The Chrysalis Initiatives

Art Rocks Education Fund The second initiative pledges to inspire Arts Education funding generated by artistic works highlighting the importance of play in our lives, regardless of what stage we stand on. This initiative intends to make products that will improve the lives of children through funds that deliver improved learning experiences in Arts & Humanities programs. Products in the design phase include jewelry, decorated fish hooks as daring wearables, plush dress-up clothes and puppets, as well as bouncy balls designed to make an audible sound like an egg shaker . . . decorated to look like butterfly eggs . . . might as well flow with the theme.

The Slow Food Soup Kitchen This initiative supports the entrepreneurial design of a new kind of restaurant business that is dedicated to promoting healthy living and psychological recovery from social trauma that results from the simple and clear desperation that is part of the human existential condition. We are communal creatures, yet so desperately alone in our varied and personal experiences. To gather in safe spaces offers a solace all creatures need. We must craft a new framework to support a new creed. My personal story includes a significantly destabilizing eating disorder that has impacted me for at least four decades. I know the powerful nature of this illness, but I also have witnessed how people who have faced the struggle have been able to flip the switch of self-harming mind-controlling behaviors into positive forces for self-renovation and personal healing. My observations have revealed the truth that the people who struggle against the torment of eating disorders are incredibly strong warriors. I believe we need these kinds of people fueling the fight to advance society by ridding it of its ridiculous self-destructive habits. These people make up an invisible special forces unit because they are veterans of the daily internal battling that defines the experience of living with an eating disorder. With the right support, these people can recover and use their impressive strength to implement social change. With a clear redirection of focus, we can gather greater strength for our personal recovery while working towards social recovery within an environment committed to making peace in our lives through the making and sharing of delicious, nourishing food. Let us knead dough; let us bake beautiful bread. The model for Slow Food Soup Kitchens seeks to support individuals in their various phases of developmental change by hiring special people for specific roles. The kitchen will be a dedicated recovery space and the people employed there will be people who have engaged in recovery programs for eating disorders and are ready to transition into a new phase of self-sustaining healthy living. The food that these soul warriors create will be served to the under-served, prioritizing people experiencing houselessness, or people who are at risk of becoming unhoused for simply being down on their luck. Eventually, the dream insists, the SFSK will be based on the first floor of a community building that provides affordable housing to those in need. We will align with social workers who could guide residents in finding meaningful work to become self-reliant contributors to the community. All these residents need to do is adopt the old school golden rules: ________. New residents will receive any necessary medical attention. (If the full dream comes true, the government will provide this health check-up for free.) The community center will become an educational resource for people who seek change in their lives. If you have ever heard of Easter Island, maybe you know about the inspirational person who created a beautiful music school there that was built of the trash that washes ashore each day. This is a real place that inspired the desire to construct safe spaces by using the material waste that our consumption-oriented lifestyle leaves behind. In the SFSK dream, the restaurant and community dwelling is made from recycled materials and trash that is culled and pulled from the ocean. The people who participate in the clean up task will be young college-age environmental enthusiasts who love being on the water in boats. Since we are dreaming big here, I would also like to establish a sailing school in communities near the water, because the water is rising and everyone ought to know how to handle the stormy elements to survive. I want to teach sailing again, but not to the entitled who have the financial leverage to practice the sport, I want to teach sailing skills to people who fear the water or struggle onshore, I want to teach to the people in need of more strength in their core. This dream may already seem too far-fetched, but it goes on . . . Please follow along and imagine this vision with me: At the SFSK, the under-served are housed and fed in a sustainable business venture ready to serve its clientele, but possibly the best part of the conceptual plan is that the under-served will be treated like superstars by the theatrically-gifted employees aspiring to engage future audiences in the world of entertainment, those bright lights who are pursuing performing arts studies, or just seeking a functional way to prepare for their inevitable lucky break. The only rule is to follow the guideline: May there be lots of laughter served up that is not at anyone's expense.

Evolutionary Acts This initiative exposes the artist's evolutionary step toward personal freedom through the development of performance art for social change. For one who has isolated their practice for so long, this initiative is really just an effort to address psychological challenges related to sharing the things we often hide about ourselves. All people have distinct intelligences. Every person is an instrument, but some exhibit particular musical intelligence. Those who do carry within them an urge to share their personal achievements. We become our repertoires. It is an intrinsic need, not a self-gratifying desire. The musician must play; the audience tries to hear despite habits of watchfulness. Musicians are performers, yet they engage with their work a bit differently than actors performing rehearsed works in plays. A vocalist is their instrument and the way they play offers human connectivity. Perhaps deep listeners can learn to engage with the music through the singer's effort and so craft an opportunity for shared experiences that can transmit emotion and prompt social healing. Many people speak of performative acts these days as actions that are superficial and only intend to present a façade of integrity to advance personal or commercial social credibility. It feels unfortunate to conflate the word performance with connotations of falsification. For performers, to act or to play is to feel completely engaged, alive and real. Human truth is evident in every performance because we are most vulnerable when standing to deliver our practiced arts. Socially, the audience is trained to think of the performing arts as plays that are ‘not real,’ and sometimes they fall into categories of false pretensions. For the people on the stage giving their moment everything they’ve got to give, there might not be another moment in their life in which they feel so completely alive. What I hope to become is the thing I’ve practiced to be, in my strange profound silence and prolonged secrecy. Secrets like mine are made to be broken. The vows were just a psychological trick on my mind, like a spell that bound me until I learned to unwind. Every time I played like a child in a cage, I sought to relate to the bird without rage. While a captive of the art I sought to transcend, I found my heart was willing to bend. I call the private play my life's fantasy, to imagine myself in a song meant to be. I call my practice space, my chrysalis for transformation, The Musical Fantasy Playground where I dream of a Time for harmony with all human relations.