Game-Changer:
Telesymbol Movement for Peace
By Loanda Cullen, M.A.
PUBLISHED BY
Loanda Cullen on Smashwords.com
*****
SMASHWORDS EDITION
Copyright © Loanda Lesser Cullen 2012
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Table of Contents by Chapters:
1: Introduction
2: Who Was Tammy Narena?
3: History of Telesymbols
4: New York Replicable
5: Washington D.C. Brainworms
6: New Orleans Jazzing
7: Pacific Palisades, California, On the Cliffs
8: Florida, Sacred Marriage
9: London, Divine Divorce
10: Realism, Empathy, Resilience, and Creativity
Appendix 1: Mission
Appendix 2: Eulogists
Appendix III: Products Available Now or in the near future
Chapter 1: Introduction
Imagine this: 200 people in Grand Central Station, a flash mob of Telesymbolists, doing a Peace Demonstration, silently. Miming words that express our deepest aspirations, embodying heartfelt meaning, making simple movements in sentence form, which somehow, though you don't know this language consciously, you understand intuitively.
"There is victory in communication;"
200 more people suddenly appear on the other side of Grand Central Station:
"Peace is enthused dignified energy"
The original 200 respond, walking diagonally towards the newcomers:
"Building life with kindness, communication and wisdom."
The newcomers echo the movement phrase, now walking diagonally towards the others, "Building life with kindness, communication and wisdom!"
The two sets of people begin to intersect each other's lines, gracefully walking through the spaces between each person, and repeating the movement phrases from the beginning, in a round, non simultaneous movements, echoing and winding their way through the crowd of onlookers.
Then suddenly as it started, it stops, and everyone just starts their normal walk to wherever they were going.
This Game is for real, for peace, for health, for fun, for exercise, for giving strength to your words, and words to your strength! I would like to invite all comers, who are curious; who think peace is worth moving towards personally, or moving about with your body actually, in reality and in truth...
This Peace Movement is about a body movement language where a particular position of the arms and torso and legs, means a particular thing, something that Tammy Narena, an amazing innovator and dancer, created. It is not just for dancers, but is great fun to dance, and makes a choreography language that is interesting and meaningful. The Telesymbol positions represent meaning- so for example the position for "peace" is the same as "harmony" except that it is in motion, arms making parallel waves, with a pushing motion of the hands. If you can imagine watching someone doing the motion, you might guess as to the meaning, that they are gesturing "peace". So, peace is not static, but is a work in motion, moving toward harmony...
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With the look and feel of Egyptian hieroglyphs with graceful flowing hands, the movements look and feel good to do. The movements are simple, easy, and don’t require a dancers flexibility or even an adult’s understanding. Children can do it, seniors can do it, and disabled people in wheelchairs can do it. At the same time, there is a discipline to the Telesymbols that asks for stretching into alignment, for movement that goes diagonally across a room aligning the body against that line, as if it were a wall you are hugging your body to. And with that simple discipline, repetition increases flexibility, muscles are taught to relax, shoulders are dropped, and spines are straightened.
Today there are many movement systems that have crossed cultural barriers to great benefit of the aficionados who use them: Yoga, Tai Chi, Qigong, Ballet (French, after all), etc. The most outstanding difference with Telesymbols is that there is no particular personality or culture in the movement form itself; it is a pure movement form. While it is a great vehicle for individual self-expression, in fact, it does not pollute the self-expression with a Coca Cola brand, or style.
Tammy designed Telesymbols to be a universal language: an international sign language that would be able to convey communication across cultural barriers, language barriers, and ideological barriers. This is because it was designed as a vehicle for making peace.
Not coincidentally, it is a movement meditation, and an exquisite dance form, primarily because it combines physical motion with the intellectual quickening that conversation creates, in meaningful sentences chosen by the participant. It combines body movement, thinking, and an emotional expression, which is a powerful and ideal formula for optimum brain development and improving brain functioning. Body, mind and spirit combine in Telesymbol Movement for Peace, refining and expanding our ability to understand and think about abstract ideas, increasing literacy, and training non-verbal communication into luminosity that communicates powerfully.
Chapter 2: Who Was Tammy Narena?
Tammy Narena (maiden name Ressman) was the creator of Telesymbols, my mother, and an audacious courageous and utterly charming human being until her death in 2005. Born in Lithuania in 1924, her first language was Russian. Her family's move to South Africa had her grow up witnessing intractable injustice, and speaking three more languages including English. After her father's death, and her own near death experience, she became an award-winning prima ballerina, and specialist in character and national dancing, with students referred to her by other teachers to refine their emotional expression and technique.
Upon her marriage, the couple left South Africa for England, and then ten years later moved on to the USA. Tammy had ballet schools in three continents, numerous awards, and was presented to Queen Elizabeth II for her school's charity concerts, as an outstanding South African in England.
While in England, Tammy discovered the seed which became Telesymbols, when a mother marveled at her student’s transformation over several months. Tammy taught her students to imagine the dance vocabulary stringing sentences, and to dance to extemporaneous call outs of new amalgamations. With her emphasis on feeling the music, it was a small step from meaningless ballet vocabulary to meaningful Telesymbol creation.
As you do Telesymbols, you are moving words and sentences of great meaning and value. And yet the beguiling verses that Tammy designed as her peace curriculums often have a level of obscurity and mystery... One sentence leads to an hour of clarifying discussions, and the eventual fact of no one right answer. All answers had something to contribute to the discussion, and we arrive at the end immensely richened, simply by the process.
So, why have you not heard of Telesymbols? Why did her project actually never get off the ground until after her death? If Telesymbols were actually so great, wouldn’t the world have been beating a path to her door? How on earth did this fabulous new dance form stay lost in obscurity, with no antecedents, no teachers trained, and no students to cheer it on to world debuts all over the globe?
Chapter 3: History of Telesymbols
-Dwelling
on the past is something my mother taught me not to do, and I was a
good student. We lived in the moment, savouring each moment, as
if it were the last, loving each other with a desperate passion, the
passion of people who know how fleeting and delicate life is.
We never took things for granted, every taste every smell was the
best we ever tasted or smelled. The present was an intoxicant
that numbed the past, kept us drunk with precious moments, great
opportunities, amazing coincidences, and wonderful people. We
always looked forward, never back.
My
earliest memories are of my mother's love beaming and enveloping me
in warmth and the deepest sense of security. As I look
back, the presence of my history and heritage was encased in her
smile. The way she gritted her teeth with love, the sweet
nothings she whispered to me as she rocked and stared into my eyes.
Was it Yiddish she gurgled or was it Russian? Sometimes I think
I can see all the other faces reflected in her eyes, sometimes I get
confused and see stories and fantasies, television shows, operas,
ballets, Gerber baby food commercials. My mind's eye is
hopelessly overcrowded with images and personalities, people and
conversations, nothing is original, nothing mine, nothing true...
it's all imagination. Or is it?
The first World Premier of Telesymbols took place in Los Angeles, sponsored by the City of Los Angeles Parks and Recreation Department. It was an open air performance in McArthur Park, in the center of Los Angeles just off the famous Wilshire Boulevard. It was 1963, and there was a band shell in the middle of McArthur Park at that time, and open air seating space covering nearly a ¼ acre. For this day, chairs were set up and they were filled with interested spectators, perhaps brought in by the press releases and the news announcements, perhaps just people wandering the park that day.
The performers were diverse: a senior group from a church, children including 11 years old me, and Tamara herself, as MC and narrator. There were reporters in the audience, and the head of the Parks Department proudly introduced my mother, as a city resident with an exciting new program. I had a solo, which brought down the house. I was called back for two encores- never had the people seen a performance by a child that was so full of feeling, so virtuoso: riveting. The seniors’ performance was not as smooth. Though it was done well, they were amateurs who had just danced for six weeks of preparation for this performance. I had been dancing since the age of 3.
The next day the short review in an inside section had the headline “Virtuoso of 11 Dances New Dance Form”, but nobody seemed to pay any attention. The picture of me dominated, and nobody noticed or cared about Telesymbols. And a picture of a child does not make adults want to participate. Perhaps it was just an idea whose time had not come. She never talked about it, she just moved on…
Tammy’s newly divorced state included the trauma of three car accidents, and she was forced to stop teaching dance shortly after this performance, assailed by chronic pain and migraines. She was certainly disgusted at the poor reception her World Premier had in fact received, and disgusted with a world that put Sue Lyon at 14 into the position of a sex siren with the film “Lolita”. She felt she needed the right people and the right connections to form her project core group, and she left the church group, pulled me out of Hollywood Professional School, and we moved to Beverly Hills.
It was not “The Beverly Hillbillies”, but I was the only child at El Rodeo Elementary that was on Welfare (as TANF was then called). We lived in a tiny but elegant one bedroom apartment next to Beverly Hills High School, filled with antiques and china my mother hid from the social workers. My mother took up tennis in an effort to meet people, but her pain had not abated, and a tennis fall left her in even more pain. After 22 months, she felt the only thing that would heal her was the sea, so we moved again to the beach…
In Santa Monica Canyon, I was 13 pretending to be 16, and got several jobs to help support the family. My mother swam every day, but still she could not get rid of her headaches and back pain. We continued on welfare until I was nearly graduated high school and broke my back as a passenger in a fatal Pacific Coast Highway auto accident.
All this time, Tammy had been working on her project and her curriculum, corresponding with Lyndon Johnson, then President of the US, with her ideas that helped create the War on Poverty and groundbreaking programs which continue today: Head Start, the National Endowment for the Arts (1965), and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Tammy realized her project needed an infrastructure, and these programs established that.
She created leather artworks, unique leather flowers, and studied all the spiritual traditions of the world, including Vedic, Jewish, Christian Science, Southern Baptist, Unity, Moslem and others. She was a prolific painter, doing landscapes, abstracts, and floral décor on lamps and furniture. And all this time, none of it was ever sold.
After the insurance settlement from my car accident arrived, Tammy was able to travel at last to pursue her project. She went first to New York, to meet with faculty from a renowned Teacher’s College, as she’d realized that she needed to train teachers in her work.
Chapter 4: New York Replicable
Perhaps it's easier to summarily dismiss the experiences where Tammy was judged and her work went unappreciated. It's easy to understand how in the 60's this was all just too strange. Remember, this was before all the studies on meditation, kinesiology, and psychological/neurological connections. Tammy had experienced the truth of these things years before all of us taking them for granted, today. And the language that she explained her work with was a communication of the heart; people had unusual reactions to her, all the way from sexual arousal to fear and loathing. Tammy didn't use the language of academia, and she didn't understand it.
The Teachers College set up groups for teaching observation: a group of behavior disordered teens, a group of handicapped pre-teens, and a third group of adults. The results were phenomenal in just one or two sessions. For the professors observing, it looked like Tammy's charisma was doing miracles with the classes: The boys behaved, listened, asked questions, and a girl who had never been able to move her right arm, lifted and moved it, inspired and shining with the message, "I am beautiful." The professors told her that she was phenomenal, a first in the world, and that her teaching was "irreplicable".
Repeating the "compliments" to all her potential funders, she did not realize that the word "irreplicable" was a death knell to her project. No one will ever fund a project whose good results cannot be replicated with normal people in controlled circumstances! The Teachers College was saying that no other teacher but the charming and charismatic Tammy could have achieved good results doing the same work that she did with the same people. There was so much emotion and sensitivity in the way she worked, understanding what was needed in communicating with each different individual in her class, they enjoyed watching a good teacher work, but discounted the subject matter as being superfluous to the results! No one else could do what Tammy did with those kids and adults…
At least they could not see how.
In the mean time, I was at university studying psychology, anthropology, and electronic music… It was the 60's and Kent State erupted with police shooting peaceful student anti-Vietnam War protesters, riots at UCLA, and I was on the TV news with a guerilla theatre performance, mocking the war-mongers. According to the doctors, my dance career was over; I would be relegated to walking jobs, unable to sit for longer than an hour, and in chronic pain for the rest of my life, as a result of the car accident that had broken my third lumbar vertebrae in three places…
Chapter 5: Washington D.C. Brainworms
With her money running out, Tammy moved from the YWCA rooms to a Fraternity House at Georgetown University, with a job as House Mother. Summer was coming soon and the Fraternity would be locked up; where was she to go? Desperation fueled eloquence as she presented her case to the Pentagon, writing letters requesting a meeting to discuss her project and its potential in creating peace.
The day of the meeting, Tammy stepped on the bus which she'd taken many times on her way to the Congress. She greeted the driver, who she knew by now, and moved to the back of the bus for an empty seat. A few stops down, there was a change of drivers, and a well-built stranger took over the wheel, after pleasantries were exchanged. As they neared the capital, the bus slowly emptied stop by stop until she was the only passenger.
"Here's your stop!" the driver called back to her, pulling over to a bus bench by the side of the roadway.
"But I have a meeting at the Pentagon this morning at 7:30AM!" she blustered.
The driver turned around to look at her, "Mam, this is the last stop for this bus today. Just wait here a few minutes and another bus will be by to pick you up."
"How can you do this!" she was hysterical. "I've ridden this bus a hundred times and there's no stop here. There's never been a bench here."
The driver gave her a broad smile, "Don't worry, mam, he'll be right here." He took her briefcase, and helped her down the stairs, handing her back the briefcase as she turned back to glare at him.
Poor Tammy was sure this was a total disaster for her most important meeting with General X, in charge of the Pacification Program at the Defense Dept. She slammed herself down onto the bench with disgust, dropping the briefcase at her feet.
To her dismay, seemingly out of nowhere, a man walked over and sat down beside her. "How do you do," he said. "General X has sent me to talk with you, as he's been called out of town today. Perhaps you can tell me a little about your project?"
They talked for perhaps a half hour. She explained the plan for a World Premier Production that would involve the governments of Israel and Egypt, Switzerland, Japan and indeed the whole world. She would be training master teachers to teach in their own languages, and to do Telesymbol Productions that would communicate in all languages simultaneously, a universal language of actual meaning. The project would cost just $16 million, and produce so much more: an end to the incredible waste of war.
He asked questions. She answered. She described the neurological activity that happens when the body's movement joins with the power of The Word. The Bible says: "In the beginning was The Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." the mind's conception of communication, the desire to reach out to others- The Word became the actual connecting bridge…
Words now become us. She talked about the power of affirmations made real and physical, for all to see. A body language that is conscious, clear, and must needs be honest.
He thanked her and said he would be in touch, and walked off, as the bus approached from the left.
A week later, I arrived in Washington, having hitched a free ride on a private jet, then rode next to Arthur C. Clarke on the commuter plane from New York, My mother looked exhausted, she had to leave the Fraternity, and she was out of money. No one had called her, and the General would not answer her follow up calls, despite myriad messages she'd left him. Her one major Congressional connection, Rep. Ogden Reid of New York, had told her to stay away from him, as his wife was jealous… She was devastated no doubt, but couldn't allow herself to be discouraged. Tammy always trusted in God that she would succeed somehow, against all odds.
"You need a vacation," I said. "Let's go on holiday, just for a couple of weeks?" She agreed to come. I took the last of my money and bought a Greyhound bus ticket for my mother and a child's ticket for me, to New Orleans. I listened to her breathless stories all the way to the Big Easy.
Chapter 6: New Orleans Jazzing
With an address on Burgundy Avenue in The French Quarter, my mother and I landed with friends of friends, in the middle of Mardi Gras. It was a new world of loose moving fun, and we hungrily explored everything from the corner drugstore lunch counters to the posh seafood restaurants with linen tablecloths…
There in New Orleans, my mother met Dick Hahn, her future husband. It wasn't for another fourteen years that they actually got married, but that is where a friendship began that brought my mother some of her happiest years, being loved by this gentle dear man, my step-father, building a house and home together, and a Florida life of stability, beaches, and betting dog races.
I'm ahead of my story though. In New Orleans, though I returned to California, Tammy stayed on for six months on the edge of the French Quarter, befriended by a trio of Catholic nuns. After her initial optimism for working with the local Archdiocese, it became clear that things could go nowhere in the political climate of Louisiana, and so Tammy returned to California.
Chapter 7: Pacific Palisades, California, On the Cliffs
Without much money, Tammy managed to rent an apartment on the cliffs of the Palisades, near our Santa Monica Canyon home, but nicer. I lived in my Volkswagen Van, parked on the cliffs' edge. I was working the red eye shift again, in a dried Eucalyptus factory in downtown LA, learning about setting up mass production, and polishing my Spanish. I studied Public Relations at UCLA, learning from one of the old Hollywood publicists, all the magic tricks of what he called "Basic Propaganda".
I must have been a poor student, however, because despite the coaching the one event that I organized for Tammy in 1974 was again, a dismal plunker. Three people turned up, and one was my boyfriend. "Peace" and "Universal Language" just didn't pull in the crowds, I guess. I was not aware of any tricks to change that in 1974…
That was the last time that Tammy taught me her Telesymbol work, and I was 23 years old.
In the mean time that Tammy had been on the East Coast, I had invented an herbal soap recipe and 12 different astrological herbal combinations, and was selling them at The Renaissance Pleasure Faire, with the encouragement of another Topanga Canyon friend who was a pottery maker there. I put Tammy to work hand sculpting and carving the soap bars, and together we grew the popularity of what eventually became Beyond Soap and Loanda Herbal Soap, distributed nationwide and in Canada in health and natural foods stores.
Things grew and prospered, I got married, had a baby son, got divorced, and sold the business.
In 1980 we had moved my factory to the North, to Marin County, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Tammy moved farther north, to Calistoga Hot Springs, and finally healed her pain and headaches, with the help of a physical therapist, the hot springs, and apparently, my two year old son… In 1984 Tammy moved to Idaho with Dick Hahn, after their Santa Rosa "Sacred Marriage". In 1986 they moved to Florida, finally finding the home site in Panama City Beach where together they designed and built the house and garden of their dreams.
In 1990, after completing a BA in Humanities/Psychology emphasis, I moved with my then ten year old son Sean, to Boulder, Colorado. Naropa University offered a Buddhist inspired Psychology Degree that melded Western and Eastern psychological theory, with a four month retreat, and a nine month internship. I graduated at the end of 1992, with an M.A. in Psychology, and trained as a Contemplative Psychotherapist.
Chapter 8: Florida Sacred Marriage
Tammy was happy with Florida and her new friends there, and filled her days with making artwork, cooking and cleaning for Dick, and the daily swims. She was corresponding with Barbara Bush about using one of her books as a literacy aide to the schools, and somehow she caught the eye of a team of filmmakers from the North.
They made a 50 minute documentary on her, which however remains unfinished, and was never broadcast. She managed to get a copy from them before they disappeared from sight, their funding suddenly cut. Several of her Florida friends are performing Telesymbols in the film, as well as learning the words to the performance, discussing their understanding of the work, and bending spoons (a psychic phenomenon). Tammy herself performs a set of ballroom dances and Tango with a professional partner, both of them doing Telesymbols as they dance.
Tammy and Dick were always supportive of each other, he building frames for her artwork, she designing work spaces for his carpentry, he having my piano refinished at great expense, she making him an office space and TV area, all to himself. They built the house of their dreams, with an English Garden surrounding it on two building lots.
At age 79, however, Tammy was becoming more disturbed, more paranoid, and more adamant about keeping the large home that now was a burden in upkeep. Dick went on a couple of six week vacations to visit his family and friends across the country, and Tammy filed for divorce.
It is a credit to Dick Hahn that he continued paying Tammy alimony to the maximum that would not be taxable, until the day she died, despite the divorce settlement only requiring alimony for one year or when her project was funded, whichever came first!
I was not privy to the negotiations and phone calls that orchestrated possibilities in a move back to England, but Tammy refused to move with me to Colorado, and agreed that we could both return to England together. The full plan had my son also coming to England for Film School, and we had the preliminaries all lined up.
Chapter 9: London Divine Divorce
I moved over on September 11, 2001, slightly postponed by the series of terrorist attacks that have rocked our world since that date. Tammy followed on December 31, 2001, after I had secured a house and started school at University College London, Anna Freud Centre. All her artworks and furnishings followed in a large locked shipping container.
After my Colorado house sold, I bought a home in South London, in a new eco-development with a performing arts centre space built in. From the beginning Tammy was difficult and contemptuous of our little South London community as being the right nest for her project to incubate… She was too old to start at the beginning she said. She needed to be installed in a specialized teacher's university. Her health was failing, and she knew it.
Despite having been approved for heart surgery with the NHS in England, where it would have been absolutely free, she ignored her pre-op appointments and blew it off. She said she did not want to live but by the grace of God. She was sure that once in the hospital she would never get out, and there was no changing her mind.
She lived for another two years, by the grace of G-d, and we had many good and precious times together in South London, with my son visiting occasionally. When she passed away, it was after a short flu, recovering, she finally had her heart attack.
Six weeks later, Dick, her former partner in "Sacred Marriage", was square dancing, and likewise, had a massive heart attack. Not before sending me some precious letters, and some wonderful phone calls, where he told me that he'd never stopped loving Tammy, she was an amazing woman, the love of his life.
Chapter 10: Realism, Empathy, Resilience, and Creativity
The Time is Now?
Realism
In the tribal dances of South Africa, there was much that Tammy intuitively connected with and wanted to understand. Her desire for communication, as a second language learner of English, cut through cultural barriers, language barriers, and emotional barriers as well. She wanted nothing less than a game-changing revolution for the human spirit.
She realized how difficult it was to achieve all she desired, and so she sought allies in high places, beyond religious differences, beyond class, beyond nationalism. For Tammy her work could only achieve success if no less than the US Government and the United Nations promoted it.
Unfortunately, that was not to be in her lifetime.
Today, we have the opportunity of grass roots movements like never before. With video streaming through internet worldwide, her work can be used to overcome the language barriers that even computer translations cannot. Our religious conflicts and our spiritual commonalities can be more interesting and arresting than ever before.
While in Tammy's time, war was still a profitable business for the planet, at least in most governmental eyes, increasingly disillusioned soldiers, congressmen and the public are calling for an end to wars. The public is weighing in on the issue in unprecedented numbers, and whistleblowers are revealing government secrets about the futility of force. More than ever before what is needed is: A Department of Peace, with full training programs and educational, entertainment programs that make Peace-making a technology, art, and science that we can master, as a planet and a nation. Peace can also become a profitable business. Fifteen (+?) municipalities and states have passed official resolutions in favor of HR 808, to establish the Department of Peace.
According to Gordon Brown, in a 2011 Report: " I am more firmly convinced than ever that we cannot resolve the great social, economic and political challenges facing today’s world without tapping into the transformative power of education."
Only with education of the world's children, can we have the possibility of worldwide understanding and communication. While verbal languages will never be supplanted by Telesymbols, Telesymbols can help children learn, can help in learning English or any language, and can also provide the enjoyable exercise form that combats childhood obesity in the US and the developed world.
Empathy
At Teachers College Columbia University, the professors observing Tammy saw a level of empathy that they felt was rare. Tammy's ability to tune in to other's emotions, to say just the right thing at the right moment, was uncanny. She was present in a way that the professors knew was rare, and they believed it was not possible for others to be. She was unique.
Now we know that we can train people to tune in to feelings and emotions, and to teach individually from an emotional level. It's not just that you're born to be sensitive to others, or not. You can be taught to empathize and understand individual differences. You can learn individual learning styles, and it's good practice now to include group and kinesthetic learning experiences in a teaching activity- to get people moving rather than just sitting still at a desk.
Empathy is a major requirement for living happily in the world of the 21st Century, in relationships with family, co-workers, and customers. As we dissolve our hierarchical and dictatorial management systems, we open up people's creativity, contribution, and peak performance. Compassionate communication sees the whole and holistic perspective from each person's point of view, and conflict resolution begins when people feel truly heard.
The work with Telesymbols promotes and develops an empathetic culture between people, building empathy, intuitive understanding, and mindfulness.
Resilience
Tammy's amazing tenacity in the face of huge setbacks was inspired by a deep abiding spiritual faith. At the age of 14, she nearly died when her appendix burst, and she developed tetanus. She spent six months in the hospital with daily wound cauterizations, bent double, and was told she would never walk upright again. There she pushed through excruciating pain to retrain her muscles, to stretch the tendons, and to heal eventually. Within a year she was back dancing, winning gold medals for her technique, character and expression, and for mime. Within two years she was a prima ballerina and had a school of her own, keeping two pianists busy with accompanying the lessons.
This became a pattern for her whole life: attempting the impossible, despite the negativity and lack of encouragement from "experts". When one door closed, she found new doors.
Current research on resiliency factors states that feeling part of a community, mentors, and a spiritual foundation or belief system contribute almost equally to resilience among at-risk youth. Religious affiliation whether it be church, temple or mosque, contributes to the sense of community and belonging, but may not necessarily inspire spirituality. For those growing up within a religious community, spiritual conversations with outsiders can only be an opportunity to deepen and test their faith. Telesymbols can be useful there.
Many people in the modern world label themselves as "spiritual but not religious". For children and youth growing up in this paradigm, there may be a sense of not belonging, which puts them more at risk for anti-social behavior and crime. Telesymbols can be useful here.
Because of the nature of Telesymbol work, spirituality can be and is, non-religious, but also within a group format. Telesymbol groups foster communication and conversation about meaningful spiritual things. People of all ages can feel a sense of belonging and a shared higher purpose, connected to the mission of ongoing peace-making, locally and internationally. This has the possibility of growing resiliency in youth and adults, helping the achievement of full potential.
Creativity
Tammy was prolific in creating artworks, painting, leather flowers, designing furniture, composing music, writing prose and poetry, and of course dance choreography. She was a talented singer, with a beautiful voice, like her mother and brother. She played the piano beautifully, having taken lessons from an early age. Her dancing was graceful perfection, fueled by her hours of practice, several excellent teachers, and ignoring the pain of bloody toes and aching muscles.
Innovation
Tammy's father died when she was fifteen, conveying his dying wishes only to her, to continue his work for world peace. That legacy handed on became her whole life's passion and purpose, keeping her father alive in all she did.
With Tammy's Telesymbol innovation, we are back at the origins of tribal dance- to express and serve our tribe, have fun, keep all ages involved together, and find performance that touches us at the heart. Beyond folk dancing, this is folks dancing- a gestural communication and expression of our joy to be alive and to create the world of our ideals.
We all are dancers inside, we all need to dance, and we all CAN, beyond ballet, folk, or "Modern" dance. Telesymbols, today, offer us all an opportunity at the utopian dream of universal communication.
Tammy saw that we needed a dance form that is pluralistic, inter-active, and expressive of our deepest yearnings and highest aspirations. True self-expression and true world peace are both based on an ongoing dialogue: seeking life with kindness, communication, and wisdom.
Telesymbols are a game-changing innovation: to transform entertainment from watching to doing; to transform education from absorbing information to creating movement; to transform materialism to spirituality; to transform unconscious consumerism to mindful empathic listening and communication.
And in the poorest countries of the world as well as the rich, to quote Gordon Brown, former Prime Minister of Britain, "We are missing out on opportunities to deliver a breakthrough in education – a breakthrough that would bring hope to the lives of millions of children, provide a powerful impetus towards the wider (world goals)… and transform the growth prospects of the world’s poorest countries. Bluntly stated, we cannot afford more of the same in the three years left before 2015."
There is an urgency to our time, and a call to action by many. Bold action is required, and great fun! If Telesymbols are a piece of the puzzle for a happier world, Tammy would, with a big smile, say "I told you so!"
-0-
Appendix I: Mission:
To disseminate Tammy's work, to make a feature film Docu-drama about it, and to further the cause of world peace.
Appendix II: Eulogists
My mother passed away unexpectedly day before yesterday, after a short illness, at our home in
South London.
Please keep me in your thoughts as I mourn her deeply, please tell anyone you think might want to know of her passing, so that blessings may congeal from the planet for this wonderful person as her soul rises ...
I'm planning a celebration of her life for May 1st . Hopefully a wonderful huge and meaninglful art exhibit, circle dancing, video showing of her work and her, and perhaps a concert/performance of one of her many symphonic music compositions. Readings from her prose and poetry will arouse and uplift, hearts will break in two, as mine, that she was not able to share the central focus of her life: her Telesymbol Project, with the world.
Despite all the pain of the last few years of her life, my mother was a huge joy as well. I miss her so much and feel cheated that she didn't last as long as I thought she would: forever! I thought she would outlive me, she was so robust and vibrant.
Perhaps you would like to think of joining me here on May 1st? If you even have ideas, photos, wisdom or anything - to send or say, please do. I would so love it if you could come as well.
I hope you will feel free to call me before then- or drop by, if you're in my neighborhood.
Love,
Loanda
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Dear Loanda,
I just did not expect it. I, too, totally imagined your mom living on an on, in a timeless way. I remember her vital, singing spirit so clearly, and when you said she was sick, I really imagined it was something like the flu...did you have any idea this was coming? It didn’t seem so in your emails. I looked up your phone number in my Palm and saw that not only did it erase your number, but your address. Please send them to me again directly – of course, tho, when you have a moment. I would have phoned you immediately.
Your lives have been so deeply intertwined – like me with my mom and my own daughters with me, only more so, as you’ve lived so often and so much with yours. She was indeed a wonderful spirit – I remember her so well, but I remember her as a younger woman, since I haven’t seen her in so many years.
I wish I could be there on May 1st. I am sorry to say that I can’t be. However, I hope we’ll see each other in Sept. That’s my intention. If you feel like phoning me, I’m here today and this weekend, I’ll be near the cell phone.
Darling, when I read your email I not only felt shock, but I also felt a strong strong feeling of a bird being freed. Something wonderful is happening as well. And her song now can be free to extend and infuse the whole planet.
Xoxoxoxoxox Linda
Dear Loanda
I am so very sorry to hear of your Mother's passing. She was indeed an extraordinary woman, and a joy to know. I loved her individualism, and I was in absolute awe of her artistic talents.
She was an extremely vibrant and wonderful lady. Her passing is a sad loss to the world.
I know this is a very difficult time for you. Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you.
Love Nora
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Loanda
For the short time I knew your mother, I learned that she was an amazing and inspirational human being. I send you all my love and my thoughts are with you. I would love to come on the 1st May, if you need any help at all in preparation or with anything else, please don't hesitate to contact me.
Helen xx
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Dear Loanda,
I'm so sorry to hear of your mother's death. She was an inspiring lady-so creative and elegant. I'm sorry, too, that her Telesymbol project never came to full fruition. I'm sorry that she is no longer among the living, but her spiritual presence will be felt by many through the years, I'm sure, as she inspires artistic work from the spiritual world.
Meanwhile, I hope you are comforted and supported during this sensitive time. It's such a difficult transition for those of us left behind. It's a holy time, when we are aware of the spiritual world. I wish for you the time and peace to experience all your feelings and intuitions, to really go through the grieving process in a way that adds to your life.
I love you. I miss you a lot. I've been thinking of you this week, wondering how you are doing. I won't make it to England by May 1st, but I do hope we will see each other. Please let me know if you have any plans for visiting the states...or moving back!
Love,
Judith
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Dearest Loanda
Your message came as a great shock ... I remember your mother's strong life-force and enthusiasm and realised I too had not considered her inevitable frailty of years and a long, full life.
I enfold you in loving support and comfort through these days of grieving and letting go of your dear mother, of coming to terms with all that she gave you and all that she brought to life. May you know that you are loved, and never alone, with or without her in her body.
Sadly I cannot be with you on 1 May ... I shall be abroad ... but I will be with you in spirit.
We are so out of touch ... settling here in Edinburgh and hopping up and down to London for my Interfaith course has been my preoccupation for the last year or more and it is good. I've been very ill with 'flu recently ...nearly three weeks in bed! .... which has been a great gift in bringing
clarity of purpose and surrendering to what is. I am deeply committed to this training I'm doing, which ends with ordination (wow!) in August, though I have no idea what my "ministry" might be.
Would love news of you, dear Loanda, if you feel inclined when your life begins to open up once more from this time of mourning.
Meanwhile my warmest love and blessings
Kate
PS: Do you need any help with the funeral/memorial service? There are some wonderful interfaith ministers in/near London.
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Oh, Loanda, I'm so sorry for your great loss. Reading your email about your mother made both Stephen and me feel so small and insignificant in our contributions to humanity. I don't understand the telesymbol project, but is it something you can further, continue, complete, and introduce to the world yourself?
We hold you in our prayers.
xoxo Suzi
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Dear Loanda,
What a great loss to the world and, I know, to you. What an interesting and wonderful relationship you had. I really admired her and thought she was so incredibly fascinating and alive in the world. My heart is wide open to you and I will send my prayers to you to help you go this pain unlike any you've known before.
How I wish I could be in England to help you celebrate but would like it if, when you set the date, you can let me know along with the time, Colorado time, so I can, from afar join this celebration.
I love you,
Patsy
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Dear Loanda-
I have been trying to call you, but am having difficulty getting through-I am so sorry to hear about your mom passing away. I have replied to you e-mail-but that didn't seem to go through either-hopefully you will receive this and know that my heart is so sad. It is always hard-but more so when it is so unexpected. She was such a unique person and the greatest influence on you becoming the wonderful, strong, passionate person that you are. I will keep trying to call. This will take a long time-it is alright to grieve. I wish I could be there for you-I won't be able to come for the 1st-but am planning to come ou the beginning of Oct. I love you, sister. Gwen
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Dear Lo,
I am sorry to hear of your mother's passing. My thoughts are with you and your son. Your mother's spirit is surely freed to be ever more engaged and active in earthly and universal pursuits. I lost my mother last year and know the deep feeling of loss.
Your planned memorial sounds very lovely.
Remembering your mother's vibrance,
Mary
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Dear Loanda, I was so sorry to hear that your Mother had died and I can only imaging how much you must miss her. She did have that special spirit--the kind you just naturally remember--such a unique personality. I remember her smile, especially, and how her eyes twinkled, and, of course, how much she loved you and Sean; and I will forever remember her visit to my home on 15th Street. She made me feel like it was such a wonderful place. She just had a way about her. Now, my friend, as you mourn, please remember what a wonderful daughter you were to her and how much you did to enrich her life. A mother can't ask for a more perfect gift. I will be thinking of you and holding you in my heart. I am hear if and when you need someone to lean on. With love and deepest sympathy, Clara
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Dear Loanda,
I keep looking for a good time to call you but life keeps moving in! Jinendra and I just returned from South Africa. I thought of Tami as I was there and how she spoke of it. It was an amazing trip! I've copied some of Jinendra's writing about it for you.
We both send you our love and caring at this time of separation from your mom. Tami was always so affectionate to me and the family. I am sorry I won't be able to see her if I ever do get to England. I'd been looking forward to seeing her.
I hope your May Day Tami Celebration Day is truly wonderfully beautiful and special.
Big hugs to you and much love,
Katherine and Jinendra
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The South African landscape, what we have seen of it, is very much like
California, rolling hills and valleys with low bushes and trees. There are
enormous orange orchards, owned by the whites. The roads are well tended and
generally neat. The setting sun is almost blood red. We are at an
elevation of 4000 feet and the climate is pleasant, getting cool when it
rains. It rains in torrents and the sound of the rain is strong and
thrilling. When lightning flashes, it's uninterrupted flow of fireworks all
over the sky.
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Dear Loanda,
I fired off the e-mail concerning my try on the telephone before I switched over to my Smartcom e-mail and reading your series of messages. I know it is just horrible for you having this happen and you being there going it alone. I am glad you see the need to postpone the celebration you plan. I felt it way too ambitious for having it soon.
I have Joyce's address and phone number and will get in touch. Also, I will get an e-mail off to Sean with the address you sent.
I don't know that I can make it to the funeral but if it turns out that I could work it out are there affordable hotels or motels or some kind of lodging in your area?
You mentioned not knowing Tammy's bank. This is the last information she gave me: Sort Code: 09.01.26, Account No. 90043562. Bank is called ABBY-in Sutton, Surrey as of 12/04. By the way she didn't get my last check deposited. You should deposit it if possible, if you can't, I will rewrite it to you as it belongs in her estate. Check No. 497.
Loanda please do not take on any guilt in Tammy's death. You haven't done anything wrong or negligent. What is meant to happen happens. You were a good daughter to stay in the UK because you felt she needed you when being away from Sean has been hard to take. Your mother was blessed from that standpoint.
Paranoia kept Tammy away from getting good medical attention for her circulatory system which showed signs of clogging before we moved to Florida. By the spring of 2001 she had consented to a certain amount of testing that resulted in the cardiologist recommending an angiogram to ascertain the extent of the problem in the heart. After we made the appointment she balked and wouldn't go. She said it was a setup to do away with her. I talked her into going back and having a conversation with her regular Doctor, the internal medicine Doctor she had always thought was OK.