hidden Genius. Any genius in me seems meant to feed the ensemble. And when I struggle with success-omania and approval addiction, I pat those sweet demons on the head and tune in to the genius found everywhere, but especially in mystics, women, underrepresented BIPOC and queer bodies. The legacies of many hidden spiritual explorers remain massively influential. They are like buried treasure.
Alexandra David-Neel, a runaway and opera dancer before becoming a cross-dressing Tibetan Lama, provoked Beat Generation poets and philosophers to heed the spiritual wisdom of India and Tibet through her books. She was my muse as I started Mystic Tech, the forerunner of my Hidden Monastery website.
Nicolas and Helena Roerich brought visionary artistry to creating sets for Diagaliv, founder of the Ballet Russes. Nicolas, an ambassador across arts, nations, and continents, alongside Helena, created the Roerich Pact and Banner of Peace, dedicated to preserving and protecting cultural and historic sites. Helena, in touch with powerful spirit allies, translated two volumes of the Secret Doctrine of H. P. Blavatsky, was honorary president and founder of the Institute of Himalayan Studies "Urusvati" in India and created the drawings that inspired her husband's artistry. One of the most educated women of her time, a writer and public figure, a loving wife, and a caring mother, she was an eminent philosopher and collaborator of the Higher Powers. "The time will come, – she wrote in one of her letters, – when the science of distant worlds, so little palpable now, will be exciting and close to our consciousness, will become tangible. We'll understand all our dependence on these distant and close worlds. The unity of Cosmos and the humanity will become the indisputable truth, and such a consciousness will change life of a thinking person."
Robert Lax fed his cats and wrote a slow mystical poetry on the Greek island of Patmos. (He's a reason I will soon visit that place.) As Thomas Merton's best friend, Lax told Merton to go ahead and be a saint. Merton became famous for trying to do so but called Lax the real saint. Robert's long poem, The Circus of the Sun, reveals the genius that inspired him when he was under the spell of a traveling circus.
I found Paul Brunton's name scribbled in a book and followed him into A Search in Secret India, seeking to understand the wisdom of its gifted and often hidden meditators. Drawn in by his inquisitive, mystical, practical sensitivity, I read about his travels in Egypt before I learned he also impacted the 12 steps of AA. His philosophy and practice suit life in the 21st century and continue today.
When Bruno Groning's followers rented the InterPlayce studio, I learned about his Revolution in Medicine: The Rehabilitation of a Man Who Was Misunderstand. Bruno’s spiritual genius unlocked healing in large crowds after World War II in Germany. In a short book about him is found medical documentation on his approach to healing using the Divine Healing Stream. I've tried it and wish I incorporated his straightforward approach to connecting to the Divine Healing Stream more often.
Like many women artists, Lee Krasner’s artistry is omitted in the abstract expressionist movement. Journalist Mary Gabriel brings one of her gems into view as she reflects on Lee’s The Power of the Sun on Canvas.
Now I look for genius, the alchemical creativity of body and soul, realizing that whatever gets documented might be found. Beyond that, hiddenness has its own alleluia. The genius of our species is oceanic. Whether latent or rising, it exists without care or knowledge of its goodness. It’s a light that keeps shining.
Our times are desperate for genius. Say hello to it with this prompt from Kurt Vonnegut’s MORE LETTERS OF NOTE.
Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed...But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing...Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash receptacles. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.
Reading this, I feel seen in the quiet impulse to keep creating; to keep moving toward (and with) that still small voice of intimate generativity. Thank you, Cynthia.
This is brilliant. Makes me think of genius in a whole new light. I would love to share excerpts from this piece at the lay-led Worship Service we will be sharing with our UU congregation in July. Thank you!!!