My friend Micki Shelton is a writer and much more.  She forges her talent in plays, poetry, English as Second Language stories for youth and essays.  Below is a piece I came across while loitering quite happily on her website at https://www.mickishelton.com/what-i-m-writing.  I post it here on The Artist’s Path blog because before the pandemic changed our lives, it had been my intent to do a Path festival on Climate Change and the Arts. So while that project may be on hold indefinitely, I am pleased to share Micki’s thoughts with you and urge you to check out her other writings.

 

 

                       NASA photo of a young star-forming region of the Carina Nebula

 

 REFLECTIONS ON THE JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE, JUNE 12, 2022

Last night I was at a discussion group at which this question was posed: “What feelings of awe did you experience when you saw the first pictures from the JWST?”

 

Sadly, All the people in my group focused on the $10 billion price tag. David and I had hoped we could hear people speak about their experiences of awe. Where did those take them? But most were either unimpressed or focused on how that money could’ve been spent on the poor or in studying our own planet—our oceans for example. I called that a false comparison, better stated I’m told as false equivalence.  

Even so, it’s a complaint often made. I responded that it isn’t NASA taking food from the mouths of the poor. It’s war. So when we got home, David and I looked up the cost of recent wars. We haven’t yet done the math (maybe you’d like to) but we found this: Since 9/11, the war on terror has cost 8 trillion dollars. JWST’s cost is in the billions, not the trillions, and that 10 billion’s been spent over 25 years. It also employs a lot of scientists and engineers who otherwise might have spent their talents on weapons and war-making. If nothing else, photos taken by the JWST reveal the specialness in the universe of this one small speck of dust that we call Earth. How very, very fragile we are—as Sting sings. This precious planet is our home, small, at the edge of the Milky Way, which is one of billions and billions of galaxies. And it, this planet, is in grave danger. Scientists tell us that we have roughly 7 years left until we reach a tipping point when, quite literally, all hell will break loose. As with the purported ten plagues of Egypt, there will be even more floods and fires—and, well, perhaps all the rest.

 

Let’s talk about awe, which (along with great suffering) is one of our pathways to God. I point to all this (along with the ten plagues) in my play Puzzles and Borderlines. Jane, an astronaut, stands at the pearly gates. Near the end of the play, St. Peter hands her a celestial spyglass of sorts and tells her, “Here, look through this lens.” She does, and so doing she begins to see things the way God sees them—from billions of light years away—and what she sees is what people still here on earth need to see: that we humans are desperately in need of a metanoia. We need to look at everything differently. I believe that is worth something—possibly even more than 10 billion U.S. dollars. The engendering of awe is worth something.

 

Produced live as part of Theatre Artists Studio's 2022 "Summer Shorts," Puzzles and Borderlines was produced as a Zoom reading in 2020.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELMnjsWfxWo&t=607s

 

CHASING ALLIGATORS

 

I spend some portion of almost every day chasing alligators. I was warned in graduate school that this could become an addiction that would either lead me astray or trap me in a maze or at best lead me to an unexpected prize. It was in the stacks of the library at the University of Oklahoma that I developed my first cravings. I went in to do research on my master’s thesis on Agnes of God and the methodology I used to create the character of Mother Miriam Ruth. 

 

         Gail Mangham as Mother Miriam Ruth in Agnes of God University of Oklahoma 1987

 

 I would scour the catalog drawers, find potential sources, wander off to the stacks, pick out the book, sink to the floor and begin to read and scan. Even when it became apparent that this book would not fulfill my needs, I’d still find wee alligators, snippets that captured my interest. Then I would return to the catalog and search for a new volume related to this new interest. Bit by bit I would wander further and further afield from Agnes of God and acting. A reference on Sarah Bernhardt in one book would lead me her biography and that to Eleonora Duse an Italian rival for title of most celebrated actress in the world. From there I went to Italian theatre design during the Renaissance era. Eventually I was adrift, far from shore-- thirsty, hungry and wondering how on earth it could be so late.

 

The internet only makes this trap more accessible. Today I was doing some research on Tea with Zaza which led me to a Wicki article on Duse only to discover that she died in a hotel in Pittsburgh on the return leg of an American tour. Then I discovered that the hotel is now the student union for the University of Pittsburgh. Ah and that reminded me that one of my theatre professors went there. So of course I had to try and locate him. He is my age, late 70’s. Perhaps returned to New Jersey where he grew up. So I searched theatre data bases for his name in several states,which led me to Texas where an ad for a Texas Chili Festival caught my eye. And of course I found a recipe that intrigued me.

Alligator chasing can be an adventure, but it seldom gets the thesis written.

 

 

 

The Artist’s Path and the Prescott Elks Theatre present TEA WITH ZAZA the story of Florence ‘ZaZa’ Roberts who opened the Elks Opera House in 1905.    Don’t miss this roller coaster journey into Arizona’s past as ‘ZaZa’, first lady of theatre in San Francisco, relives her losses, loves, failures and triumphs.  Veteran actress Gail Mangham reprises the role 17 years after its premier at the Sharlot Hall Museum’s Blue Rose Theatre, 13  years after the restoration of the theatre and 118 years after ‘ZaZa’ herself took the stage of the Elks Opera House as it was called in the beginning.  Talkback with the actor and playwrights Parker Anderson and Micki Shelton

One performance only in the Crystal Hall on the third floor of the Elks Building in Prescott. 117 E Gurley St,  Sunday, Feb. 19, 2:30 PM House opens a half hour before. Tickets $20 Go online to https://ci.ovationtix.com/36295/production/1148035?performanceId=11214859 or call 928 756 2844

Proceeds to support the fall 2023 production of Micki Shelton’s LA POSADA, a piece that takes you on the journey of this venerable hotel in Winslow AZ.  One couple of vision saw potential where others saw a derelict building ready for the wrecking ball.  Watch for updates in the coming months.