Back to "Guided Expriences"

Suggestions:

While this Guided Experience can be done by oneself, it strongly recommended that, initially, one works with this Guided Experience with an orientor and with others in the context of a Formative Meeting of Ang Kommunidad (The Community).

Before proceeding with this experience, one must be in a state of complete physical, internal and mental relax (see associated materials).

A reader reads the following for the others, in a calm and neutral voice, pausing for several seconds where an asterisk (*) is indicated.If no one volunteers to read, an .mp3 file may be launched by selecting radio button below. It will launch your computer's native media player and playback the Guided Experience. Adequate speakers or audio monitors must be connected to the computer for everyone to hear this well.

The Costumes*

I find myself standing naked in a nudist camp, and I can feel that I’m being closely observed by men and women of various ages.

Someone tells me these people are studying me because it’s obvious to them I have certain problems. This person suggests that I cover up my body, so I put on a hat and some shoes. As soon as I do, the nudists lose interest in me.

I’m expected at a party soon, so I finish dressing and leave the nudist camp.

As I enter a large house, in the hallway I meet a fashionably dressed gentleman. He informs me that this is a costume party, and that to enter the ballroom I must be appropriately dressed. He directs my attention to one side, where I see a dressing room that is filled with unusual masks and costumes of every kind. Taking my time, I begin to choose carefully among them.

Before me are several mirrors set at angles, and as I try on different masks and costumes, I can see myself from all sides. First I try on the costume and the mask that look worst on me. (*)

Then I try on the best costume and the best mask, and study myself from all angles. Any imperfection I see is immediately corrected, until my whole costume is perfectly coordinated. (*)

Resplendent, I make my entrance into the grand ballroom where the party is going on. The room is filled with people, and all of them are wearing masks and costumes.

A hush falls over the crowd, and then everyone applauds my perfect costume. Urging me to go up on stage, they call for me to sing and dance—and so I do. (*)

Next the audience demands that I take off my mask and repeat my performance, but just as I’m about to, I realize I’m dressed in that hideous costume I tried on first. To make matters worse, my face is now exposed—I feel ugly and ridiculous. Nevertheless I sing and dance before the crowd, enduring their scornful jeers and whistles. (*)

Leaping onto the stage, a brash musketeer jostles and insults me. To his dismay, I begin to transform into an animal.

I continue changing into different animals, but always keeping my own face. First I am a dog, then a bird, and finally an enormous toad. (*)

At this point a chess piece, a rook, comes over to me and says, “You should be ashamed of yourself, frightening the children this way!” I return to my normal appearance, dressed in my usual clothing.

Now I find that I’m growing smaller—already I’ve shrunk to the size of a small child.

Stepping down from the stage, I look up at the enormous costumed people peering down at me from above. All the while, I continue growing smaller. (*)

Screaming hysterically, a woman cries out that I’m an insect. But just as she’s about to squash me with her foot, I shrink to microscopic size. (*)

Quickly I grow back to the size of a child, and then to my normal size. I continue growing larger and larger while the crowd around me scatters, running in all directions.

My head now reaches the ceiling and I look down on everything from above. (*)

Recognizing the woman who tried to squash me, I pick her up in one hand and set her down on the stage as she screams hysterically.

Returning to my normal size, I decide to leave the party.

When I reach the hallway, I see a mirror that completely distorts my appearance. Then I rub the surface until the mirror reflects back to me that beautiful image I have always longed for. (*)

Giving my regards to the dapper fellow at the entrance, I leave the house at peace with myself.

 

 - END -

• Participants discuss their experiences.

*Note on this Experience:

Numerous elements in this guided experience bring to mind Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. We recall the expansions and contractions of this passage:

“Well, I’ll eat it,” said Alice, “and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door; so either way I’ll get into the garden, and I don’t care which happens!”

She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself, “Which way? Which way?”, holding her hand on top of her head to feel which way it was growing.

And we note the transformations of space in this passage:

“Let’s pretend the glass has got all soft like gauze, so that we can get through. Why, it’s turning into a sort of mist now, I declare! It’ll be easy enough to get through.”

Similarly, in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, we encounter images transformed through reflection in a watery form of the magical mirrors that occur so frequently in universal mythology. As for humans transforming into animals, an unbroken line connects the most ancient traditions with Kafka’s Metamorphosis. These themes, then, are widely known, yet this guided experience still proves to be highly original. It would seem, as Plato reminds us in the Phaedrus, that the best writings serve in reality to awaken the memory of that which we already know.