Move and Be Moved

I know, most of you know me as Sejd, but my real name is Flemming. I want to tell you all that I just came home from Denmark where I had the joy of dancing three full hours at the "Slangens Oeje" (the eye of the snake) under the direction of Mette Feilberg the instructor. Here in the cold north of Scandinavia I realized there was a cultural difference in expressing dance. In Copenhagen, there was a lot of happy yelling and stumping of the feet. I was first taken aback, but then I realized - well of course! it's the Theutonic blod of the Vikings which still rolls in their veins. The studio was quite old, meaning, a quite beaten up floor, but the music was great and the time spent dancing with everyone absolutely fantastic.
Hugs to all

Each morning my daily ritual repeats itself. The alarm goes off at six sharp and I emerge from my cozy nest under the down comforter. When we moved into this house, we bought a “Real” bed. Until this last move we never slept in manufactured bed. In the many houses we have had, I always build a platform out of pine wood and threw a King Size madras on top. This new bed is taller than anything we have ever slept on, and in the morning I find myself sliding DOWN, rather than getting OUT of the bed. I find my slippers on the floor and with the ease of a fossilized Dinosaur make my way to the bathroom. This first walk in the morning is definitely not the FLOW; it’s not even LYRICAL, but quite: STACATO. I have found that it takes at least two cups of coffee for me to loosen up those hip joints. Right now, that coffee is consumed in our living room because we are under construction and the kitchen is hidden under layers of plastic sheets. Dry wall dust covers everything and makes the surface of my coffee look like it got an extra sprinkle of Coffee Mate – Aghrrr! We live in CHAOS and struggle to keep up with it. Without the Waves classes, I think my partner and I would kill each other, the contractor, and the news paper delivery person who always miss our drive way and I end up having to climb the Japanese maple tree to retrieve my Seattle Times. But we have our dance, and it does keep us sane and connected. Thanks again Amara and Sara and good luck in Hawaii.

Sometimes we float
Like birds blown away in a windstorm
Upside down
The floor seems to disappear

Suspended in space
I dance
With you
And you dance me

When the music slows
Completely out of breath
I embrace you

But I am no longer me
And you are no longer you
We have given up existing
In ourselves

Free for a fletching moment.

Sejd

My dear friend Marianne Hoepli sent me this wonderful poem.
[img_assist|fid=342|thumb=1|alt=Dancing the Tango in Buenos Aires|caption=Silvia dancing in the streets of Buenos Aires]

For we women...

We have come to be danced
Not the pretty dance
Not the pretty pretty, pick me, pick me dance
But the claw our way back into the belly
Of the sacred, sensual animal dance
The unhinged, unplugged, cat is out of it's box dance
The holding the precious moment in the palms
Of our hands and feet dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him, dance
But the wring the sadness from our skin dance.
The slap the apology from our posture dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the monkey see, monkey do dance
One two dance like you
One two three, dance like me dance
But the grave robber, tomb stalker
Tearing scabs and scars open dance
The rub the rhythm raw against our soul dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the nice, invisible, self-conscious shuffle
But the matted hair flying, voodoo mama
Shaman shakin' ancient bones dance
The strip us from our casings, return our wings
Sharpen our claws and tongues dance
The shed dead cells and slip into
The luminous skin of love dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance
The shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance
The mother may I?
Yes you may take 10 giant leaps dance
The olly olly oxen free free free dance
The everyone can come to our heaven dance.

We have come to be danced
Where the kingdom's collide
In the cathedral of flesh
To burn back into the light
To unravel, to play, to fly, to pray
To root in skin sanctuary
We have come to be danced
We have come

--Jewel Mathieson

I cannot say that I am any expert on Rumi. I do consider him one of my favorite friends though. Over the past fifteen years I have spent many hours either trying to understand his mystical poems or been involved in expressing them in dance. Some years, when we lived in Utah, I gathered a group around me and choreographed dance movements to the Persian lyrics of the Mathnavi. I met a dear friend who was a prophessor in Sufism at the U of U and toghether we worked out translations of Rumi poems into my native Danish. Now that I have started dancing at Waves studio in Olympia I find myself back with Rumi again. Maybe stronger than ever. "So this was what he was talking about!" The completel emertion in chaos, in extacy and YES, Intoxication of love. Looks like Rumi and I will be at it again for a long time.
Peace
Sejd