Life After Enligtenment

There’s an old Zen saying:

Before enlightenment – chopping wood.
After enlightenment – chopping wood.

In this case, my “enlightenment” was that my 18-year-old-Self had decided that my path as a creative artist was about to take a hard right towards training as a communicator of Alexander’s Discovery.

This was no easy task.

At that time in Australia – the 1970s – there was only one teacher to serve the entire continent. Alan Murray trained with Alexander in the early 1950s, just before old FM passed away. I had been having lessons with him, and now I was ready to train and become the 2nd teacher in all of Australia.

WOW!

However, most of the training schools at that time were in London. And the minimum time it took to become an Alexscovery teacher (aka Alexander Technique teacher) was three years. 

It was an expensive enterprise.

I had no money, and my parents weren’t about to help a boy crazy with this idea that distrust dominated the lives of everyone around him, and Alexander had a solution for it. I also liked to drink, party and live a wild life – my personality was not suited to a disciplined task-orientated march towards one steady purpose.

What to do?

Finally, I found a job building a massive sewerage pipe under a mountain in Canberra. It was a terrible job – we took rotating shifts. Week 1 – 8am ~ 4pm; Week 2 – 4pm to Midnight; Week 3 – Midnight to 8am. This routine went on relentlessly for months as I saved the money for the plane ticket and tuition fees. No more auditions and casting sessions. No more actor parties and trips to the theatre. I was an underground miner now, with a light on my head, surrounded by Polish immigrants joking and laughing incomprehensibly.

Enlightenment had a downside, and I was discovering it now.

After six months, I had managed to save a lot of money. And then for reasons that still escape me, I invested it in a circus in New Zealand and lost the lot.

I was penniless again and had to start over.