Move and Be Moved

I'm navigating the abyss you told me would come. I'm in boot camp with God and all I know so far is that I need to dance slowly and quickly and sometimes I see a spark of the God in me and I listen to her because she knows everything at once. What choice do you have? You can't breathe and you can't see and you can't hear and it's over you're pretty sure it's over. The darkness is so real, so tangible. Learn or die. So, you come to yourself. Quite simply, you come to yourself. There is nothing else.

So. Long. Ago. Another person wrote that and I know her. She still speaks to me, questioning, crying, screaming. I listen.

J. said watch nature for how to die gracefully. So much depth from pain, sorrow, trauma. Now, it's time for light.

If life is what I decide then let me decide this:
To die gracefully.
"To be wounded by my own understanding of love."
To look at myself in the eyes.
"To bleed willingly and joyfully."
To find depth from joy.
To accept.

I dreamt about you months ago. You were a giant spiderweb and I was stuck in the middle of it. You were surrounding me. I had a sword. After a year of pain I stood up and looked at you, looked right at you. And in utmost joy I started cutting you down, chopping as fast and as hard as I could. There was so much freedom there, in those spaces without you. I got scared. I fell to the ground crying, remembering, the joy and the pain, the letting go letting go letting go killing me killing me killing me. Then a voice said to me "Do something different." I stood up. And instead of running away, instead of weeping, I stuck the sword down face up in the mud and I bowed to each side of you, each side of the cutting I had made, each moment of ecstasy and bereavement, and I sat down in the center and smiled.

This is the story of my death and rebirth. No less. My entire life written between these pages. Childhood, a quick death, and an awakening.

Something ……. "Be your own mother. Be your own mother."

Nearly 30 amazing dancers joined in for the First Annual Gratitude Wave in Taos last Sunday. We explored the 5Rhythms through a 'G Wave' which included Garner, Gratitude, Generosity, Genius and Grace.

The dancers raised nearly $300.00 which was given to 5 local non-profits. The beneficiaries were Taos Feeds Taos , Communities Against Violence, Stray Hearts, The Hanuman Temple and Casa de Corazon.

Visudha de los Santos, creator of Move and Be Moved, has just completed a year long journey with guides Gabrielle Roth, Jonathan Horan, Kathy Altman, Lori Saltzman, Andrea Juhan and 80 dancing colleagues from around the world. I wanted to take a moment, as her friend and witness, to acknowledge this initiation into the sacred territory of a 5Rhythm teacher. She offers herself as a beacon of light, facilitating movement and ritual in Taos and around the country. In my view, this offering is vital.

I started dancing with Visudha many years ago in the Olympia ballroom, even before I knew her. And, eventually, we had our first "road trip" to California and became instant soul sisters. I have witnessed her journey over the years, her dances, her surrender, her work, her play and her continual willingness to travel that higher road - to be beauty, love and light. I love you and I'm proud of you!

And, so, I want to recognize this essential moment in time, this lovely silly delightful preciously fleeting moment. And, honor the person, Visudha, for her devotion to movement meditation, to art and ritual, community conversation, and helping others to free their spirits. Thank you for living in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. Congratulations. May we dance together again soon!

Please join me in celebrating Visudha via the e-waves, give her a call, and show up on her dance floor!

[note: I'm loathe to bump Visudha's post of Michael Stone's fine interview with Gabrielle Roth down the queue by dropping my latest wordbomb, but here goes ... and please scroll down because it is well worth the listen.]

Okay, Mirrors … now 23 days gone and slip-sliding rapidly from memory as thoughts shift from then to next – which (lucky me) is Lori Saltzman in Olympia followed by Andrea Juhan the weekend after here on home turf. But in the mirror of Mirrors, my best attempt at a one-word précis is "zowie.” Let me explain …

Point one: All those core teachers (GR, KA, LS, JH) in one fantastic lap-of-the-gods dance space, blue waters laid out at our feet, pelicans and hawks gliding by on the updrafts + a supporting cast of teachers DJing the sweats - Peter, Margaret, Sara, Michael, Shawn, Davida - each with their own spin on the rhythms from candied worldbeat to Bittersweet Symphony, Groove Is In The Heart & (mamma mia!) did i dream this, or was there also three golden minutes of classic ABBA?

Point two: The rare pleasure of swimming through Tiburon waters with 80-plus dedicated rhythmatists, a UN of dancers from multiple points of the compass, all of us going broke (“I” statements please!) in pursuit of community and personal growth and more/more/more of this transplendent practice.

Point three: The initial sense that there wouldn't be nearly enough dance time, what with many hours of fresh hell in the form of a glue-stickathon art project and the dreaded (speaking strictly for myself) Rhythm & Repetition … only to be followed by the dawning realization that the entire 10 days (and all life for that matter – yes, I’m finally getting it) was a dance on and off the floor - from airport to hotel, hardwood to redwoods, Cafe Gratitude to men's night out in Sausalito, Marin Suite parties to Fairfax hot tubs, Muir Beach bonfire to home fires burning.

A few alternative words for the experience: “krunch bam kapow ouch whamm zap kapow urkkk zok biff zzzzzwap splatt” (to quote the cartoon bubbles from episode two of the original Batman TV series, courtesy of the website www.batmania.com). (no surprise, this continues overleaf ...)

Follow the link, and click on her picture.

A poem by Emily Rebecca Tool, read aloud yesterday during shavasana by my kung fu-trained, chicken-raising, mama-of-two yoga teacher Amy Rubidge in Sooke, B.C. It somehow captures my Mirrors experience in particular and life's mysteries at large ...

"Go deeply and remember
the web of creation
that holds us all in fluctuating harmony

Breathe in and taste the sunlight
which warms the twists and forks of your veins,
your blood made up of stones sunk within the earth
which grew the grains you feast upon
these things your infinite essence

the arched grey branches,
skin rough and leathered
upon fruit trees that drop their children down
to nourish your flesh with sweet devotion...

Stretch, and know you are everything
becoming more open with each breath
for you are the laughter of your friends
the tears of your enemy,
the courage of your ancestors,
the sweat of those you've worked beside
intermingled
all the scents and smells of every room
and every meadow you've ever stood inside in all your lives

Every place where you've exchanged smiles with something
one moment as every moment
holds the force of ancient filaments
weaving light through and in and out your soul
as oceans of time take tide below the moon

These cycles too are you
never separating from the special tones your voice explores
uniqueness
the gift of your parents and grandparents
and great grandparents,
their love the color of your eyes

and then behind their veils the blackness sings
your crystal sight beginning to rainbow out
into geometric spiraled fibers
supporting, flexing, holding, tensing,
being, breaking, becoming.

We are this web of ancientness and love divined
breathing in and out we release
knowing the power and beauty that is constantly in us,
out of us, and around us."

Emily Rebecca Tool 2004

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

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 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 ™.