BRATTLEBORO — This is the season for giving thanks and, since 2007, Luz Elena Morey has organized an annual presentation of music, dance, visual art, poetry, and drama called Gathering in Gratitude.
On Saturday, Nov. 17, at 4:45 p.m. at the Latchis 4 in Brattleboro, Mahalo Art Center will present the world premiere of the short film, Gathering in Gratitude 2012: The Source, created by filmmaker Chip Duggan with Morey. In addition to the showing of the film, there will be an ensemble for a simple ceremony of gratitude. Proceeds generated by the event will benefit Project Feed the Thousands.
Morey said Gathering in Gratitude is a journey for community healing inspired by an ancient Native American practice of giving thanks for all of nature.
The event was inspired by the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address. With the encouragement of the late Mohawk chief Jake Swamp, Tekaronianeken, who had been her mentor, Morey said the ceremony “unites the hearts and minds in the spirit of gratitude for our natural world. Gathering in Gratitude is created each time anew by a multigenerational ensemble who explore themes that work toward co-creating a gift that helps heal and transform reality.”
Morey is a Colombian-born transpersonal therapist, sound healer, teacher, trainer, workshop leader, and performing artist. She has facilitated expressive arts programs for more than 25 years.
Registered with the North American Drama Therapy Association (NADTA), Morey practices Drama Therapy, a therapeutic method which employs theater techniques to facilitate personal growth and promote mental health and is used in a wide variety of settings, including hospitals, schools, mental health centers, prisons, and businesses.
She is also co-founder of the Vermont Wilderness School. She founded and is the director of the Mahalo Art Center.
Morey said Mahalo Art Center is a space “to promote wholeness and wellness,” because here people can work to “build awareness, confidence, creativity, and healthy community through multicultural, ancient and modern, nature-based expressive and centering arts.”
The name “Mahalo” comes from the Hawaiian word that means both “thank you” and “may you be in the presence of divine breath.” Morey said she is a little self-conscious that, as a Vermonter who is not Hawaiian, she should have the temerity to appropriate the word, yet she feels that it is “right” for the mission of her center.
Giving thanks
Morey has been developing Gathering in Gratitude for more than 15 years. At the heart of the ceremony is the reading of a thanksgiving address, “Greetings to the Natural World: Words Before All Else,” which comes from the Iroquois or Six Nations, of upstate New York and Canada.
As is explained in the printed booklet of the address, Greetings to the Natural World is “based on the belief that the world cannot be taken for granted, that a spiritual communication of thankfulness and acknowledgement of all living things must be given to align the minds and heard of people with Nature.” Alongside the reading of this prayer, Gathering in Gratitude uses music, dance, visual art, poetry, and drama to honor the natural world.
Morey said she felt compelled to get the ceremony on film so that she can, as she puts it, “fling it out on the world.”
“As I find myself hitting 50 years old now, ” she explained, “my body is not working quite as well as it did. The stage I am in now, I do not have the energy I once could summon up to continue the ceremonies. I have to let it go, and through the film let others carry on the tradition.”
She said she is excited to work with filmmaker Duggan, who flew from California with two cameras and, over eight days, filmed the ceremony. She discovered the work of Duggan from Awakenings, a documentary he made about her neighbor Chris Pratt and his struggles with traumatic brain injury.
“That documentary really impressed me,” she said. “It was so well-done and tuned in.”
She had a dream that one day Duggan would be able to do a film of this event, even as she struggled to get food on the table and pay the rent. Financing the project seemed impossible.
“Yet now it is happening,” she exclaimed. “I find myself joyfully working on editing our film with this wonderful man.”
Tickets are on sale at the door: There is a $22 cap for families. Otherwise, tickets are $12 for adults, and $10 for children 12 and under. For more information, call 802-451-9495.