Working dog daycare for four months taught me obedience and how to be an effective part of a pack of animals. Juggling and street performing solidly for a month taught me physical intelligence: how to make your body act as an instrument, as a machine, how to get it to do the things you need and want it to do in the simplest, most direct and effective way possible. Both those skills are paying off here, at my latest stage of training in the Fool’s Path. I don’t know if I’m on to the Magician card, or what, but I’ve been doing a lot of scenic painting. Making things look like marble mostly, mastering stagecraft, the art of illusion, how to make impossible things appear as though they’re happening before your very eyes. I’m learning a lot about these things from people who are a lot younger than me - very knowledgeable and patient. Immersion is the only way to learn and I’m lucky, I realize, to be getting paid for it. The way you learn all the important lessons is when you’re not even paying attention: a conversation overheard, two or three bits of sensory stimulus clustered together in a meaningful way and then repeated with variations. We went through dress rehearsal for Gondoliers tonight - my first show that I’ve worked as a stage hand for and I’ve learned so much here in only one week: it seems like it’s been months since I left Baltimore. I don’t know what comes next: you have to commit yourself into the hands of Fate and Faith when you walk down this road. Obedience. Submission to the Will of Allah. Can you write that on the internet anymore without getting arrested? I guess we’ll find out. Next comes Crazy For You, another show I know nothing about. At the Chinese restaurant the other day, somebody read my horoscope. Something about the Full Moon and traveling around the 26th. I’m supposed to be here longer than that, but the wind blows when it blows. Our gondola partway through the show turns into a xebec, with a lantern on the front of it. The lantern from the Hermit card. The men sail off to a mysterious island. I know who becomes king now. It’s sort of a goofy plot device, actually. I’ve been thinking a lot about the connections between alchemy and opera, theatre and the mystery religions. Listen to Springsteen every night before I go to sleep. I brought my guitar but hardly have time to play it. Somehow my finger-picking is improving with no effort and no practice. Lyrical lines form in my head once in a while and swirl about. I’m letting them take their time to come out, to find their own pacing. I’m learning from the context of the actors and the orchestra and the crews and directors. Hearing how things go, keeping my eyes open, learning to watch for the cues and stay always aware. Theatre is a whole different ballgame from the circus. The moon is as dark as ever these days; keep your head down.