Corrections

[BARNETT WEISS]

Dear Marcia:
I have been so moved by your sharing and so want to share a little of that time myself. Perhaps some others from that time can continue to share here and we can collect the memories together.  This is a long one. Just so you know. 

I remember so vividly those times to and from New York City and Beacon on the Palisades Parkway often squeezed happily next to strangers, strangers for the moment only,  on the two hour or so drive. Then there was that one special occasion when I finally was trusted by Zerka to drive the station Wagon and feeling more nervous than I have ever felt driving before or since.

I remember a lot of singing both in the car and at Beacon and elsewhere. Bonnie Ortman 
( later and still Weiss though we are divorced and remain close friends. We were actually legally
 married on the Psychodrama stage in Beacon by none other than the good reverend psychodramatist himself Don Miller). As I say,  Bonnie, a major person for about 5 years basically living and working there at Beacon, had a great voice and knew and still knows every song ever sung on Broadway and a lot elsewhere. I'm not so bad at singing myself and there were always others with good or at least steady voices who loved to join in with one wonderful or goofy song after another and delightfully so, not always in English.  Zerka often sang quietly to herself when there was a space for
 it always while sewing of course though not while driving. Now that would have been one hellofa multitasking.. LOL.  

One time I had composed a song for Dr. and, with my guitar accompanying me, I sang it to him in the theater in New York on his birthday in 1968. It was such a treat as he chuckled at the verses smiling sitting on his chair in the middle of the stage.

"Born on the sea, a man like a tree takes his stand, finds his ground
rends the air with his sound I am me, I am thee, I am free, I am God. 

On
cold castle walls, a man stands and scrawls on and on through the night
bringing dawn with his light. I am me, I am thee I am free I am God."

 I don't
 remember the rest and can't find the words anywhere at this time. 

 
The times when Zerka felt the need for some work for herself and trusted us to direct her. Actually an easy and deeply moving task since she was such a superb clear sure and available protagonist unafraid to move into areas of her inner being through years of experience and survival. 


Meeting and sharing lives so intimately there at Beacon primed by the rides up and back were totally magical times. Each new weekend was an adventure with my knowing so few of the people initially so each weekend was a total surprise for me even when some I knew came up again. 

A time when a woman Batsheva came to Beacon and after speaking with some of us felt comfortable enough to share her experience of the concentration camps to learn better how to communicate the experience and the mission given to her through a Polish poetess who was in the camps with her. The poetess
 had given Batsheva this amazing grace of a poem to memorize and bring out of the camps should she survive as the poetess was clear that she could not make it herself. 

So many powerful life histories played out there with people coming from all over the world ready to jump in to the healing circle of that stage as that was clear to them to be a part of their training. Talk about being super warmed up. Nearly everyone was ready, though clearly some were more ready than others. 

Just the stage alone transforms you as you enter. I remember as a youngster of 28 having already been primed by my first life transforming experience with Dr. Moreno and Zerka in Colorado at Carl Hollander's retreat in the mountains with thirty of the most amazing people I had ever met and being accepted by them fully, me, a nobody amongst all these highly trained and experienced therapists etc and there, we were all human beings sharing these moments between the
 eternities with each other ready to move and grove with the moment. What a coming out party it was for me as I was the first protagonist chosen by that group. WOW. I still find it hard to integrate that moment fully.  Now at once, with such great anticipation about first entering the space at Beacon looking at the balcony, I was unable to resist running to it leaping up pulling myself up to the heavens and looking back down from that perch of God's thinking how wonderful and liberating it was to be there. And then the sinking feeling for a moment realizing the power of that place to shred pretence and get to the heart of the truth in my life. And I couldn't think of a safer place for that journey. Then Leaping down off the balcony with a yelp of gladness that I had found my way to this precious healing space in which all my creativity could blossom for my own and others benefit. What an absolutely astonishing experience that was.  

I
 remember revolutionaries coming to the academy under the sponsorship and in the company of a wealthy liberal from Boston. It became clear to me with my experience with gangs in Chicago that they had their hidden agendas which were so easily exposed on the stage under Zerka's gentle unmasking leadership which eventually caused some rethinking on all parts. 

The amazing groups of young psychiatrists who came to Beacon together trained so rigorously by their mentor.  Their minds were so keen seeing things and themes I had never considered before. So completely open to deep reasoned and creative discussions and again sharing such intimacies of their lives from so far away. 

Powewrhouse creative directors in training with such great command of their sense of trust in themselves and in the process showed us the way to be more courageous in plowing the fields of spontaneity.  We also learned how not to enable people in the
 process. Such a trap in every form of therapy. People we learned and experienced were far stronger than they were imagined to be by the orthodoxy who in many ways were simply afraid of their own wounds being exposed never having really experienced and owned the power and grace of their healing lessons. The fear of physicallity was also erased in those sessions to the initial horror of some and finally releasing those very ones to be back in their bodies and out of their minds. O what a wonderful play on words each time I heard it. 

The Saturday night open sessions there such a pleasure especially when you had no responsibility and could simply be there in full force as an auxilliary as needed. Watching the faces of the public coming in guessing who was new and who were old timers if you were not sure. And at the end of the evening such a sense of joy of the possible had arrived shephered in through the process most often so deftly handled by the
 one armed blessed bandit of the soul's hidding place to bid us all on our way to dream of what might be having witnessed it there that evening.
 

That time during the early summer or late spring of 1968 when in the Moreno's home we enacted the
 situation developing in Czechoslovakia. I played a Russian General. In doing so, I became quite clear that I was going to insist on invading the Upstarts to stop the bleeding so to speak.  In fact that is just what happened. We had to move the congresses of Psyhodrama Sociodrama and Sociometry to Baden by Vienna at the last minute when we were all so looking forward to being in Prague.  

Then during the meetings in Baden, and even in Vienna at the International congress of Group Psychotherapy, some of the Czecks were getting across the border and telling us what was happening. Dr.  Ferdinand Knobloch who had been one of the people arranging for the meetings to be in Prague at the University did participate at least in Vienna I think if not in Baden. I just remember finding him in a room by himself playing a Janacek sonata seeming to be crying at the piano through these beautiful passages. What a time that was.

When we came
 back from Europe and Zerka and Doctor offered me the opportunity to take their place on Friday nights in New York City as the travel back and forth was beginning to be a bit too much for Doctor, I was both excited and in awe of what was to come. Imagine stepping into their shoes that first Friday evening when they were expected and announcing that I was to be their replacement for the forseable future. Not too shabby I'll tell you. 

With Bonnie, in my estimation still one of the most effective and knowlegable persons in the field,  there as support, we made it through and welcomed the incredible opportunity of service and learning that was my privilege for the coming year or so. Along with that evening there were two other nights that I also took. Walter retired after a while and was such a supportive friend through that transistion so I took his spot and Monday I don't remember nor who was on Tuesday, perhaps there was a dark night on one
 of those days and subsequently, I took over one of them so that I was eventually running sessions 3 nights a week for a time.  There was me those three days, Jim Sacks was Saturday, Hanna was on Thursday as I recall, Bob Siroka and Ellen and their group were on Wednesday nights. Often, I would attend the sessions of the others to continue learning from these masters and I loved being available as an auxilliary ego when I could turn all my acting abilities into therapeutic aids to the process. It was so freeing altogether.    

If you can imagine what some evenings were like there. New York City and for 3 or 4 Dollars, anyone could walk in off the streets and be involved in the most alarmingly intimate real life dramas. sometimes only less than ten people there and at other times over a hundred and as Marcia said on some nights 200 squeezed into that theater which I don't remember being certified for that many.  Often patients
 with serious problems sent there by their therapists who were stuck and felt that some progress could be made in those evenings and trusted us to be able to handle what came through. Vietnam was still very present and on one occasion having a veteran go into flashbacks thinking he was back in Vietnam with murderous thoughts toward his supperiors and having been trained to accomplish destruction in every manner on the enemy now turning toward those of us available in that space to reak his revenge.  Alcoholics who had to be dealt with at the door if reconized and if not, to be dealt with in the sessions when they became aroused. Truly anything and everything could and mostly did occur. We survived so far as I know....I don't remember anyone being hospitalized either during or after any session and we could of course be reached easily through the theater by anyone who left needing further direction or attention over the coming weeks. 

At one
 point, Doctor Moreno and I spoke about having a radio program using psychodrama as a call in show.. It never happened then, however several years ago here in New York City on WBAI on Armand Dimele's show, I did do a few shows with him in that format. It was great.  Armand still does some of that at times today. I recommend it to anyone and may do some in the future if the opportunity arises. 

So many wonderful memories.
 difficult times, joyful times, times that indeed grew our souls. 
I am truly thankful for them beyond measure. While there are so many who I had the good fortune to work with who are still teaching and sharing in so many ways,  many of my friends from that time as well as those great creative directors and developers of the work I had the opportunity to work with are gone now. I remember in particular the wonderful times and learnings I had on and off the stage with Hanna Weiner, Jim Enneis, Carl Hollander, Martin Haskell, Walter Klavun, and my dearest colleague and mentor Joe Hart. I miss them dearly. We became so very close in such a short span of months and the brief years shared after that on brief occasions. I have truly been blessed to have participated as I have in this world created by J.L. and Zerka and those who have supported the work through all the years from the beginning. Thank you all. 

Bud

"The perfect man breathes
 as if he is not breathing" Lao-Tzu (circa 4th century BC) Barnett J. Weiss, MA, LCSW   1-866-929-9170 E-mail 

ButeykoNYC at gmail.com  web site being rebuilt at www.ButeykoNYC.com

--- On Fri, 12/5/08, mkarp11444 at aol.com <mkarp11444 at aol.com> wrote:
From: mkarp11444 at aol.com <mkarp11444 at aol.com>
Subject: Corrections
To: "Grouptalk" <list at grouptalkweb.org>, "Zerka Moreno" <tmceline at comcast.net>
Date: Friday, December 5, 2008, 11:04 PM

My dear Grouptalkers, I have been corrected by our primary  mentor and beloved
friend, Zerka, who has a better memory than I for detail.  Gertrude Franchot
Tone, for whom the Beacon Theater was dedicated was never a patient at the
Academy but was a guest. Virginia Satir was not a student of Moreno. She
attended congresses with him and watched him direct. She denied any other
connection. The Ackermans of NYC also directed the public sessions.

 Zerka
remembers
 that she and J.L did Monday and Friday nights and after I left, Moreno
turned the Institute over to her. Sunday nights were free. When I came on board,
that wasn't the case. Sunday nights, Walter Klavun directed and the Morenos
came into NYC once a week on Fridays. The rest of the week they were training us
at the Beacon Academy. Zerka also remembers"singing our heads off on the
way home. And you, Marcia, kept us in stitches singing 'One Hundred Easy
Ways to Lose a Man."   Monica Zuretti has emailed me from Buenos Aires,
after reading Grouptalk, to say,"You made me remember and connect with the
long car trips with the Hudson River by our side. Going up in silence and
concentration  and coming back singing and laughing. Every time I talk about
those times with young people, I feel the emotion and priviledge we had sharing
such precious moments with two such special beings. Love to you

 all,
Monica." Fond memories. We
 were lucky. Marcia
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