Small Audiences, Big Ghosts
On paying more attention to the quality of your heavenly audience than the size of your earthly one
By Hillary Keeney
Brad dreamed we had been invited to give a presentation at a large conference. Our talk was scheduled toward the end of the day’s program. We sat for hours in the auditorium enjoying one presentation after another—each one more interesting and accomplished than the last. Yet to our bewilderment, the better the performances became, the more the audience left the room. When it came time for the talk that preceded ours, there were only a handful of people remaining in what had been a packed theatre of over one thousand attendees.
Finally, it was our turn to present. We walked on stage and to our surprise, we saw that the room was now completely empty. It was like looking out into a vast, dark void. Before we could wonder whether to cancel our talk and go home, a voice like that of a theatre director came over the loudspeaker: “Close your eyes. Feel the truth of your experiences and those of the people who have most deeply inspired you. Then look again.”
Almost immediately we heard an explosive popping sound, and then felt an extraordinary blast of life force rush into the room. This in turn ignited a surge of fiery joy within us. With our eyes still closed, an inner illumination enabled us to see into the darkness. What initially appeared as an empty auditorium was now filled with people. But this was no ordinary audience. The seats were occupied with the many healers, teachers, holy people, and ancestors who have touched our lives but now reside on the other side. We proceeded to give our presentation, realizing that this was the only audience that truly mattered. Theirs were the only hearts and minds we cared to honor, move, and inspire.
The next morning after the dream, Brad and I reflected on all the people who have made a significant impact on our lives, realizing that most of them had very small audiences. Decades ago when Brad was in the Kalahari with the Bushmen he remarked to Twa, one of the women healers,
“Your healing dance is one of the most extraordinary and powerful spiritual traditions on earth, but despite all the supposed spiritual seekers in the world, hardly anyone knows about it or cares to find out.”
She replied,
“Our dance keeps the world alive. If we stop dancing, the world stops. It doesn’t matter if they know.”
The Bushmen sing and dance for the Sky God, for their ancestors who are now stars in the sky, and to strengthen the ropes of relationship that encircle the world and keep it turning for the rest of us, even when everyone’s attention is turned elsewhere.
I’m certain Twa and the other Bushman healers were in the audience in Brad’s dream, and so was Sister Gertrude Morgan (1900-1980), the street evangelist from New Orleans and now highly collected folk artist. (I wrote a book about her life). She was regarded by many as too odd, quirky, out of sync with the times, or jazzing and playing around too much with the serious religious expression they preferred. Outsiders to her inner tabernacle often did not have the right senses to discern that her prayer room was taller than the Chrysler building, her path wider than Broadway, and her sacred emotion deeper than the Atlantic.
Her audience were the 48 angels of New Jerusalem, the Biblical prophets, “Big Dada God,” and especially her “darling husband, Dada Jesus,” who also piloted her ministry’s airplane. Had Sister Gertrude paid more attention to pleasing a crowd than impressing her most cherished mentors on high, the art and music she left behind would be missing the hallowed spark that marks it as belonging to a greater mystery.
After the dream, Brad told me a story. Decades ago when he was a young university professor, he attended a conference in Stillwater, Minnesota. It consisted of many presentations by well-known indigenous North American authors, activists, and leaders. Brad went to the conference primarily to see one presenter: a Cheyenne elder and medicine man from Montana named William Tall Bull. He was regarded as one of the last traditional wisdom holders of our time, someone holy who embodied and lived the old ways.
Brad was discouraged by the rudeness of other presenters who went way over their allotted time. As a result, most people had already left the formerly packed auditorium by the time it was Tall Bull’s turn to speak. Brad reports:
I sat in the first row, directly in front of him. I had waited over twelve hours to see Tall Bull, the only one in the lineup who I thought was worth the trouble to hear. He finally stood up to an almost empty auditorium and started with a prayer, “Oh, Great Spirit, thank you for clearing the room so our open hearts are ready to hear. Rid us of all interference that stems from blurry eyes, clogged ears, and numbed bodies unable to feel or be moved by what is most dear to you. I send my prayer on the wings of an eagle to circle the clouds overhead. Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain.” That’s not exactly what Tall Bull said because I can’t remember the words spoken that long ago. But this prayer carries the same sacred emotion conveyed by the old man’s words and the stories he proceeded to tell. That is something I can never forget.
Later, Tall Bull told Brad: “Whoever was left in the room is who the Creator wanted to be there.” Tall Bull may have only spoken to a handful of people that day, but he addressed an audience of spirits so vast the auditorium couldn’t contain it. Brad didn’t wait all day to hear Tall Bull squeeze his wisdom into a small box palatable to the mundane modern mind. He went to feel Tall Bull stand taller than the pines so his message could soar high over the audience’s heads, over the rivers and mountains, and into the great cosmos beyond.
Spiritually speaking, it doesn’t actually matter how big or small one’s human audience is. We have given presentations to hundreds of people and groups of ten. What matters to us is whether our offering would delight the beacons of wisdom whose discernment we cherish. The teaching of Brad’s dream was this: Don’t count the number of dead bodies in the room with sleeping minds; count the number of living spirits. Remember who your audience mystically is, the room you need to mystically stand in, and how to awaken the mystical senses needed to feel both.
We are all haunted by ghosts, including the imaginary ambassadors of popular convention who value pleasy placation and simplistic reduction. Let’s choose our ghosts wisely. Ask yourself whose voice you want to hear whispering in your ear. If you found yourself looking out into an empty auditorium, whose faces would you want to see? Whose applause truly matters?
Fill the room with the ghosts who inspire you the most. Remember that a good ghost will always keep it real and tell you the truth. Maybe you have just one ghost like that—your grandmother, a former teacher, or a famous musician whom you never met. I never knew Sister Gertrude, but I hear her lively voice all the time telling me to “Wake up!” She looks over my shoulder when I draw and says “This part needs more orange. That part more blue!” Lately Brad and I and the Guild have been haunted by the ghost of neurobiologist and genius Jerry Lettvin, his former professor at M.I.T. But that’s a story for another time.
The relational ropes holding the world together are still alive and reach far and wide across to the other side, thanks in part to the Bushmen and their ancestors who are still dancing together on earth and in their dreams. We only need to wake up our hearts to plug into that wisdom web. The next time you’re facing an empty room, empty canvas, blank page, blank stare, or lifeless situation, here is our advice that came from the dreamtime: Close your eyes. Feel the presence of those who have touched, inspired, stretched, and impacted your life and work the most. Then look again.
-Hillary Keeney
P.S. If you missed last month’s live audio recording where Brad and I talk about the “saints” of Sacred Ecstatics who haunt our Guild, it’s waiting for you here.
Yes!! 🙌🏼