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Archive for the 'Gatherings' Category

Occupying Pittsburgh’s Market Square

Last Thursday’s One Billion Rising Pittsburgh event attracted over 400 people and was organized by New Voices Pittsburgh: Women of Color for Reproductive Justice, an organization that InterPlayer, Toni McClendon helped to start. These young, mostly African-American women put together on February 14th, with the help of volunteers of all ages, the most soulful, spiritually enlightening, community inspiring, two hour event in Pittsburgh’s downtown Market Square.

In addition to the stage where dancers from the August Wilson Center performed, and hundreds of women danced Debbie Allen’s Break The Chain, another corner of the square contained a tent the size of a solitary confinement space in a prison. The construction held artwork and petitions to obtain release for women incarcerated for defending themselves against the violent acts of intimate partners. A candled altar space occupied another corner, a place for remembering women from our community who have lost their lives to violence, a resource tent offered information about organizations addressing this vital issue, while the Comfort Tent offered support and respite for anyone strongly affected by this topic of violence against women.

When I shared information about this event with Coke Nakamoto, a dancing social worker friend in California, her comment said it all. “Absolutely love the consciousness brought to the Pittsburgh event. What vision and understanding of the bigger dance beneath the dance!”  No wonder I feel so honored to take the over 15,000 steps my fitness tracker counted that day, (three times the national average) to support these women in bringing their vision to such a spectacular reality. 

Published on Sunday February 17, 2013 in Dances and Gatherings. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

We The People Won!

In the last few days of the campaign, I sat for hours with eight other women in the garden room of another woman’s house.  Other people moved in and out of the living and dining rooms, all holding lists of likely voters and cell phones, calling to get out the vote for our candidate. We were old, young, and most ages in between, a high school girl, a grandmother, a housewife, a retired teacher. We knew it’s nearly impossible for a single voter to have influence, but joining with others to encourage lots more people to vote, now we have the potential to speak to the direction we want our country to move in the future.

In between shifts on the phone, some of us get packets of names and addresses, get in our cars and drive to different neighborhoods. We climb hills and stairs, knocking on doors, talk to people or leave stickers with information about polling places and the importance of their vote. I met a woman in her 30s, still in her pajamas at 10:30 in the morning who tells me defiantly that she isn’t going to vote. When I asked why she said “because I didn’t want to.”

I wished her a good day, when she gave me this chance to practice the discipline of “bless and release,” an opportunity that comes often when connecting with real people with whom you have a difference of opinion. The women in the garden room admitted in short discussions between calls, this part is rarely easy.

The morning after the election I learned that our team, over the four days had made 10,784 phone calls and knocked on 11,264 doors. Just as someone emailed those figures, the national figures of the get out the vote ground effort arrive. Three million door knocks and 15 million phone calls. No wonder we feel tired.

A lot of us had felt really bad about the 2012 election year process – the extreme amounts of money spent, the negative attack ads, the half-truths and outright lies in the public discourse, and the deafening silence on important issues such as immigration reform and climate change. I had begun to wonder whether our democracy could survive this onslaught to reasoned adult behavior, or whether it even should. It almost seemed like we, as a people weren’t grown up enough to govern ourselves.  

But this morning after I’m feeling elated about the election process I got to be a part of. It seemed to me that we, the people won. I’m thrilled to see that the practices I found so abhorrent did not work. Not one candidate was able to “purchase” an office by using the superpack money of billionaires. Most candidates did not achieve an office as a result of their negative attack ads, and those men who proposed preposterous theories of science and behavior were defeated. And especially, the attempt as voter suppression failed.

I saw in that room where I was calling from, and in the long lines at the polls, and in my conversations with people who voted, voter suppression efforts only fueled people’s determination to exercise their voices by voting. Those of us who cared, and it was great to see how many people did, reached out to others who may have been discouraged or sufferings in other ways, and encouraged them to vote. It made all the difference because in the final hours of election day, the only thing that really matters is whose team shows up at the polls and actually vote.

When the election was over, I felt relieved that both candidates came up to what the moment required. Romney’s gracious, and compassionate concession as he vowed to support the president, Obama’s expressed gratitude to all the people who voted for him, the thousands who worked to get him elected, and those who took part on the other side. I loved hearing him declare his willingness to be the president of all the people; those who voted for him, those that voted for someone else, and those too disheartened to vote at all. Perhaps we are grown-up enough to take part in our own governance.  

Published on Thursday November 8, 2012 in Gatherings and Personal Stories. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Spaces In Our Togetherness

My husband and I were asked to give a talk at a neighboring Alanon meeting last evening. We’d given talks before separately, but never together. There was no time to prepare and I knew there wouldn’t be when I accepted the invitation. But I knew to say yes to this opportunity, a privilege likely to result in a blessing

We decided to divide the presentation into three phrases, and each speak extemporaneously, to each phase. The first was our introduction to addiction, particularly alcoholism, which for each of us occurred at very different times in our lives. The second phase would focus on our early experiences in twelve-step work, and the third with what has happened since we joined Alanon several years ago.

There were the words, and when we think of speeches we think of words. But the words move into the background of my memory of the evening because my awareness was of the spaces in between. It started when Rich and I were seated beside each other looking out onto the thirty or so people in the audience with the moderator seated beside him. I became aware of the molecules of air between us and then between all the figures in the room. It was like we were all floating in a sacred container of silence, the space between the words. I thought of the poem, “Marriage,” by Gibran. “Let there be spaces in your togetherness. And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.” http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/marriage

When the moderator opened the floor to the audience members to respond, I noticed the silence in between the statements that people made. It was like people needed time to come up from the depths of where they were, to collect their thoughts and say them out loud.

A friend who was present in the room told me later that Rich and I together made an impression much stronger than what we made alone. That confirmed what I felt in my own body and relates to what I’ve known for a long time, 1 + 1 equals way more than 2. Looking back, I didn’t say all that I might have said. I didn’t say it in the most articulate way that perhaps I could have. But it was what it was, and I relax into knowing that another message was being delivered, this one beyond words.

It seems a paradox – the more separate we are, the more connected we became. The more connected we became, the more separate we are. Like other lines from the same poem – “Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

I would wish for all my relationships to be like this, with my husband and adult child, my grandchildren and my friends, connected through the spaces in what we call in InterPlay, “a sneaky deep way.”

Published on Wednesday October 31, 2012 in Gatherings and Poems. 0 Comments Tags: .

A New Paradigm of Partying

The calendar has turned from 2011 and the much-heralded year of  2012 is finally  here. Each New Year provides a chance to take a fresh breath and to begin anew, to mark together what is coming to an end and to welcome the year that’s just arriving. How we spend New Year’s Eve might be important in setting this new course.

As a kid, I remember joining the millions of people watching a ball drop in New York’s Times Square. We jumped up and down in our living room in front of the television even though it was not yet midnight in the time zone where we lived. Looking back this might have been a way for our parents to get us to go to bed after 11 pm, giving them an hour of peace and quiet in the old year.

Celebrating with people who are important to me is always my preference, as well as doing something I find invigorating and renewing.  I remember a New Years’ Eve in 1987 spent with my parents, siblings, and adult children in a kind of family reunion in Texas. We dined on the top floor of a skyscraper and danced in the New Year to the accompaniment of a live band. And yes, there were paper hats, noisemakers, and something that bubbled like champagne.

But this year seemed a special turning.  According to the prophecies of the Maya, 2012 marks the ending of a 26,000-year cycle. I wasn’t sure how one should celebrate such an auspicious occasion. My husband and I had signed up for an evening of ballroom dancing that included a supper at midnight, more like celebrations in the past. Then we were invited to bring InterPlay to an event titled, Peaceburgh 2012. Peaceful Gathering of Hands, Nakturnal, Transition Town, Gather the Women, Transformational Alliance, and others sponsored the event. The invitation said, “Join us for a new paradigm of partying! “

At this multigenerational potluck event there were no drugs or alcohol but lots of generous sharing of special gifts. Ac Tau, a descendant of the Maya and a recent visitor to Pittsburgh, sent a message asking us to perform a ritual for peace, which we did at midnight. The Plumed Serpent Labyrinth involved a geometric design similar to a maize, finger traced by a number of representative of the community to  connect us with Ac Tau’s community in Mexico and around the globe.

After a time of silence at midnight we were asked to commit to taking one minute a day to become peace throughout the year. For residents of Peaceburgh who recognize that peace is a verb, this was an easy commitment to make. It will be interesting to see at year-end, what a difference this practice has made in our personal and communal lives.

Published on Thursday January 5, 2012 in Gatherings and Rituals. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

United We Stand

Last weekend InterPlay Pittsburgh participated in the Building Change Conference: a convergence for social change. This three-day conference included skill-building workshops, panel discussions, community dialogues, a film festival, an art show, and an evening of performance art.

Our improvisational troupe, Wing & A Prayer Pittsburgh Players performed Friday night on the theme, Changing the World 101.  Two hundred or so conference participants, award honorees, and friends witnessed our 20-minute performance that occurred in the center of an evening of short performances by singers, drummers, dancers, actors, rappers, and musicians – all who use their art as a tool to change the world.

Since our performances are made up in the moment and on the spot, it’s always a bit confusing when we say we practice InterPlay on a weekly basis. But how it works is that a week or two before a performance, we each meditate on the topic or theme, and practice accessing and telling our stories that seem related to it, or to words that people associate with the topic.

The words, “domination” and “fear,” were suggested by audience members when we asked what gets in the way of creating a world that works for all. This brought out a troupe member’s story of how her young son had solved the bullying problem at his school. She had told some version of this story before at one of our practices. But in the presence of witnesses, people passionate about social justice, this simple story became something much more.  As company members joined her, the message her son gave to the bully, (after he had rounded up enough kids for support), became amplified in movement and song. “Whatever you do to one of us – you do to all of us.”

And then, with support from our keyboard musician, the entire company formed a straight line, shoulder to shoulder in solidarity and began moving towards the audience. The song morphed into,“We’re standing together, we’re standing together.” None of this had been rehearsed. It came from the grand goal of the conference, of the Occupy Pittsburgh event that was to take place the following day, and of hundreds of events taking place around the globe last weekend.  I felt in my own body, the connection to my fellow performers, the support from the audience, and the power of standing together. We became, on behalf of everyone in the room, in the nation, and throughout the world, a metaphor and a mantra, for the Power that Unity brings.

Published on Monday October 17, 2011 in Art & Life and Gatherings. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Soyinka’s Pittsburgh Visit

We went where a duo like us would rarely go.  We joined with some Wing & A Prayer Pittsburgh Players on a safari to the Sarah Heinz house girls’ camp, and to the Mt. Lebanon Village Inter-generational Games. We celebrated youth and honored elder Betty, and the hundreds of volunteers from all the ages in between that enable folks like Betty to stay in their own homes.  We played with the Pittsburgh Playback Theater troupe and remembered again, that playing together is the very best way to get to know one another.


The African American women at the EVE project and at the black women in law enforcement conference loved you and your drum, flute, and song. Those police women knew you really got them when you asked, “how many times a day do you need to decide, in an instant, whether to enter a situation with a thrust, a hang, a shape or a swing?“

At an in-service for the staff of Gwen’s Girls, we explored the impact of culture and invited the workers to explore their group’s culture as well. Sharing stories as partners, we told each other some of what we knew and some of what we don’t know.  In the listening, we discovered some of what we didn’t know we didn’t know, and some of what we knew that wasn’t so. And it was all a blessed thing.

Godspeed to your next divine assignment, Soyinka. We’ll dance on your behalf until your return engagement in Pittsburgh.

Published on Tuesday August 16, 2011 in Art & Life, Gatherings and Personal Stories. 2 Comments

A tribute to indigenous wisdom keepers

It’s difficult to see the patterns when you are too close and personal with your own life. But standing back, with the perspective of time, themes and variations emerge and stand out. One of mine is a connection to indigenous people. In the 1970s I  had a job which put me in a community of Native Americans who moved back and forth between their Sioux reservation in SD  and Scottsbluff, NE. where my project, funded by the National Institute for Mental Health, was located. My job was to oversee students doing oral histories with Mexican American and Native American people and to discover how human service agencies could remove whatever barriers there might be to serving these people.

I was in the middle of that project when my kid brother invited me to visit him in New Mexico on the occasion of a tribal dance by the native peoples there. When I moved to Texas in the 80s I was introduced to a woman who organized and lead woman’s retreats on her land which she hoped to make into a retreat center in East Texas. Her ancestors were Cherokee and she had studied with many tribal elders and used Native American philosophy and principles in her teaching and ceremonies.  I have been connected since them, not only to her, but to the women who gathered in the East Texas piney woods in the spring and fall each year, and on many occasions inbetween.

Now I am in Pittsburgh, and my connection to native peoples has followed me. Through a friend I have meet members of a branch of the Delaware tribe, whose ancestors were here when the colonists arrived in the 17th century. I have visited the white buffalo, born a couple of years ago near the place were the French and Indian war began. This war became the first World War which resulted in the sun never setting on the British Crown.  It also resulted in terrible atrosities for indigenous people around the globe.

Now with new friends from various backgrounds, I am engaged in presenting a Celebration of Unity at the Three Rivers Arts Festival on Sunday June 12th from 2 pm to 4 pm. In a spirit of forgiveness and reunion we will ask representatives of the Taino people, whose ancestors met the Christopher Columbus and other Spanish Conquistadors on the Carabean Islands, and of the Powhatan, whose ancestors greeted the pilgrims at Jamestown. It will be a celebration of gratitude for the Indigenous who have been keepers of wisdom that is sorely needed by the so-called developed countries of the world.

Published on Thursday June 2, 2011 in Environment and Gatherings. 0 Comments

Women and Girls Reshaping the Future

How would you answer the question, “How are women and girls reshaping the future?” The first ever TED Conference focused solely on women was held in Washington, DC in December to find some answers. Our InterPlay troupe, Wing & a Prayer Pittsburgh Players had the opportunity to participate through TEDxPittsburgh, meeting for two days with 100 or so women (and a few men) at the Andy Warhol Museum. Through the miracle of technology, we viewed the fabulous presentations as they were simulcast. We were connected internationally with other sites around the globe who participated as we did in Pittsburgh, through their own TEDx organizations.

TED conferences are held several times a year, in different parts of the county, bringing together people from all walks of life, and presenters from diverse fields. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, and the conferences are an immersion experience of brief presentations which stimulate “conversations that matter.” Many of the presentations from the conferences are made available on line, so the wit and wisdom of the events are shared around the world.

The TEDWomen presentations included:


  • Sheryl Sandberg, the CCO of Facebook on why we have too few women leaders.
  • New Yorker cartoonist, Liza Donnelly on how humor can help women change the rules.
  • Journalist Naomi Klein, just back from the oil disaster in the gulf, discussed our culture’s addiction to risk, and what we need to do about it.
  • Tony Porter, an international expert on ending the violence against women, called upon men to get out of what he called the “man box,” which contains bogus values and behaviors taught to men that prohibit their compassion and respect for women.

Check out some presentations at http://www.ted.com/talks?event=tedwomen

In between the presentations, our Wing & a Prayer troupe responded to the presentations, as did other Pittsburgh artists. We helped to fill in when the technology didn’t run as smoothly as planned. Using our improvisational system, InterPlay we were grateful we practice creating together in the moment. Take a look at one of our TEDx Pittsburgh Women responses.

Interplay at TEDx Pittsburgh Women

Published on Sunday January 30, 2011 in Art & Life, Gatherings and Women, Girls & the Feminine. 0 Comments

Awakening Women Group: Finding Our Balance

Research has finally documented the secret of women’s resiliency. To the well known “flight” and “fight” responses to stress, women have added a third even more functional one. Now labeled, “the tend and befriend response,” it turns out women who thrive do so through the support of other women, often in women’s groups.  

Women of all ages ask the question: “How do we best balance caring for ourselves and our families while making a contribution to the world?

One suggestion is to join this six-week group to explore the question and your own creative answers. We use the transformational forms of InterPlay: movement, music, song, and stillness to access individual and collective creativity, to tell our stories, share our dreams, and support one another in becoming more fully who we truly are.

Contact Sheila to arrange a free phone consultation to see if this women’s group series is right for you, and to learn when the next group will be starting.

(download PDF flyer)

Published on Friday May 28, 2010 in Gatherings and Women, Girls & the Feminine. 0 Comments

Awakening Women Cafés

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Using the World Café format we gather a diverse group of women, facilitate conversations that matter, and harvest the groups’ resulting collective wisdom.

Through this collective creativity format, participants connect with one another in meaningful ways, and add their voices to those of women worldwide.

Joining together to act on behalf of a world that can work for all, the café participants acknowledge their willingness to discover ways to become stewards of women’s collective future, and that of the planet.

Co-collaborators with Sheila K. Collins in this endeavor are Vikki Hanchin and LaVerne Baker Hotep. Register for the next café. 

(download pdf flyer)

Published on Friday May 28, 2010 in Gatherings and Women, Girls & the Feminine. 0 Comments