Transformation Through Challenging Times. The last batch of very old Buddhist audio tapes were transferred into digital files yesterday. Hundreds of old dharma teachings that were kept in boxes for decades, finally restored and available. It made me think about the last 2 yrs and how the teachings have come about through adapting to the times.
In March 2020, I got stuck down here in Miami. Musical postponed, I decided against taking the return flight to NYC. I ate the cost of the tixs and went to my parent's house. Me and other ppl at LHI started producing guided meditation videos for people in quarantine. That led to creating and running two zoom programs at TADA and Miami New Drama for kids stuck at home.
Flew back to NYC in June and a new round of dharma classes started...after a decade long hiatus. Difficult times made ppl crave and request new teachings. The teachings got me to think about life. Intuitively I bought a tix back to Miami in early Nov 2020, trying to get ahead of the Thanksgiving covid explosion that I felt was coming.
Around this same time in Nov 2020, a studio offered me an exec producer/showrunner position on a new tv series they were taking out to networks. It sounded very appealing. But I took one look at my Dad and turned it down. It felt like this was the last few months of his life and I didn't want to be working on THE GOOD FIGHT via zoom and rushing around trying to sell a new show. I was expecting the studio and producers to be upset. I dreaded saying 'no' to what I thought was an obvious tv hit based upon an intuitive hunch. Surprisingly the studio and everyone was very understanding and supportive. They knew what I didn't...that it was more important to use that moment to start up the Squire Foundation. Thanks to Neelie, a good lawyer, and filing out lots of paperwork, the foundation was complete and went live at the top of 2021. I got several more tv offers that I turned down. It didn't 'feel' like this was the purpose of this pandemic.
I let the dharma guide me. I gravitated toward completing the co-ep jobs on EVIL and THE GOOD FIGHT, working on the story about America's first town of Black freedmen in MITCHELVILLE, and selling a story to Amazon about a Black man who transformed his life from prisoner to Yale lawyer. And then working on a movie adaptation about a biracial boy living in the segregated south back in the 1960s. Each one of the stories felt like an intuitive 'ah-ha...yes, this is saying something about my family, my ancestors, overcoming challenging times, transforming tragedy into triumph.'
That's when I was tasked with the assignment of taking these boxes of old audio tapes (some older than me) and finding a way to unlock the teachings and make them usable. Finishing up this audio project, along with the official website for the Squire Foundation, and relaunching "A Wonderful World" feels like buttons on a jam-packed year that revolved around transforming the challenges.
I never would have asked for all these things to happen. Even today, the challenges keep coming, taking me on paths that seem like detours but are, in fact, leading me deeper into the teachings. Fame, money, looks, accolades always fade. At the end of all of this, the only thing we have are the lessons learned from this journey. May the challenges keep coming to keep us awake, alert, and checking in with our mission.
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