It began, as so many things do, with four little words:
“I’ve had an idea.”
I was sitting next to my partner,
Fern Smith, in a big top in a field in the summer of 2014. We had just heard
Satish Kumar speaking to the Resurgence Summer Gathering and were both quietly
processing and coming down from the remarkable sensation of being carried by
Satish’s words and thoughts. If you’ve never had the opportunity to hear him
speak, all I can tell you is that speech is his art-form. He weaves ideas, images
and ideals into a tapestry that can lift you from gloom to elation in a matter
of moments. Satish has been speaking to crowds of people since he became a Jain
monk at the age of nine some seventy years ago. It’s fair to say, he’s an
incredible speaker.
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| Mike Goldwater/Alamy |
Fern’s idea was simple and
brilliant, as her ideas invariably are. Wouldn’t it be great, she posited, if
more people could have the opportunity to hear Satish speak, to share in his
wisdom and learning and to immerse themselves in the lifetime of change and
optimism that he communicates? Wouldn’t it be great if someone made a
documentary series that captured Satish at the height of his powers and
experience? As I nodded enthusiastically, it became terribly apparent that Fern
was suggesting that WE should be the ones to make this documentary series –
which would be fine if we had any experience or background in that kind of
thing... but we don’t. Still, that’s never stopped us before so we immediately
set off across the field to ask Satish what he thought...
I should contextualise this story
by saying that, without hyperbole, I am the least likely person to be sitting
in that big top on that day, listening to Satish speak. I don’t like change. In
fact, not to put too fine a point on this, it scares me to death. I have lived
most of my adult life as a dyed-in-the-wool cynic/atheist/realist/professional
grumpy person. The running joke in my house is that all I really want in life
is a pastry-based food item and a DVD box set. But the truth is that, in the
last few years, the scales have really fallen from my eyes. All the values and
goals I believed to be important have been revealed to be nothing but empty
falsehoods. The ‘real world’ and ‘normal life’ now seem to me to be insane
aberrations. The total and utter lunacy of living on our planet, abusing and
burning through its precious resources as if we had three Earths at our
disposal instead of one; the fact that none of this insane production and
consumption appears to be making anyone (not even the stupendously wealthy)
actually happy or contented; the fact that we are becoming more and more
alienated from one another at a time when we really need to be working together
– all of this hit me like a hammer blow as I approached my late thirties and,
ever since, try as I might, I cannot make myself fit comfortably into the world
anymore. I feel as if I am standing over an ever widening crevasse being torn
apart, desperately trying to keep a foot in both camps. I feel vulnerable,
afraid, doubtful, angry, bitter and terrified most of the time.
In 2011, in response to this new
perspective, after twenty years of working as an actor and a writer, I began a
series of performance experiments under the title ‘The One Eyed Man’. A kind of
modern day Western shamanism, The One Eyed Man allows me to channel and focus
these feelings and offer them as a pressure valve for myself and my audiences.
I get up, without a clue what I’m going to say, and speak from the heart.
Foolhardy? Definitely. Scary? Oh, you betcha... But in openly offering my
feelings of doubt and vulnerability time and again, I came to understand that I
am not actually alone. More and more people told me that they felt the same but
they couldn’t articulate it – least of all to themselves, never mind to anyone
else. It was the One Eyed Man that had brought me to that big top in that field
on that day as I, alongside Fern, was giving a series of offerings from
Emergence as part of the Resurgence Summer Gathering. I was due to speak the
following day and, it’s fair to say that after seeing Satish speak so
effortlessly, I was utterly petrified.
To go back to Fern’s idea and the
four little words – she and I have long shared a love of a series of interviews with
Joseph Campbell called The Power of Myth. Shot in California in the last years
of Campbell’s life, he sits in deep conversation with the respected US commentator
Bill Moyers over six hour long programmes and with joy, passion and enormous
knowledge, he shares his lifetime of learning about mythology – its role in
ancient culture and the value it brings to our lives today. Fern and I have
come back to this series again and again. Each time we watch it, we learn more –
about mythology, Campbell and ourselves. This series is the primary inspiration
for the series we want to make with Satish. It captures Campbell at the height
of his powers and learning and is truly a legacy to be cherished. We hope that
our films with Satish will have the same impact.
We nervously put the idea to
Satish. Nervous not because he is unapproachable or pompous – on the contrary,
Satish is perhaps the most open and generous hearted person I’ve ever met – but
because who the hell were we to be asking him this? But he listened, he
understood, he nodded and he agreed – we could go ahead and put the project
together. In the months since we have met Satish several times to talk about the
films, discussing where we will shoot them and what we will talk about.
The question of who should sit
with Satish in deep conversation as Moyers had done with Campbell was already
in Fern’s mind when she whispered her four little words. Earlier that day we
had heard Jane Davidson speaking to the Resurgence gathering. Jane is an
equally remarkable person who comes at the same issues of sustainability,
ecology and well-being from a totally different direction to Satish.
Jane is
the former Minister for the Environment and Sustainability in the Welsh
Assembly and was responsible for placing sustainability at the heart of Welsh
Government policy in the One Planet One Wales Bill (now the Well-Being of
Future Generations Bill) – the first government in the world to do so. She also
instigated the National Coast Path of Wales and brought in the law to charge
for plastic carrier bags. She is now the director of INSPIRE - Institute for Sustainability Practice, Innovation and Resource Effectiveness at the University of Wales Trinity St David. She is a pioneer and a passionate speaker and
debater. We knew that she was the perfect person to interview Satish for our
series – someone who would interrogate and investigate Satish’s philosophies
and ideas, drawing out themes and practicalities, making them relevant and
useful to whole new generations in years to come. So... we asked Jane if she
would be interested and she readily agreed. Months later we managed to get the two of
them together at Schumacher College and almost had to hold them back,
so keen were they to get started...
So, from Fern’s four little words
sprung a whole new project for Emergence – and a whole new experience for the
two of us. And I’m struck again as I write this by the power those words have and how they sit behind
so much in the world that is good and valuable. The power of ideas, inspiration
and synchronicity can and do change the world for the better. I know from
deeply personal experience that ideas are scary things to submit oneself to. We
never know where they will take us, how we will cope or what the outcome will
be. Satish has lived his life by this philosophy – the philosophy of Emergence.
In his twenties, he and a friend walked 8,000 miles from India to the United
States without a penny in their pockets, carrying only a message of peace. They
trusted in the universe and the kindness of strangers to get them there. All because Satish had an idea.
We are taking this philosophy to heart and will
be crowdfunding to raise the money to make, produce and distribute the documentary
series in a few weeks time. This too is scary and nerve wracking. We don’t know
if we will reach our target. We don’t know the outcome of our actions. But we
know we are following our hearts and making something that is an absolute good
in a time of chaos, despair and bitterness. We hope that people will join us
and help us make this happen. We trust in the universe and the kindness of
strangers. And we trust in the power of an idea.
The following day, after the
first steps towards Fern’s idea had been set in motion, I stood in the same big
top where Satish and Jane had spoken so eloquently. I did not know what I was going
to say. I did not know how I had ended up there. I was utterly terrified. But I
trusted that something bigger than myself had brought me there... and I opened
my mouth and I spoke.
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| Ruth Davey/look-again.org |
I spoke about fear, doubt,
uncertainty, anger, bitterness, emptiness and loss. I also spoke about
openness, vulnerability, strength, compassion and community. And as I looked at
the faces around me – which included my partner Fern and Satish Kumar (and
believe me, if you want to feel adrenalin, try speaking off the cuff in front
of one of the world’s greatest living public speakers...) – I saw
understanding, warmth, delight and joy. I saw that ideas lead to change – and change
is scary, terrifying even, but it’s what life is about. Standing on the cliff
and stepping off and knowing, knowing in your bones, that the universe is there
to catch you.
That is an incredibly powerful
four little words...
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