By Guy Camilleri
I love this time of year in Venice. The changing of the season, the angle of the sun and the light down Abbott Kinney Blvd., the last of the warm Pacific Ocean (perfect for surfing) and the Santa Ana winds blowing offshore.
Autumn is one of my favorite times of the year. I’m inspired during the months of October-November, I think more so than any other time.
In keeping with being inspired, here are some things to keep the pilot light burning this season.
The power of our breath is often taken for granted. Life is breath and how we breathe affects the quality of our life. The practice of noticing your breath and the thoughts generated in the mind is a never-ending fascination to me. How long can you sustain simply breathing, noticing and thinking the thoughts that your mind is thinking without pulling the ripcord to soon? With practice, you will be able to label that it’s the mind wanting a result to latch onto. And, if you stay with your breath, the noticing along with the sensations of the body, the mind will begin to adapt to this new way of being.
I am a proponent of the process versus the result. Don’t get me wrong, I’m in favor of achieving a result, it’s just that I like it when my mind feels a sense of accomplishment without having had to sacrifice the experience. I’m just more turned on to the journey than the end result. Perhaps that’s the surfer in me, loving the moment-to-moment interaction to what’s in front of me even if I had just set my sights down the line of the wave of what I want to do and/or where I want to finish.
Listen, I mean really listen… not only what your partner is saying, but also to what your bodily sensations are saying to you. The body doesn’t lie, so listen to it.
The more you listen, the more you notice. The more you notice as a result of listening, the more in-tune you become to what your bodily sensations are communicating to you. The more you become in-tune to your bodily sensations, the more aware you become to how you are feeling. The more aware you are about how (and what) you are feeling, the more you can use your mind as a tool to decide if that feeling(s) are in service of the bigger picture (creating ART).
If not, you can always return to step one and repeat the process to hopefully produce the result you were (are) after. Get into the habit of experiencing what you are feeling in the moment.
When in doubt, find something to fall in love with about your scene partner, or anything around you. The capacity to fall in love over and over is limitless. At my studio, RAW acting studio in Venice Beach, I’m known for saying this:
“Where’s the love in the scene? If there is no love, there is no scene. And, more importantly, if there is no love in your life for someone or something, I recommend it might be time to reset your sightline.”
Hopefully, this season and beyond you will be inspired and/or inspire those around you to fall in love again and again with life.
Guy Camilleri is a Venice-based actor, acting coach, and poet. He teaches regular classes on Monday and Wednesday evenings at the Electric Lodge, in Venice. His private coaching specializes in audition preparation, self-taped auditions, and career consultation. To audit a class and/or book a coaching session, email guy@rawactingstudio.com. Follow Guy on Instagram @guycamilleri and Facebook.
