I came to Seattle from Bloomington, Indiana in 1986, and have done office work in just about every field imaginable while continuing to write, edit, explore religion and philosophy and soak up movies. I have handled snakes at a children's museum, recruited faculty for Omega Institute of Holistic Studies, trained in performance art with Rachel Rosenthal and TechnoMass ritual with Matthew Fox, taught acting to pre-teens and clapped the slate as Second Assistant Camera on a low-budget film shoot.

It wasn't until I discovered screenwriting and filmmaking at age 30 that I saw a path that could fulfill all of my passions and skills in writing, graphics, organizing, design, theater, performance, music, storytelling, spiritual questing and visionary imagination. My first screenplay was a semi-finalist in the prestigious Nicholl Fellowship competition, and I currently serve on the Board of Women in Film/Seattle.

I have taken on the role of Project Leader for the Interactive Installation Event and Educational CD-ROM.

Every time I write about KMP2001 I uncover another reason for going to Kumbha Mela. The size of it, the challenge to my cultural habits, the thirst for international travel, the chance to have a once-in-a-lifetime experience and then figure out how to share it with everyone in the world who couldn't go.

But I keep coming back to the confluence of rivers being a sacred kind of geography. This event is explicitly about the convergence of two earthly rivers and a spiritual river. I feel that the river of Human history is also present-biological, political and psychological. And for the first time, Media is a powerful enough force around the globe to be its own river-the river that carries Human imagination towards something unnameable.

Joy Laughter - Team Member / KMP2001
April 5th, 2000
Seattle Washington USA