the triangle

looking in and looking out

Here is a spiral. You started at x, the centre of the spiral, and you’ve been moving outwards slowly with time. Now you are the circle. One day you will be the triangle. From your perspective as the circle, you have not moved far away at all from x. You’re right next to it. You can see it clearly. In actuality you have traveled a full rotation of the spiral, two even. When you eventually reach the triangle, you will have transformed again, but you will still see the circle right next to you and you will still feel like you haven’t traveled very far. If you just have faith in the process, the process will happen.

This is a mountain. You are the circle, climbing slowly uphill. As you climb, you face the direction that you travel. Look ahead, but not too far ahead. Look back, but not all the time. If you only look up, you see only the journey ahead and forget the progress you have made as you steadily transform uphill with time. If you only look down, you lose the sense of where you are and what is coming. Trust that one foot in front of the next will get you there. Be where you are now, not thinking about where everybody else is or where you could be instead.

These are three shapes of a performance. Figure 1 shows the formation of a band of 4, plus 2 crew members sitting in a van on tour. All day as they travel across countries they sit in two columns, left and right side by side as a rectangle. Once arriving at their destination, they scramble, only for the 4 to later reform as figure 2. The horseshoe. This is an open shape, facing outward to the audience, vulnerable and open to connection. At times, this vulnerability is damaging, which is where figure 3 becomes a useful shield. By turning inwards, the person on the far right turns the horseshoe into a diamond shape, facing inwards, circular and into each other and away from the audience. The group is closed off to outsiders, protects itself, becomes self oriented. Each person becomes a protector to the rest of the group. The group becomes a single organism made of many parts that looks after itself, is for itself only, can restore itself, transform itself, look outward again.

The road is blocked by a slow moving tractor and I’ve just driven past the queue because I’m going the other way. I have a great sense of clarity and self-assurance, as if I have the answers to everything. I am smug with my sight. It is very obvious to me why these triangles are waiting, how long they will have to wait, and that the block is temporary. The triangle at the end has no idea, they just have to sit it out. It might take all day but it probably won’t. Sometimes you are a triangle and sometimes you are a circle. Sometimes it’s very clear, you go past waiting triangles knowing what is blocking them up ahead, with a clear road in front of you. Sometimes you are a triangle, you can’t see why you are where you are, what has caused the block, how long you will have to wait. Others may go by in the other direction, but there may also be different blocks ahead of them, sometimes you’ve seen different blocks on your way past where they are going. You can only keep going in your direction.