Move and Be Moved

Acrobatic Ballet

Some amazing balance and strength!

I was returning to my home in Taos from teaching at the Omega Institute yesterday, and spoke at the airport with a man who was a private contractor for the National Defense. We spoke about the current state of affairs in the United States and the ineffectiveness of our defense strategies. At one point, he poses the question, "Really, who is going to sign a surrender agreement?"

Yes, I wonder, about our own dances, "Who will sign the surrender agreement?" What will it take for us to surrender to not only what is true and real, to our possibilities, potentials, but beyond into the deepest place of infinite grace?

This is an act of true courageousness, to surrender so deeply to the dance, to the infinite wisdom within. If we cannot sign surrender agreements in our own beings, how can we hope that our relationships, families, communities, countries, the world sign surrender agreements?

Exhilarated, then exhausted, now renewed & refreshed - the celebratory wave from this year's fifth annual Gathering in Olympia has left me high & happy & drenched at the tideline, a bleached piece of driftwood lying lazy in the July sun, draped in kelp, a hermit crab shell empty at my side and a leonine heart beating strong and sure inside me. As the 85 or so participants can attest, it was again a delicious journey into communal space, worthy of 10,000 words or more, but I’ll keep it brief and merely extend thanks to the teachers: Paganos2 (ever fabulous right through Amara's deeply moving closing ritual), Melissa Michaels (fluid play, circle vocalizations), Sylvie Minot (relaxed bellies & dropped down knees) & Joanne Winstanley (rockin' the Zep after being rocked hard on life's roundabout). And, once more, showers of love on organizers Liz, Ronny & a delightful crew of Marie, Sara Jean, Kathy, Devi, Joe & more.

In short, it was a reliably transformative weekend. And on that theme, I’m sharing four youtube links I've been steered to in past few days. Three feature Move&Be Moved contributors of long standing filmed not long back by Mark Shimada, who was asking professionals how art impacts on their working lives. The fourth is one of a remarkable series of clips featuring Philippine prisoners demonstrating how dance & Van Halen tunes can bring meaning, joy & purpose (i'm guessing) to the hardest of lives. All of it is more proof that we, the 99th monkeys of movement, have a calling that can woo the world's woes and heal a few of its & our own wounds.

Trudes Tango

Visudha de los Santos

Kari Uhlman

Jump in the Philipines

Summer begins
light in the eyes,
returning to these
cloudy skies

miss you v.
love,d.

Victoria's 5R community hosted Funkraiser last night to raise funds for two worthy causes: Lucie Nerot's Dancing Across Borders and The Power of Hope, a local organization with which 5R teacher Soasis Sukuweh has worked. Joanne Winstanley dreamed the event up and helmed the coordinating team, which included such 5R regulars as Nicole Lavoie, Val Hawkins, Todd Harmon, Carolyn Bateman and Joy Weick. Jazz and samba bands performed, Joanne spun tunes, and the community turned out to support the cause on a warm June evening.

The attached picture says it all ... and so do the comments of Power of Hope executive director Gita John-Iyam: "What an amazing amount of Love and energy and fun went around last night. I believe that the energy you generated will reach our youth and show them the meaning of compassionate community. I am so grateful to Joanne and all of you for having been invited to be a part of this generous and creative circle. - In peace! gita"

I am offering a stone carving workshop July this summer. We will meet in my studio for four Saturdays, 10:00 am - 3:00 pm and engage in the transformational process of turning stone into soul. The fee is $350.00 plus the cost of the stone. Everything but lunch is provided. If you are interested in participating or learning more, please contact me at revdocsil@gmail.com.

I meet so many fascinating people in this work - therapists, healers, environmentalists, teachers, award-winning filmmakers, artists, yoga instructors, photographers, pagans, priests, CPAs, writers, lawyers, mums, dads, sons, daughters, musicians, sculptors, creatives of all kinds ... Here's another who many of you know already but some perhaps don't: Bernie Meyer. I've always been curious about this gentle man who brings such dignity, presence and intention to Sunday mornings in Olympia - an elder (he's 70) who models possibilities for those of us setting our own intentions to dance evermore in this life. Last time through I introduced myself and started firing off questions, which he accepted with good grace and a smile. His card reads "peacemaker" and he is leading a truly remarkable life as an activist in the tradition of Mahatma Ghandi. His autobiography is to be published this year, I believe, and you can follow his pilgrim's progess online at http://theamericangandhi.blogspot.com.

Julie mentioned Spirtweaves a few posts back, so I thought I’d weigh in here on the morning after the weekend before. For the third time, possibly fourth, Bettina Rothe brought Michael & Anneli Molin-Skelton to Vancouver. Three dozen of us gathered in a church hall on the city’s west side, sun-splashed and spring-scented, showers of cherry blossoms carpeting the sidewalks. The workshop was called Rites of Belonging, and Bettina has ensured that for one weekend a year these two gifted teachers belong to us on Canada’s west coast. Fortunate us. Blessed us. They build, hold and sustain ritual space quite magically – equal partners, co-creators, two voices & embodiments weaving the mystery with sing-song poetic interplay, working the deck, then sufi-swirling amongst us, trailing webs of energy & inspiration & beauty in their wake.

The experience of many of us was that they were unstintingly generous with their attention – one or the other materializing at our sides at exactly the right moment to nudge us into a deeper relationship with the field of study – namely the continuum that stretches from the excluded, wounded, adrift outsider to the tribal being welcomed in the supportive arms of community. Many of us found ourselves slip-sliding ‘tween the two extremes – the gap separating "yum" and "yuck," as Michael put it with a laugh ... between being stuck in isolation and wrestling with our own stories & projections, then shifting through fears & tears & sorrow & age-old armouring into the collective heart that beat so loud and clear in that room. Poems were read. Prayers recited. Rituals enacted. Ancestors invoked. And at the foot of a soaring altar built by dancer Emiella Kaufman, we were finally held in the embrace of our birthright home – gravity, the still point, our own clear centre … pinned to the earth by a large, moss-covered stone that our teachers placed on each of us in turn as we completed the journey home. So yes, I unreservedly join voices with Julie: Anneli & Michael rock.

An article forwarded by 5R Vancouver regular Rebekkah Harvey. Dance for us in this community is more than a 'hipster diversion,' of course, but I guess this is further evidence that some kind of shift into deeper embodiment is underway ...

The new rave: Dancing to the beat of their own drummer
Vancouver Sun, Saturday, April 26, 2008

In what looked like an improbable dance scene from a zombie movie, nearly 1,000 people gathered recently in New York to gyrate en masse as part of the latest hipster diversion: the silent rave.

The peculiar social trend, now making its way across Canada, involves the flash congregation of large groups of people in a public place to dance to the beat of their own MP3 players. The startling result is a sea of bodies moving in sundry rhythms to a soundtrack of silence.

"We all want to be part of something ... but at the same time, we also like to differentiate ourselves," says Jonah Berger, a University of Pennsylvania Wharton School professor who has studied identity signals within social groups. "This movement appeals to both those motivations: you're in a place with other people, yet only listening to what you want to hear."

Berger describes the events as a kind of "flash mob 2.0." The briefly hip cultural phenomenon earlier this decade involved organizing meetings for hundreds, even thousands, of people in a public place at a specific time -- say, 6:53 or 3:19 -- who would then perform unusual activities such as a mass chicken dance.

Although silent raves (also called silent discos or mobile clubbing) have had scenesters under their spell for years in the United Kingdom -- an event at London's Victoria Station last April drew about 4,000 dancers -- it wasn't until recently that the trend began making a splash this side of the pond.

Silent raves are currently in the works in at least two-dozen North American cities, including Edmonton, Kelowna, Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary. Nearly 1,200 people have confirmed plans to attend the Calgary event, which is planned for May 10 at a secret location to be revealed to the guest list via Facebook 24 hours in advance. Another 1,900 people say they might attend.

In the past six months I've been inspired by many forms of movement practice, widening the circle of movement experiences I have. One that has sparked my curiousity is spiritweaves, a movement practice developed out of both the 5Rhythms & SoulMotion. Anneli & michael molin-skelton are based in Los Angeles and teach around the country. For more information you can go to their website at www.spiritweaves.com

This is what they say about spiritweaves:

spiritweaves ™ is a movement inspiration
extended to all with an impulse
to pray in motion
to dance devotion.
it is a movement invitation
extended to all with a desire to listen
to their own voice
to dance the truth; your choice.
spiritweaves ™ is a dance of improvisation
guided through the lens of your attention
and married to the fire of your intention.
when woven together we are free
to do the dances of
twisting not resisting
rolling rather than controlling
unwinding and unbinding
unraveling as we are traveling
wandering together into the center of who we are.
spiritweaves ™ is a movement liberation
extended to all who are willing
to answer their own calling.
a movement revelation
unmasking the mystery and magic of our own dance.
we will asist, stir, incite, invite and inspire the dance
to be awakened into and throughout our lives
breath, weight, shape, pause, repetition, silence and witnessing
are some of the tools we will employ to engage
and enhance you as a creative event, always unfolding.
emergency: emerge and see what breaks through as
spiritweaves ™
spiritweaves ™ is a prayer in progress constantly being birthed
out of the 5 rhythms® and soul motion ™.

Spring at last!

In the dance, on the floor, in the sweat and the tears and the sobs and the joy, I was reminded of Rainer Maria Rilke's poem:

Ich galube an Alles noch nie Gesagte

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for
may for once spring clear
without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,

streaming through widening channels
into the open sea. (from Rilke's "Book of Hours")

Oh yes, the way it is with children, no forcing and no holding back. The way I live my life. The way I dance and am danced back.

"Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known...."

From "Lost" by David Wagoner

I seek stillness right now. I know it's within me, available to me, no matter what is happening on the outside. But it's difficult for me sometimes -- most times -- to remember that. Stillness within. It doesn't mean I have anything figured out, it doesn't mean there isn't pain or sadness or unsettledness. But stillness, for me, comes with acceptance of what is, even if the "what is" is the unknown and unknowable.

March 19th will mark 5 years since the invasion of Iraq. And, as a friend recently wrote me "It seems like even though we hear about the war every day, somehow it's almost become just a drone in the background." To see her complete writing go to http://dancingbotanicals.blogspot.com/

There are many different public actions being planned on March 15 and 19th in several cities. (See http://www.5yearstoomany.org/ to find an event near you.)

For myself, dancing feels like the most revolutionary act. As Emma Goldman said, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be a part of your revolution" And, I was witness to how dancing and music shut down the Nazi's in Olympia, WA. Dance & music are powerful revolutionary tools.

"There are many different ways to make our voices heard, the important thing is that we do something."

Since moving to Prescott, AZ in the fall of 2007 I have created dance in the desert. The desert is a light-filled, expansive place. On the weekend of March 21st & 22nd we will be dancing the act of Revolution, practicing change, and donating 10% of our profits to 5YearsTooMany. (www.DancingBotanicals.com)

Bombing, invasions and rigged elections are not something most of us want to think about. But, if we don't think about it, talk about it, and dance, imagine the world we will live in 5 years from now.

I encourage you to participate, in whatever way you can, in spreading the 19th across the country, person to person, dance to dance.

staying open
keeping it open
to the fullness
and the emptiness

Space is one of the four aspects of Laban Movement Analysis, a system that observes and identifies human movement. The other three aspects are body, dynamic expression and shape. All of these areas address how we inhabit our environment and interact with ourselves and others in movement. Today I'm only going to have you explore one small aspect of space, spatial dimensions.
Like the air around us space is usually invisible to our awareness. The objects in our environment can bring our awareness to space by interrupting space and creating positive and negative space. Aware or not space effects us in different ways and some of us experience the effects of architecture, clutter or natural landscapes more than others. This is both a visual and a kinesthetic (felt body) experience. We respond to space by holding or releasing our breath or our muscles. We experience this as changes in our attention which affects both our sense of ease and ability to function with or without ease.
Take a moment to consciously notice the space/environment you are in now. Experience the three dimensions up/down, right/left and front/back. When you focus on one dimension, what it your experience? Can you feel into the space visually or with breath? How do the different dimensions affect you?
We cannot always change the environment we're in but we can change our internal perception of space. Close your eyes and take a few breaths to settle. Then imagine reaching into the up/down dimension internally. You don't need to muscle it, just allow the subtle changes that want to happen as you imagine reaching into these dimensions simultaneously up and down. Then do this with right/ left, allowing your inner space to reach into these two dimensions. You might do this by imagining your breath going there or creating more space, or feeling a spatial pull through you. Do the same thing with front/back. Notice your different experiences of different dimensions. Then bring your awareness back out into the environment. How is your experience of the outer environment different now that you have spent a little time experiencing inner space through the three dimensions? I use internal spatial pulls to come to better alignment. That way I don't have to try and correct myself but I let the 3 dimensional support of space bring me to ease. You may find a different way to play with and use spatial pulls. I'd love to hear about your experience, or explore any question that comes to you as you explore spatial dimensions.

In the cathedral of my soul
There is space enough. . .
to hold the world.