MNDFL’s Meditation for Creativity with Emily Fletcher

Last Monday night, J and I went to the MNDFL Meditation in the EV for a meditation on creativity with Broadway veteran and founder of Ziva Meditation, Emily Fletcher (Chicago, A Chorus Line, The Producers, etc). I was intrigued because she was a former Broadway actress and who couldn’t benefit from being more creative? The cast of Small Mouth Sounds had been on the schedule as well (Fletcher is the meditation advisor for the show) but they were unable to make it. Eva Price, one of the producers of the play, attended, though, and talked about the experience of producing the play and trying to develop her own practice. 

We sat down and she first talked about her debilitating anxiety from being a swing in A Chorus Line (she wound up in the fetal position after she went on as Val for the first time) and asked her dressing roommate, who covered 6 roles (compared to her 4), how she stayed so cool and collected. Her dressing roommate introduced her to Vedic meditation (the training I completed in early August, though with a different teacher)  and her life was changed. She eventually spent 3 years training to be a teacher and opened her own studio (Ziva). 

She led us through her “Ziva Meditation,” which was like a body scan + light Vedic meditation + loving kindness meditation. She’s a really good teacher because she’s not too new agey. She knows her audience and qualified a lot of things that she said that she knew some people would be all skeptical about (ex. “as cheesy as it sounds, now visualize yourself sending love to everyone in this room”). 

I thanked her after and introduced myself, as did J, and she was super nice. Later on, I realized my Vedic teacher teaches at her studio sometimes so I might go check out one of his classes there, or one of hers.

As always, it was a really good time. I’m sure we’ll be back soon for another class, and sooner or later J will probably pick up his own practice. If you want to download Emily Fletcher’s free meditation, shoot over to Ziva Meditation and enter your email address and you’ll be able to download it for free!

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Last Wednesday night I was invited to see Small Mouth Sounds by playwright Bess Wohl at the Pershing Square Signature Center on 42nd Street. I’d been unable to attend the first “buzzmaker” event so I was super stoked to have another opportunity to see it. I mean, after all, could it be more perfect for me? A play about a silent meditation retreat? I think not. I brought J with me because he’s been getting a little more into meditation recently and enjoys seeing a play every now and then. 

The participants of the retreat are your basic stereotypes – obnoxious dedicated yogi, trainwreck white female, the couple who’s having issues, the grieving father, etc. We only hear the guru over the PA system (until the very end) and he’s not a very good guru because he sounds like he’s basically reading from a script. 

In yoga and meditation classes i’ve taken, we’re always told to be very mindful of what we discover in the silence between our breaths, the poses, etc, so a lot of what was being discovered onstage was ringing true to me. It’s always when we’re quietest that we learn the most (this is basically true in any situation in life). 

There are breakthroughs and deceptions, sexual encounters and realizations, and moments of comedy, too. Towards the end of the play, the guru begs his students to “PLEASE CHANGE” out of frustration at their lack of spiritual progress. Ironically, this leads to the most change that any of the characters experience throughout the entire week. 

The characters leave a little bit more woken up than when they arrived, but still basically the same. And so does the audience. I’d highly recommend Small Mouth Sounds, which is playing through October 8th.

For more information, check out this write up in Vanity Fair.