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Dorothy Fadiman is one of the pioneers in Transpersonal Filmmaking and her film “RADIANCE: The Experience of Light” is considered a classic in the field. RADIANCE is both a cinematic expression of Fadiman’s own personal transcendent experience of Divine Light and a visual/poetic exploration of the spiritual significance of light and “radiance.” Here, in Fadiman’s own words, is the story of how this great work was born:

My husband and I create a simple ritual, we take turns drinking from a goblet, gaze lovingly into each other’s eyes, and each take some excellent acid. It’s the 60’s… We know our dealer, and we trust that we have taken good quality (legal at that time…) LSD. As our inner worlds expand, and deepen, I lay down, l close my eyes and start to breathe deeply, as my heart opens and… I hear a voice…inside my head, speaking to me:  “May I fill you with Light?’

I have no idea who or what is speaking to me and in this moment, it doesn’t matter.

Whatever it is, I trust it. When you are in this state, where everything is connected to everything…whatever is happening seems right… and I say YES.

With the word “yes” my entire body begins filling with LIGHT, A BRILLIANT CASCADE …of light. A waterfall of radiance flows through me, every cell of my body is filled with this light. As the brilliance becomes almost unbearably intense…then, Jim reaches out and touches me… Suddenly, it STOPS… His touch pulls me back into the room…. I remember saying “What are you doing?????” It’s a moment I refer to now, affectionately, as “Illuminatus Interruptus,” but, in THAT moment, THEN, I am shocked.

Looking back, I know now that I was not ready to receive any more of light than when it stopped after Jim touched me…I realize now that the intention of this cascade was not only to infuse me with light… which it did, but also for me to be able to bring this light back, into my own world….like I am doing now, to tell people about it.

I spend the next ten years raising two daughters while trying to write a book about light. The dirty laundry piles up for days at a time, the dented grey file cabinets fill with my research about light, when the girls are in school, I sneak away to the basement of the art library at Stanford and spend hours under glaring fluorescent lights searching for images of radiant saints and glowing angels as I struggle to write my book.

Finally, after ten years of trying to complete my mission to tell this story with pictures and words on paper, there is a knock on our door. Literally, standing there, is a filmmaker. He says, “I heard what you’ve been trying to do, to write a book about light. Did you ever think of making a movie???”

With his help, I make my first film RADIANCE: The Experience of Light. Since then I have produced more than 25 films…each, in its own way, infused with the “light”. The guidance which appeared to me during the experience of light more than 40 years ago, is with me today, every day.

RADIANCE: The Experience of Light can be viewed online at: http://dorothyfadiman.com/radiance-the-experience-of-light or downloaded at: http://www.archive.org/details/Radiance_The_Experience_Of_Light

ABOUT the FILMMAKER

Dorothy Fadiman has been producing award-winning media with a focus on social justice and human rights since 1976. Most of her films have been shown on PBS and in Festivals throughout the world. For more about Dorothy and her work, visit her websites at: www.concentric.org and www.dorothyfadiman.com

A new form of opera emerged recently. For this year’s production of the Barber of Seville, the Florida Grand Opera company blazed new territory by using an animated digital screen backdrop for their production, adding depth, movement, and cinematic immersion to classic opera. This animated digital backdrop added evolving background environments replete with changes in location, light, and weather. It also added shadow characters that interacted with the live actors on stage, from groups of musicians and soldiers to a lone alley cat. Beyond these dimensions, the animated background also appeared to add greater symbolic and thematic depth to the relatively simple story of the Barber of Seville. Then, in the final moments of the opera, something even more wondrous occurred. The actors climbed up the steps of the central set piece and in the digital background, giant animated wings unfolded and began to flap. The juxtaposition between the animated backdrop and the live action actors and set pieces created the effect of flying to the heavens. The audience let out a collective gasp and for a few brief moments the stage was transcended and the audience, actors, and set pieces soared.

This convergence of opera with digital cinematic elements created a new multi-dimensional form of entertainment that could be called “trans-opera.” The birth of this new opera-cinematic hybrid is the work of French Director Renaud Doucet and Canadian Production Designer Andre Barbe, with the technical help of Miami’s Lava Studios. The impetus for the birth of this new approach came out of current financial constraints, and from these limits an artistic phoenix has risen. I feel honored to have personally witnessed this event.

While this year’s Oscar Ceremony was as long as always and had many misfires in terms of style and substance, I was touched by several great and small moments and flourishes throughout the ceremony, including:

• Kathryn Bigelow becoming the first woman to receive the Best Director Academy Award;
• Geoffrey Fletcher becoming the first African-American writer to receive an Academy Award;
• Mo’Nique becoming the fifth African-American actress to win an Academy Award;
• Sandra Bullock transcending previous constructs to win the Best Actress Academy Award;
• The heart-felt and heart-warming honoring of each of the actors and actresses competing for the top Awards by their peers;
• The Hurt Locker, a small independent film with masterful execution in all creative and technical areas, winning the Best Picture Academy Award;
• And a gentle and gracious atmosphere that seemed to pervade the whole event.