Move and Be Moved

[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 ...)

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

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.

Thanks Duncan. After the surfeit of wind, sleet and rain here, it helps to remember that foul is fleeting and that the seasons cycle ever onward. So do the workshops, and all is happy happy here with the arrival of Andrea Juhan in Victoria (Feb. 8-10). "’Quickening’ is a Heartbeat weekend focusing on our relationship to fear and excitement, risk-taking and change,” producer Joanne Winstanley tell us.

Here’s more from Joanne in case anyone’s inspired to make the trek to Vancouver Island either now or next fall when Ms. Juhan's long-term Undercurrents group begins:

“I am excited to be bringing Andrea to our community; she is a gifted facilitator, and I have a deep respect for the level of mastery she brings to her work. Andrea spent her late teens and twenties teaching movement, leading groups, studying Gestalt Awareness Practice, and practicing bodywork at Esalen Institute. She is a licensed therapist and a founder of the Moving Center School in California, and has been a student and teacher of the 5Rhythms for over 30 years. Most importantly, she is a warm, encouraging, and approachable teacher with a playful spirit and a generous heart.

Andrea will return to Victoria several times over the next few years to lead Undercurrents, an ongoing group that she has previously offered in Europe. It includes her Open Floor work, grounded in plenty of movement, within a two-year-long format that can facilitate tremendous growth. The Victoria group will be the first time Andrea has ever offered Undercurrents in North America, so it is pretty big news that this will be happening in our neighborhood.

Information about both events is available on my web site at http://www.danceherenow.com/workshops.php. You can visit Andrea's web site http://www.5rcts.org/ to read more about Andrea and her work, including the Open Floor.”

Hibernation time, and my mind is running slow as … well, I can’t think of a decent simile, so sluggish are my thoughts and creativity. Last weekend, I danced for first time in what seriously felt like forever (just four weeks actually). The group organized by Shauna Curtis in Duncan, B.C. was again led by the (insert fabulous, over-the-top, entirely justified adjective here) Joanne Winstanley, who took us on a merry journey from Macey Gray to Tchaikovsky as she gently broke down the post-holiday ennui some of us were feeling. Still, I could not shake the tightness. Physically I felt ancient, trapped in stone. And emotionally I was distant and withdrawn even during moments of connection with others on the floor. Guarded heart to the point where the Tin Man wonders whether he’s even got one. Self-absorbed and feeling sorry for myself – another spoilt, whiny North American ‘have’ who fences with phantasms while the real world cries out for actions as clear and purpose-driven as that modeled for us by Lucie Nerot in the previous post.

So once again I was struck by how fast I slip back into my habitual alienation. A month ago at the warm, communal close of Amara’s Body School, I had the sure knowledge that I’d figured it all out, that I’d finally awoken my intuitive intelligence and would forever walk forward in this world with rooted confidence and an easy smile. Relaxed, grounded, my shite together at last. Hahaha. Wrong again. The ruts are deep, the life-long predisposition to being isolated and stuck in my head won’t be shaken so easily. Gravity dictates that the rock will always roll back down the hill until Atlas finally learns how to do the shrug.

Happily, with this practice, the well is deep, the opportunities for diving in as plentiful as time and budget allows. L5R is next, and I depart for it with both eager anticipation and the same rather queasy, uneasy jitters as I carried with me last year. Experience now tells me (as others have said repeatedly) that the hardest part is showing up. Once there I am all but guaranteed 10,000 joys and some (if not quite so many) sorrows and shadows as well. Yes, it is an wild gift to dance for hours on end with others who share this same mad passion. And here’s my truth: I’ve never encountered community of this kind before. I feel held and mirrored and unapologetically myself. If but life could be one long workshop. (continues ... of course)

First priorities: Buddhist monks are being slaughtered in Burma right this minute by the Chinese-backed military junta. No, I’m sorry, not a happy dancing topic, but there you have it: Please investigate for yourself or simply add your body mass to the weight of outrage by signing the petition at http://www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_burma/t.php.

Okay, I came here today not intending to stir the activist soup but to reanimate my contributions to this site & honour my 5R experiences of the last few weeks - the latest being Amara Pagano’s third spin with her Release workshop, this time in Bellingham. About which I want to offer deep gratitude to my wise, embodied & (as this is written) Austin-bound teacher (dear maui wowie) plus our rooted mama producer (Jenny Macke) & her fab community (B’ham’s tight, sweet, growing gang of rhythmatists). And, on behalf of a few out-of-country & off-shore visitors, drop thanks on our welcoming hosts (the Macke family – wind-dancing Andreas, equestrian/thespian Holly, sunshine superboy Jonah). The workshop itself delivered a thousand flashing experiences & moments, insights & challenges, group connection & individual soliloquies – all in service to releasing into the breath and our personal issues/tissues … the should/could box of “what if” opened (gently & compassionately or with explosive urgency & need according to our own requirements) as thoughts fall away and instinctive trust in the truth of the moment is cultivated. (Oh, how I now wish I’d stopped dancing and taken notes with a camcorder – as you few people visiting here know so well, Amara explains herself with such clarity & physical artistry, literally moving the teaching as she speaks … ultimately, I think she’s asking us to open to the unwritten mystery of each moment new.)

Also: Before it vanishes into the slipstream, I must revisit Jonathan Horan’s Cycles three short weeks ago in Olympia. My first encounter with the lineage bearer, the son of she who has given us this work, this infinite mystery unfolding. J’s clocked something like 125,000 hours of practice & study, he told us, and he’s the final proof I need that this work is life-changing – transformative beyond all measure – worth dedicating a rest-of-this-life commitment. I exchanged all of ten words with him. But the common sentiment of many participants I spoke with is that we KNOW him … he stood before us, relaxed, totally himself, shifting from sacred to profane with lightness & laughs, dropping metaphorically from 20,000 feet into gravity’s embrace and showing us how to ride the overwhelmingly big wave - surrendering to its power with acceptance and a sheer giddy joy in being alive – while standing there, barefoot soul, in the den of Olympian Eagles, encouraging us to revisit ancient wounds, patterns, stories – and, in so doing, allowing us to rewrite/heal/process them anew from a present-tense place of maturity. And all of these gifts flowing from a conscious man – a tousle-haired dude in a World Cup t-shirt who can hold the paradox of mosh-pit veteran and John Wayne fan. A rare & precious male teacher who can model the possibilities for men like me who, as i've noted before on this site, are starved for same. (continues)

Just under 60 hours 'til we gather in Olympia and Joanne Winstanley drops the flag at The Gathering - the xth annual sun dance in Cascadia, a weekend that flashes by in a breathtaking rush of glittering moment-by-moment glee & fun & surprise ... and anchored by a full-moon Saturday night at the point of power that Amara and Sara Pagano call home - an oceanfront acreage with forest and meadow, rocky bluff and pebble beach ... sacred nature.

Advance thanks to those making it happen: Liz Jaeger (always the centrepoint around which all circles), Kari Uhlmann (housing coordinator), Jack Turner (heading up the tireless local crew who toil on our behalf), Cynthia Kennedy (described in Liz's email to us all as 'party organizer extraordinaire') and the teachers showering us with their gifts - Peter Fodera, Lori Smullin, the Victoria tribe's own and aforementioned Joanne W, and our wise, gracious, inspiring hosts - Paganos Sara & Amara.

A randomly-opened quote from Isadora Duncan is the wind behind which i set sail tomorrow ... and so to all attending the Gathering, let us be as little children & exalt in movement:

"When asked for the pedagogic program of my school, I reply: 'Let us first teach little children to breathe, to vibrate, to feel, and to become one with the general harmony and movement of nature. Let us first produce a beautiful human being, a dancing child.' Nietzsche has said that he cannot believe in a god that cannot dance. He has also said, 'Let that day be considered lost on which we have not danced.'

But he did not mean the execution of pirouettes. He meant the exaltation of life in movement."

Isadora Duncan: The Art of the Dance (Theatre Art Books, 1928)

Bill Ellis, a 5R devotee of long-standing known to many in his Victoria hometown, Vancouver, Olympia and elsewhere, is now alone in Kentucky minding his daughter's home & enjoying some productive R&R. With his permission, here's a recent communique from him that may be of interest and philosophical import to those curious about the dance of destiny. He’ll be back in this time zone at month’s end and attending the tribal gathering in Olympia.

++++++++++++++++++

>> And if I thought I had come here, as planned, to spend a lot of time editing some texts by the Eastern mystic OSHO then I was completely mistaken: At the last minute, I was guided to put two books by the internationally renowned academic and Jungian analyst, James Hollis, in my bag. One is entitled "Creating A Life, Finding Your Individual Path" the other, "On This Journey We Call Life, Living The Questions." And I needed a man of his intellectual stature, rather than some New Age dreamer, to confirm for me what I have known for so long but have had difficulty in accepting.

So here is the essence of what I wanted to know from Hollis and Jung which I have put together into a short precis:

"We now know something is living us even more than we are living it .... that deep down something knows our destiny .... whether we wish to know it or not .... that something in us, no matter how much we flee it, summons us. And that summons is the call to become our own selves for no matter how small our role, each of us is a carrier of cosmic energy and a crucial part of a great unfolding pattern ..." [my vision is of a huge mosaic with each of us being individual tiles and the ever-changing mosaic is not complete without all the tiles in place].

Consequently, suggests Hollis, "What each of us owes the world is the contribution ~ by moving towards wholeness ~ of our best unique selves, along with ethical behaviour and respect for every other person's summons to be unique too."

No rescuing others here. Hollis, approvingly, cites Henry David Thoreau, who wrote, in Walden, "Let everyone mind his own business and endeavour to be what he was made" [to be]. Reminds me of Jung's comment that "The universe heals one soul at a time." (continues)

Quick note to announce that Visudha de los Santos can now be reached at dancingvisudha@yahoo.com. (Her comcast account is no longer in service.)

And, while I'm here, a brief tale. A friend found a fragile creature of the air grounded and lifeless in a rest area on the road home from Breitenbush. She gave it to me for safekeeping. Here's what I wrote upon getting home last week ... a sweet satori that somehow has meaning to me:

"Your dragonfly flew home with me intact. I put him/her on my desk next to the yellow smiley faced rubber ball that sits happy in an indigo-blue candleholder ... there beside the river-washed stone inscribed with the reminder "everything is a mirror" & the various rocks I've gathered on beaches near and far & a small, framed picture of my beloved cloud cat Chloe, RIP, a pure being of light.

Now perhaps it had something to do with the change of climate here by the ocean ... but this morning i discovered that dear dragonfly had lost his/her head. Literally. It lay there in front of the winged torso, a concave shell, sad and hollow and empty of whatever it is that dragonflies think on their short, sweet path to whatever come next.

And here lies the lesson I will carry forward on my own path. To lose one's head is to begin listening with the ears of the heart ... to fly free here and now without the heavy anchor of patterned wounds, tricks of memory, the shoulds/coulds/maybes."

Recommended reading for rhythmatists: Douglas Harding's On Having No Head: Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious (Penguin Arkana, 1961)

Amidst the wealth of impressions that linger from Amara & Sara Pagano’s remarkable workshop at Breitenbush this past week, I keep coming back to the equally remarkable men I met during my trip … the kind of men that this shame-based sleepwaker has rarely (ever?) met in his life, men who are modelling possibilities that consciously serve the divine feminine - spirit, flow, Gaia - rather than the usual litany of competition, reptillian bullshit and life-denying evil for which my gender carries such an ancient and unspeakably heavy responsibility (and to which it adds more karmic weight with each fresh hell committed in the name of God and "our way").

Okay, sigh, since that last line is so dark, i'll begin with the lightness of being and rooted authenticity of my coming-and-going Olympia host Mark - father, drummer, mountaineer, honorary Parisian and dab hand with an espresso machine.

Then the wise, contained, in-process individuals I met deep in the transformative dance in those enchanted Oregon woods: Duncan, the master photographer who feeds the fire and honours the directions with immense dignity; Ronny, he of the clear strength, one-pointed focus and heart dedicated to love & partnership; John, the Oly father who knows that a Golden Retriever is unconditional love incarnate and that, yes, an arrow is just an arrow; Eugene, the Orange County teacher trainee destined to make such a difference as his future unfolds; meditative, musical, brave John from Portland who understands the power of ‘ohm’ and other core expressions; and Dave, the collegiate wrestler whose world was rocked by the Berkeley free-speech movement in the late '60s and today is dancing into his own incredibly young '60s.

Plus other men met in the dining hall, hot springs & sanctuaries: Michael, the foodservice maestro on the music-festival circuit; Harold, the 20-year BB kitchen boss; photographer Joss, once a 4x per week 5R regular in Portland who joined us during the celebratory community dance; Mike, the math grad specializing in fluid dynamics and sacred geometry now headed east to Penn State; a young BB employee with the improbable but totally apt name Mahatma Wildman, who understands the inchoate power of the full moon in Capricorn as it rose over Mount Jefferson @ 2 a.m. on a blessed (for so many reasons of this Canadian's heart) July 1; the BB security guard who welcomed us back "anytime" to a serene place he refers to as "ma"; Stewart, the Cal State Fullerton prof who slays & rebirths first-year innocents through integrative, humanistic psychology; the nameless coast guard man from Coos Bay emerging from a month hiking in the Utah canyons, agape at the elemental wonder of silence & wind-carved rock; and even young Forrest, aged 6, who chases bumble bees but promised me he wouldn’t harm them. (continues ...)

Following up on an earlier post, Soasis Sukuweh is home from a month in Africa .. a few words from her are below plus an attached snapshot that speaks many thousands more words about the connections she made.

Greetings from the Power of Hope team in Uganda (Charlie, Eric, Soasis
and Autumn). Over the past month we have conducted nearly 30 days of
training and youth programs, worked with hundreds of youth workers,
HIV/AIDS workers, and incredibly friendly and courageous teenagers ....

continues with more pics @
http://www.powerofhope.org/Enews_June2007/Uganda_June_2007.htm

5Rhythms teacher Soasis Sukuweh (Cortes Island, B.C.) is raising funds for her second trip to Uganda, where she works with HIV/AIDS-afflicted adults and youth. If you can assist, please contact sacredplay@gmail.com for details. Here's some info from Soasis about the project:

Hi all,

As some of you know, last September myself, Charlie Murphy and Eric Mullholand went as the Power of Hope to Uganda. In Kampala, we
offered a creative facilitation training for 50 adults from different organizations, and a five-day camp for 40 youth with HIV and AIDS. We are building a strong community of facilitator and youth leaders who are impacting how people with HIV/AIDS are treated and perceived.

The Ugandan people, as Charlie Murphy put it, "seem to have the DNA"
for this kind of creative facilitation and heart-centered community gathering. They soaked up the knowledge and applied it immediately to their existing work. The youth and adult staff participants were given an opportunity at the camps to share stories of their struggles and to offer each other support in coping with stigma and with relationship issues.

Some young people swam in a pool for the first time or made their first-ever beaded bracelet. There was profound sharing of life experiences and lots of fun had by all. There is much more to share in the way of miraculous stories, and I hope to be able to take some video footage on this next trip.

I have so far raised $1,500 of the $3,700 I need for me to co-facilitate this event. If you are able to support this valuable work with a contribution to The Power of Hope, please let me kn ow. Air Miles donations can also help get me to Uganda.

Thanks for your love in the way of funds/ air miles for this powerful work,
Soasis Sukuweh

As a periodic guest from afar who feels so welcome in Olympia, i'm touched by the communal spirit of Sunday mornings - most recently the other day when Sara Pagano offered us flowers and this Rumi poem. Pixilated words on a screen can't do her delivery justice, but here they are:

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Visudha has suggested that people outside Vancouver Island might be interested in donating to the Dance Across Borders fundraiser.

Please contact nlavoie@shaw.ca for address and receipt. And contact me (jbateman@shaw.ca) for background info that explains why we're so pumped about doing this ...

I also want to say that John's last note was bang on. Thank you for such clarity and insight. It really helped me see clearly about what the heck goes on in those fleeting 90 minutes!

As I spend time myself in this centered place on the floor, i feel mroe readily able to identify the inevitable shift back to the unbalanced dance of intellect & ego. Permanent residence: the brain, my Mel Brooksian producer/director of so many thoughts & judgments (self/other, humourous/depressing, wounded/look 'ma no hands joyous).

And then it's over, and the coats must be be put on and we head our separate ways. One personal goal for 2007, to be sacralized at the Ritual, is to try to carry this centredness out into the world. Because, as you, John, say, this is where our authentic self lives ... i'd like to make friends with this authenticity more often in the "real world."

A longer note than normal in this space, but Victoria 5R is excited to announce that we've launched a campaign in support of Lucie Nerot’s Dancing Across Borders. Under the banner "A Chance to Dance," we're raising cash for her return trip to Cambodia next month. Hopefully a significant chunk of change will result from a Dec. 16 fundraiser, and we’ve got plans to keep the support flowing in the months ahead. [http://www.chance2dance.blogspot.com]

Lucie is dedicated to establishing Dancing Across Borders as an international non-profit organization. Her intention: That she and other teachers may continue to share the joy and transformation of the 5Rhythms practice with kids in poorer countries. Her destination: The Mesang District, which a generation ago was the heart of Cambodia's infamous "killing fields." Annual family income: $300. Read Lucie's words and browse the remarkable photos in the link under "Worldwide 5Rhythm Projects" at right, and you'll know instantly that she's making a huge difference.

“Lucie will return to the same village in Cambodia where she lived for a month last year, teaching 5Rhythms to two groups of kids, working for three hours a day with each group,�? says Joanne Winstanley, the local 5R teacher who initiated the fundraising campaign and is rallying support. “I spent time with Lucie in California this summer and was moved by her love for the kids she had worked with, and by her stories of their experience with the dance.�?

The seeds were sown back in the fall when 5R regular Kim Kelso asked Joanne whether she'd consider offering free classes at Victoria’s George Jay Elementary, the majority of whose students live below the poverty line. "We devised a plan: I would offer a series of free lunchtime classes at George Jay, we would ask the local 5R community to sponsor me, and I would turn over all donations to Lucie for her upcoming trip.�?

And from there things have picked up speed:

* Classes are underway at George Jay, and kids from kindergarten to grade five are mixing it up joyously in the gym …