Reflections on the Spirit of Dance

Living dance embodies the movement - in time and space - of that which moves - alive - within. Such inspiration can be simply and presently felt or discerned in a spirit of receptive trust.

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Joy is known in freedom to feel. To be directly connecting with what is present and be moved by it, is inherently liberating and also renewing : a process of revelation.

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That which is ’alive’ cannot be mapped or defined by concepts, and a concept based approach cannot find life, though concepts and symbols can be used in service of life.

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But the spirit of life can be expressed in form by our allowing inspired life to move us . We can be as a channel or instrument through which life flows, and by this act of trust we may realize our life in truth, and not merely imitate life in concept.

Such direct experience is a glimpse of awakening from out of a habitual mentality of problematic distraction. We also regain a clearer perspective because peace is in it. Such a moment also accesses an innate wisdom, natural to a rested open attention.

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In this we have a clear sense of flowing conscious awareness, without thought or interruption, as if our being ‘just knows’ or is one with the dance. Any attempt to bring this under the control of thought based understanding immediately breaks the flow.

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In unrecognized ignorance as to what we are and what life is, we stumble in and out of a sense of life that tends to attempt balance between applying control and suffering chaos. Yet each is merely the shadow of the other denied and both indicate a loss of centred calm perspective.

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When dance expresses life directly, it is of the nature of art. This demonstrates and witnesses a living way or culture of bringing the divine into manifestation. We may speak of being touched, transported or even healed by such glimpses. They are revealed rather than manufactured, and bring into awareness that which had hitherto been unknowingly obscured.

Dance that is merely a mechanical representation, whether applied skillfully or not, is artifice. In all areas of expression this is so, for the technicalities of form at best are a structure by and through which the spirit expresses. Training and teaching are a shared intent and practice, that creates conditions to enable and encourage the true dancer to grow in expression.

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The relationship of spirit and form is simple: form must be brought to serve spirit, or it will be found superficial or without substance - as in the story of ‘The Emperor's New Clothes’. The experience of such disconnection is like an armouring or masking over of that which is felt alive. It is a freezing into form - a contraction of distrust into a polarised defence.

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Though one may endlessly debate what spirit is, the absence of true inspiration is undeniably evident in disharmony or conflict, depression or joylessness, self-illusion and pervasive distrust or cynicism.

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My sense of a living path using music and dance is as a path of restoration to our freedom of expression in being, and sharing music and dance is also a simple language by which to share life. We cannot share life without releasing the judgements that we are habituated to use to justify ourselves to ourselves and by which we withhold our self in isolation.

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In relationship, felt within, and embodied, we offer and invite a shared inspiration by our willingness for joining. Here is the simple process of growing trust and releasing obsolete defensiveness. Becoming simply present and available to the felt quality of now.

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Only by joining in such a willingness in living presence are we re-membered. For whatever Being is - cannot really be alien to our true nature or external to what we simply are, but most of us are deeply habituated to identification with our collective and private thought and imagination and do not tend to be energetically alive in all that it is to be human - or indeed to simply joyfully Be.

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Our human experience has largely become, de-facto, a realm arising from the attempt to apply or impose our will upon life. “I want it thus!”. In this we assert a strong sense of self but lose the dance in which our innate relatedness is lost to a sense of competing disparate parts. Such struggle can itself be engaged with passion and differentiations of approach and style - which may seem to give temporary meanings to a meaninglessness - but this will tend to wear out or lose vitality, for it is a self defeating exercise. Relatedness remains the way things actually are - in aliveness - in truth. Always and already so.

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It is the heart that recognises truth and the thinking mind must follow and not lead. Those who share experience of the Living may find terms and languages in which to refer to such experience - but such terms are at best sketches or pointers to an immediacy that is not really happening to a 'someone' - but which is a flow of being in which the experiencer is temporarily transparent to an greater awareness than any sense of a fenced off ‘self’.

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Always one must gently or freely put aside the mentality that thinks it knows - for this is always a fixity of the past in form. Listen or feel in some willingness of trust and for joining. This is the practice which allows the discernment of Life within - the expression of which is not according to ‘my’ - or anyone else's - thinking’ - but is actually inspirational. It has the ring or shine of joy in life felt directly.

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Dancing can thus open a context in which what I am regains a true belonging - felt as part of Life rather than a separated orphaned existence played out in self image and self commentary.

Regardless of any presentation of appearance - it is this lost belonging that is at the root of all longings and desires.

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It is a simple thing to express and share life energetically - though we tend to make it anything but - and thus require a process of experiential education that builds and regains trust and self-honesty. For it is a breakdown of communication at the level of self-trust that gives rise to a mentality of ‘externalised’ or applied control upon oneself and upon life. And it is this mentality which tends to either squelch or mimic life’s expressions. This does so with our largely unconscious identification and undermines appreciation and expression of our experience of life in all respects, including our dance.

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Authenticity of expression is found in a defencelessness to a present awareness. If we wait to be ‘pure’ on our own terms we wait ... and wait some more. Practicing self-trust in intuitive relationship is not about getting it right - or indeed wrong - but listening to a different guide in moving from the heart.

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In any inspired endeavour, we are guided to discover what we need to meet or know as we come to need to know it. It is a step by step process that is an expression of truly held desire to which we are willing to bring some commitment to.

Joy is of the innate Teacher whose only intent is restoring your own freedom to your awareness and acceptance. By this light you will freely grow in the discernment and release of that which is joyless and therefore meaningless.

Brians Easter Dance Auditions - Easter 2009

I wanted to mark Eastertime with Dance. Not along the lines of religion but simply to open to feel the Easter story and allow it to speak to me.
I then chose these dances as a list of possibilities from a much longer list that offered to fill roles or illuminate aspects of the story of Jesus.
And as I was moved to write from whatever I felt in them is my own intuitive writing - by the authority that is within us all to trust, to feel and to act. But though it is all write - none of it is a claim to truth - which is far beyond the reach of thought and yet never far from the heart that listens in stillness.
The story of God-love awakening within the human drama. Not just the entry into the world - but the undoing of its foundation as truth in and of itself.
In peace
Brian Steere

Ad’aman Palikari
The world tried to teach me of war - but I learned of love.

Ashtun Daje Mori
Drinking of the world I filled me with sorrows and yearnings. In stillness I look upon the will I made for myself and release it - to be restored to peace where love is - and now the world can reflect and serve awakened purpose.

Atahualpa
The last Inca king who threw (the letter of) the bible away and was persecuted and denied by those who used the letter to validate personal gain.

Daronee
Where are you now beloved? We walk with you in our heart. We reach to you in Light. We support each other in faith and trust, we look upon the reflection of our thought in the world and become one with the love that you are. Love calling love. Love answering love.

Days of Honey
In good work we live this day - setting off from a common centre: joined in desire and trust of a true heart, sharing the harvest of the good, the beautiful and the true.

Dodi Li
My beloved and I are one. The love that expresses through us awakens the remembrance of the Father in the Son. “See me and ye have seen the Father”. This cannot be spoken of - but the Son is the Word of the Father and the Father gives through the Son.

El Ginat Egoz
The fruit of Divine love - the ‘Holy Spirit called down’ - in the hearts of those who receive.
To the Nut Grove
I went down into the nut tree grove,
to see the green plants of the valley,
to see whether the vine budded,
and the pomegranates were in flower.
Let us get up early to the vineyards.
Let us see whether the vine has budded,
its blossom is open, and the pomegranates are in flower.
There I will give you my love.

Elm Tree
Mercy’s deep consolation holds the heart in peace amidst the trials of the world.

Embrace the Shadow
Love embraces all that is true and finds its own - all that isn't true - isn't. The willingness to ‘feel the fear but follow the heart anyway’ is to break the spell of fear and embrace a greater light of pure awareness - in which the story of self is undone in perfect inclusion. From embrace and acceptance of such a light do we recognize the shadow as cast by our own thought - and yet by seeing - is this no longer hid in the dark but revealed in light.

Faith
Conflicted relations IS a call for peace to restore sanity - for conflict is an unsanity of ungrounded perceptions that breed threat and offense; distrust and fear. Just as tired children who can become manic and uncontrollably energy-drunk are needing solid rest but cannot find it. Darkness is the opportunity for Light to shine exactly where it is in fact called for and needed.

Farewell Shalabiye
Jesus prayed directly from his heart and not by rote - in that he turned attention within - in the quietness apart from the bustle of life - and trusted the communication and communion of love as his nature, his source, his guidance and his being. We often want steps and methods and such structures can serve but can also become a way to remain dependent on externals - when the Call is to awaken to the feeling awareness of life in expression - to be its expression - alive!
This dance has an opportunity to trust and allow the hands and arms to express. There isn't a right and wrong - but there is a true and false. True expression is at one with the heart and not merely an applied technicality. Use applied technicality to grow trust - not to protect from having to give it!
To be opening or growing willingness for truth is a living process and cannot be judged by the mind. There is a process of greater freedom of expression - and what is expressed is more clearly discerned - yet the Movement of life is an Is! - and not a was.
The music and dance is also a bridging of clashing cultures - an offering of peace amidst a confusion of difference.

From the Cross to Light
The mentality of self judgement and self punishment, (crucifiction), may be enacted in the world as a script of injustice, arising from a false but deeply ingrained self-ishness that engenders - and is supported by - guilt and fear.
At some point we begin to weary of the meaninglessness of suffering in ‘independence self’, and reach out, to let in truth, by releasing our investment in my story: ‘all about me’. For we desire peace in our heart.
As we grow in our desire to awaken we realize we had seen all things as through a glass darkly - covering the knowledge and remembrance of truth in the heart. In attempt to live ‘in a loveless world’, we grew a self-image that is defended, masked, and yet keeping our love and joy unseen and unshared and without witness. We hide in our story of the world - that we be kept hidden from truth - for we fear truth when we listen to the voice for fear.
In desiring peace I release the will by which I meet only confusion and meaninglessness, and accept in its stead - original or revealed Self - of which I learn as if anew until the Light remembers what and where it is and was and always shall be. (God’s Will).
Habits run deep that were deeply cherished and the journey from the cross is often associated with loss, fear and resistance - yet these are but further journeys to the cross in yet subtle disguise. For the awakened joy of release from suffering cannot itself be a call to suffer.
For the call to suffer is a separate will that has been discerned as loveless thinking that leads nowhere.
Disengaging from, releasing, and not reacting or identifying with that voice - becomes the way of hearing the still small voice of the heart - which is always Present and is the connecting of you in truth with all that is true. Now all things serve a different Master - now all things are an opportunity - not for division - but for love’s presence to reveal itself.
In the world are tares and wheat both - two minds that speak as guides for seeing - and as we choose to listen so do we perceive.
The lost seek outside themselves - busy finding many things and yet finding nothing - for nothing is outside themselves but for the wish that such be made true for them.
The found seek within - and surrender in trust - for they know they are not their own maker and therefore the makings of the mind that thinks it-self apart - can not be truth. Giving the mercy and love and compassionate forgiveness that arises from a surrendered heart is the restoration of the mind to its wholeness. Heaven is here.

Garuda
Mary Magdelen’s love and intuitive guidance brought her to the chamber - where the stone was rolled back and no corpse was to be found. Her mind could not understand what her heart was revealing. Jesus - love of her heart of hearts - revealed alive in light and truth - even here. The approach of perfect love shines away the hidden self of fear - that seems to rise a moment in conviction of unworthiness and sin - only to be gently passed by in acceptance of truth as it is. In Peace.

Gentle Tsamikos
Jesus living message of love from the Father as the Source of Love came to many hearts ready to hear - and they could not but go forth in a new demeanor - a light within that yet shone through them and spread to other minds who were likewise open to receive.

Hallelujah
The holy and the broken experiences in the world are both fully felt and known and yet both are released in the willingness to sing praise in the heart to the Source of Creation - who is known through the heart that gives . In expressing life as it is - we become present to the underlying feeling and released from an emotionalism that arises from private thinking. The knowing or guidance in the heart is no kind of censor or judge.

Heart to Heart
The communion of love is the relationship within - expressed through and embodied by - tangibility : the world : each other. As we release ‘other ness’ and its defences we recognise our selves in each other and the light in all things.

Heaven Today?
Asking within becomes the conduit for the answer to come through. The flowing peace is the condition in which distortions of thought are not operating. The questions of the mind are not answered - but the desire in the heart is met.

Huron Carol
The seeking of the Divine - following the sign - led by a light - to beyond human sight, Holiness is the light of being itself and not a special object or person. With these new eyes we return to the world - to ‘our kingdoms’ in growing willingness to be guided in honouring and serving the truth that Is before Abraham was. To become on earth as it is in heaven.

Inti Tusuy
Living with a bright countenance by orienting to receive light - loving God and loving God’s Son in brother and sister and world - as one love.

Javore
in the company of the heart we feel and know and have our being in love.

Joc La Sinciene
Rising above the heavy sounds of the world - a beauty soars clearly to behold. Even the wake of the wound is turned to beauty

Jovane Jovanke
Experience of loss becomes an imprisoned yearning trapped in the past - but the prompting of the heart bids step forward and become present in gratitude and release the past along with the mind that holds your heart to its confines. Let the beauty of love shared walk alive in this day in me. ‘Let the wound become the place where my heart in love is truly known’.

Kareve Yom
in following the Father’s Will Jesus comes to recognise a gift moving within that love would make to love now stirring in sleep - the revelation of eternal life in sinlessness made tangible.
To give oneself so completely that only God is - where ‘my life’ seemed to be. And God is all in all.
This conscious ‘dying’ into Light while yet alive - was the culmination of an ongoing demonstration through Jesus’ life that God’s Spirit is one - the truth and life of all.
Jesus accepted this gift by giving it - through his own willingness to be a vehicle through which God lives - and only God lives. In such complete release of the human personality; ‘Jesus’ - did Christ awaken.
No self but only a selflessness that knows one Self in all.

Kore
The Father/Mother is one - undivided: Indivisible: the Flow or Expression of Being. Without beginning or end - eternally giving. In the Son/Daughter is the knowing Thyself. Love the Source and Truth perfectly and love thy Brother - Sister as Thy Self.

Lo Yisa Goy
‘Peter - put up thy sword’ ‘Love your enemy’. Love the ways of peace and forgive as you are forgiven for they are one. ‘Even as ye do unto the least - ye do unto me’.

Misir Lou (Vradiazi - Its getting dark)
For the disciples immediately after the Crucifiction
I searched for you at the dawn,
I found you at the afternoon
and I spoke to your heart.
I entered in the black fate.
Northern wind knocks at my door,
and in my soul cold,
and in my bitter eyes,
little by little it’s getting dark.
I searched for your eyes,
to walk in the light,
to make sweet dream,
to close old sorrows.

Misir Lou (Sto Periagiali)
“My Kingdom is not of this world”
On the secret seashore, white like a pigeon, we thirsted at noon, but the water was brackish.
On the golden sand, we wrote her name, but the sea-breeze blew and the writing vanished.
With what spirit, what heart, what desire and passion, we lived our life ... a mistake!
So we changed our life...
Composed by Mikis Theodorakis Based on (Arnisi) DENIAL [English trans : Edmund Keeley and Phillip Sherrard]
Giorgos Seferis - (Nobel laureate and one of Greece’s best loved poets).

Morning Blessing
Reawakening - whole bodily - in Gratitude. The orientation of the heart at the beginning of each day.

Mucho Madruga
We approach the center as we feel the call - we learn to pause and listen in stillness. Moved only by the movement within, we travel - we learn to listen for where we are - we are willing to release a fixed place and to step back and listen - we need to repeat that for it is a new willingness that has come to replace old habits of will.

Nada te Turbe
May nothing disturb you.
May nothing astonish you.
Everything passes.
God does not go away.
Patience can attain anything.
He who has God within,
does not lack anything.
God is everything!

One Love
Let’s join in one heart revealed - and feel ... alright!

Oro Ce Vie
A full hearted procession - sing and be glad - Hosanna!

Pravo Plovdisko Horo
Yielding to the will that is known in a quiet heart with grace, reverence and bridging the world of time and the timing of love. ‘In the world but not of it’.

Prodomeni Agape Mou
‘Love betrayed me’ - translates into the following by the Holy Spirit:
‘My wish of a love’ special to me - blinded and possessed me to see all things in its lens. But broken heart becomes open heart.
A resurrection song. Rising anew from the root where betrayal and loss of love have been felt and yet questioned in the truth of the heart to be undone and released of compulsion or necessity. This opens a presently childlike curious freedom to be from life anew.

Santos
Acknowledge and honour the Father Mother Source of all and be with love and gratitude renewed.

Sirdes
Love singing and always smiling, depart worry-free from this world of ours, whatever you do, will always be. do not believe in idle talk. I've missed you; don't you pity me? No longer can I endure the pain of separation. You're the physician who can heal me, don't let my love die in longing. May my love be intoxicated with yours, and my day with you pass joyfully, even if everyone will know, you are my heart's owner now. Let us love one another as long as we have now, for who will remain in this world forever. The world passes. (adapted from Translation)

Siriul
Jesus ‘called down’ the Holy Spirit - or rather - embodied it and brought our awareness to a capacity to discern and locate the Kingdom within. For the Holy Spirit is the higher calling that reminds you of your true home and seeks your willingness and acceptance to restore your mind to the love that it knows you eternally Are.

Tankosava
joining with others through our tasks - through our expression of common value and worth in solidarity, through our fun and play - we find vitality of life ever rising, always full.

Tsakonikos
Sharing one body - in honour of the Spirit of life that creates and flows through us as our life - we rest in your Current, feeling the subtle tides of life, and the moving with the rhythm that opens the space for the pause - a moment of conception where the eternal is for a moment clothed in form.

Tsamikos Heivala
“I have overcome the world” is the restatement of perfect inclusion in God.
For a world experienced as outside and between us, reflects a false belief.
For of a wish and belief and grasp for power does darkness seem to steal the light and render it nothing.
And yet persuade that its remaining power is the force of will necessary to survive.
But in faith and courage of the heart to hold true to its own Ground and Being is the mind of conflict starved of support and no hidden place for illusion remains. True victory is not over an ‘other’ but is the re-inclusion of the mind that believed ‘otherness’ was fear’s validity.
Great joy in release and homecoming!

White Bird
In all directions, walking only with peace for self - for each other and for world - is the way of meekness that inherits the earth - as heaven revealed and plants the demonstration of such a love into the Earth as a growing of the light in the mind that sleeps.

Yianni Mou/Goddess Invocation
From the womb of earth we are called forth by a light we cannot at first see - broken open of our dream self like a seed-case and rise to open and acknowledge the Life Force of the Sun. In abundant glory does the patterning of the earth flower. Consider the Lilies!

You Ain't Go-Nowhere
Limitations that deny freedom - the impossibility of escape from conditions that are ultimately called forth by ones own desire - yet hidden in the world.
The bridegroom cometh when ye thinketh not!
This is called the ‘kingdom cometh’ or ‘is nigh’ because to those who insist today is only as they determine it is - the bridegroom is hidden by their ‘already knowing’.
They will see as their thought determines and have their reward.
Truth cannot make war on illusion for to truth there is none!
When we come to the moment of trial we will know what to say and do - until then don't worry (or it becomes as if true by investment).
Leaving the state of freedom that is innate to awareness itself - to know itself through all things - is not possible except by disguise of illusion.

For by judgement can we exclude and by exclusion can we limit and by limitation can we suffer as one judged, excluded and limited.

Renewal (also published in Grapevine Spring 2009)

I heard a BBC radio program a while back that touched me – of some young Rwandans who had been both victims and victimisers on both sides of the madness that possessed them.
They had found - and needed to find - that singing and playing together for dance had offered a way to regain an entirely clean present. This did not answer their problems as such - but it opened an intimate spiritual renewal from which to live a step at a time from a good place. A sense of life uncorrupted.
My sense is that only in a willingness or allowing of such total participation do we become altogether present – and in this we align with the very Gift of Being Itself – and so we receive new life. "Behold I make all things new" - (saith the Lord).
These Rwandans may be an extreme case where the motivation for healing is great – but it applies to all who are caught up in histories that blinker and deny the vision of innocence that only an altogether present perspective uncovers.
Such a participation of presence and passion is what I open to in my singing and it invites and touches a like quality in the dancers. Who hasn't noticed tendencies to judgement dissolve through the simple willingness to dance together?
Such experience doesn't answer our problems as such - but can surely renew and encourage us by restoring a perspective that is truly shared - in place of the endlessly recycled self-justified privacy or self-protection that a restless and often fear driven mentality locks us into.
As a young man, an insight came to me that the act of 'blanking' another human being was the soil on which holocausts and genocides depend and ultimately express. Denying reality of another is asserting one's private judge.
We all have to find our way with what we have and seem to be - yet that way is not really about succeeding in the ways that the world tends to fantasize - but is a way of experiencing and sharing in our good. This need be no fantasy but is available by the law of giving and receiving. For by what we give out do we set the measure and the kind of what we receive - and vice versa.
In what may seem to be uncertain times I invite you to become certain - not in conceptual terms - but in the orientation of your heart.
For what we desire is what we give attention to - and what occupies our attention is witness to desires we held before.
Therefore let us renew our appreciation of life, each other and ourselves, by joining in a sense of life shared. For is this not the discernment of being in love - that you walk not alone?

Following a Calling

This is from a letter I wrote recently to a potential venue for holding gatherings or weekend events and I publish it here.


I am following a calling with dance – in that I am alive with the sharing of folk and circle dance as a community expression of shared humanity amidst an opening experience of oneness of being. This is always by invitation and never imposition. Dancers discover for themselves as they are willing.

This is something I have been involved with for many years along with co-organising Dance Camp East and running my own Mayflower Camps. The Camp scene has been (for me) a process of flowering, fruiting and apparent death into seed – yet much of what was opened within the community camp process remains altogether alive in me and is now growing within the larger world. This for me has been a ‘coming out’ and yet also a step by step process where I am accepting the way of willingness rather than the way of self-will. A guided way rather than an imposed vision.

In the dancing that I offer – we use songs and music from many lands – including contemporary songs of our own land and times – that have expression in dances that are shared in an intention to join. An experience of inclusion in a common inspiration.

One can approach such dances on the level of learning steps and applying them. But this is a liability of the mind which separates and thus sees all things separate. Of course as a teacher I communicate the dance movements – but I do so in relationship – in a spirit of welcome and trust – and use mime and music as well as verbal and mental mappings of step or pattern. This invites a greater participation that is itself an invitation to live from a different place than ‘thinker’ - such that the ‘what of it’ is an expression of the ‘way of it’.

The principle of dance is that of expression of spirit in and through form. The mind can short circuit this by mimicking the form as a presentation without connecting the spirit but this cuts out the source of inspiration and is essentially joyless – no matter how much effort or energy is applied or invested to the form.

We easily forget what joy is when we associate it with conditional self satisfactions. When we forget what it is we are, we become self involved in empty presentations. There is a need – I feel – for gentle ways of releasing the mentality by which we misidentify in ungrounded and unfulfilling behaviours of thought and intention.

Circle dancing is a form or structure that can be pitched at any level – fun, recreational, breaking the ice and allowing us to actually join in a simple movement. Such a willingness opens avenues of relationship that tend to be hidden from the normal modes of socially connecting – allowing a heartfelt sense of presence to rise in awareness.

We also dance meditational movements, as well as in the yearnings and prayers - or expressions of our spirit - that rise from suffering loss and limitation.

The music and dance express our humanity because music is originally a language of the heart – or Soul – the feeling dimension that is meaning. The presence of which in our day is our true wealth – for without it the world profits us not.

In this writing I have ventured to express verbally what I feel is inspired nonverbally in the dance as I share it. Sometimes some words may come in – in context of a particular moment – but the dancing is a connected attention that is more about a flow in being and not an explanation.

Living out from being – rather than living out from one’s own thinking – is the necessary path when we realize that our best thinking has only served to bring us to a sense of relationship with life in which we are to embody trust rather than exert control from an experience of distrust.

The times we live in are a call for help and there is need. But the help that meets the need must express a grounded sanity.
Whatever tasks we take on, we are all in need of ways to come together as well as ways to come to rest in our own being.

I feel that what I am growing is part of fulfilling such a desire and that it may resonate with your own vision.

In Peace

Brian

Introduction#1 - What is Circle Dancing and why do I share it?

Circle dancing uses folk and contemporary dancing with an emphasis on the supportive atmosphere that comes from joining and moving together in dances to music from around the world.

As well as traditional dances from the Balkans, Europe, the Middle East and beyond, there are new dances to all kinds of music. We usually hold some intention to become attentive within - as might be found in Yoga or Tai Chi - and we are not performance related nor lubricated by drink as in a social dances. As a result there grows an inner sense of integration that also reflects a sense of communion or connectedness in the group. Many of our dances are gentle and meditative.

This is also why it is sometimes known as 'Sacred Circle Dance' - not because the dances themselves are necessarily or overtly sacred - (though they may be to some degree or other) - but from the intention with which they are danced. Over the last 25 years or so, the network of dancers and teachers has grown to express many different approaches - for it is a movement made of individual initiatives and has no central body or structure.

Where many activities aim at attaining something or getting somewhere, I feel circle dance works well to remember and express something that is already true - and to grow it. For the heart’s appreciation of life is easily neglected in our business and we become distracted.

In this sense circle dancing is re-creational, a presently remembering, renewing and therefore harmonizing of life - in mind, body and spirit. It can be pitched for any kind of occasion and uses dances of every kind of mood that can be joined with at many levels - and is inclusive in it's orientation.

Our culture has tended to emphasise 'the individual' to the exclusion of our true and common interest. It invites us to consume and acquire, as if to do so is life's purpose. It also asserts and persists such a mentality through our subscription to it’s thinking - rather than allow the sharing of a greater participation in life that includes and actually fulfills our individuality in a felt relationship.

Circle dancing can be used as a tool to rediscover that we are feeling beings rather than emototional management programs. All things can but serve the purpose to which they are put. And where there is a willingness to discover, life reveals itself in ways that call us awake - and we feel the joy or the peace of it.

Yet it is enough to join a dance and discover for oneself - in our own way and time - and there is no need to be intellectual about the dancing nor to be overly preoccupied with learning steps - they really do come easily as one relaxes - and many dances are simple patterns that the body learns easily.

I share dances in a relaxed and musical way with a minimum of ‘problem solving’ and bring a willingness to find the ways that work for us in the moment we find ourselves. I also often sing and play for the dance, and in this as in my teaching, I work within a act of trust - which brings forth a different music than a product or performance.

From our lives comes song and music that expresses 'what it is to be human' - in its fullest sense. In gratitude and appreciation of living, we join to honour and celebrate life and therefore each other and our world: we dance.

Insofar as our world presents us problems, needs and difficulties to meet and find solution, they may be met from a calmer perspective than by mere reaction - in which we often polarise conflict or diminish ourselves to feel ‘safer’. "Stop the world I want to get off!" is surely an expression of desiring to regain a grounded sense of sanity and value. Circle dancing is a for me part of a way of living from such an intent.

And this is actually touching into the dimension that we all need - in every sphere of activity. Because without choosing ways to remember, we simply remain lost in our own judgements and fears - which always distort our perception and become self fulfilling experience.

No amount of thinking or application of law or force or money or effort can make a welcome for each other arise in our own hearts. So compelled are we to thinking and judging - (in the name of 'self' protection as may be) - that we can scarce recognise each other unless we have shared something together for a while.

Yet when any old judgemental armouring falls off - we regain a sense of light and movement. A freedom within whose song is joy. Even a moment of such can lift our day - and our demeanour is always more communicative than we know - in our family, and work and community.

Yes, we generally join hands, and dance in a circle or line - and find freedom to simply be moved by the musical moment - which with discernment we grow to appreciate so much that was hidden before.

At this point, perhaps humanity is at the brink of choosing to continue to think alone - with all the miscommunication and struggles that that brings - or release control enough to let life happen!

The dancer within is not the one who can get the steps - it is the one who hears the music and lets it express through them as the steps. There are some dances that are as simple as walking and swaying - it is not a complex thing - but more a sense of being danced by life.

This is where words have to be put aside and let 'that which knows' lead the way.
It isn't a mystery - it's life dancing!

The Network

I have a sense of disconnections when I think of the circle dance network.
A sense that 'network' - means disconnected bits, as if 'free to do one's own thing' but without any real grounding. Yet I suppose that's may also be a way to generate experience that will cause the need for grounding to be sought. After all we do not have a strong grounded tradition already in place that holds us in guidance for a life inspired.

To an extent 'market forces' regulate some aspects of life - in that if there is no life in it - it withers from not being given attention - because it doesn't work. But while anyone believes they can get from it - it will be invested in until the bubble bursts.

Yet our own market led society is not an example of the living truth being more subscribed to or attractive than 'masked ploys to self furtherance and preservation'. (See my last post re living truth - I'm not talking about beliefs or ideologies or asserted positions or definitions).

Birds of a feather flock together.
We do not always feel a kinship or belonging with what others choose to do - but if we do not look to our own love that it express through us as we find opportunity to share it - it 'dies'.

This could be choreographing dances that some will abhor - or it could be that it expresses as most meticulous and demanding demonstrations and attention brought to sharing dances that some are simply not attuned to appreciating. But surely, when the intent is greater than merely feeding selfishness - then it carries a tone that some others will feel and join with. How could it be otherwise?

Let the wheat and tares grow together until harvest.
This is a way of saying that there are times to attend only the good and trust the harvest to sort - because the attempt to remove the tares damages the wheat (the good). Harvest can be seen as a future event - yet can also be seen as the light by which we discern in our own life that which undermines or denies the good, from that which sustains or welcomes it. For the sole purpose of relinquishing one in favour of being whole in the other.

Hate the sin - not the 'sinner'.
The urge to see the 'bad' as external to us and thus exclude it - to punish, attack or ridicule or blank - is deeply embedded in human thinking. The 'voice' that calls for this is a lie and needs to be truly seen for what it is - or it will control us unawares and perpetuate life-as-war.

There are many seeming levels and facets to human consciousness and one could say humanity has been the exploring and expression of these. Humans have or will sooner or later do most anything that they can imagine doing and which attracts them - even if it does so subliminally via fear. What we give attention to is in effect what we feed and call forth - reaping as we sow.

Of course we don't experience ourselves free to act without consequence and our behaviours are usually brought into social rules that keep some degree of order in which consciousness can grow and learn.

Healthy plants do not attract pests.

If carelessness becomes acceptable currency - then love in all its attributes is obscured.
Carelessness is un grounded, lacking presence - a kind of sleepwalking.
It is a call for correction and education - not judgement in self righteousness.

I do have a sense of so many who are awake and active in the appreciation and enjoyment of joining in music and dance. We all have particular preferences or callings and are thus the pallet through which a greater life expresses - and reaches out to others - than can be defined or contained in single approach.

Network - I think - originally meant a connecting or series of connections that were not necessarilly hierarchical. Yet there are nodes or hubs or servers that are giving into the larger community and I don't see why they cant be working at apparently different levels and yet share the peace - and call themselves what they will. But be given definition by what you are devoted to and not by what you are against - or the endarkenment persists.

Disappointment is a way that truth taps us on the shoulder to point out that we set up the appointment according to our personal expectations - and life did not do as we wanted. This is a great opportunity to invite the Spirit within to offer its curriculum where ours failed. But if you miss it - don't worry - it is like our dance - it come around again and yet again until we join the dance with both feet.

A Peace train of thoughts

Does not each one of us have a particular perspective – coloured by our particular history?
This can seem a handicap and can become a curse, when it fuels human conflicts – but it can become a special gift when we use the same goad to judge and exclude as a deeper opportunity to teach and learn peace.

We share one life – yet we each ‘see’ - or interpret - though a lens of personal investments.
What life is – as awareness and feeling – is common to us all – whether we elect to acknowledge it or not.
But we tend to become identified with a restlessness of thought and reaction in which we are often not very directly in touch with feeling and knowing anything. We become more or less adept at managing the unmanageable by whatever means works for life as we experience it. But in our dance and in life we also have moments of flowing connected being - or glimpses of a perspective that allows and celebrates life in its instant to be just as it is.

When anyone dis-covers anything of peace, by whatever means, it will always be an experience that is shared rather than a privately asserted reality.
In its moment, there is a quality of life that is neither compulsive, driven, manipulative or exploiting – nor anxious, self regarding, problematic or defensive.

The part of our mind that seeks to control usually reasserts itself and obscures our peace or whole souled-ness – and may well even do so in the attempt to ‘understand’, (control), exactly such matters as I address here. But even as the dance comes from the music – so our understandings need to come from our heart. First they are felt or intuited – and then we find ‘clothes’ or thoughts and phrases to fit them in the particular circumstance we are in. Peace is congruency - when what we express is one with what we are.

I find that the beauty of our dancing has a context that invites such a shared experience. There are innumerable joys in its shoots and fruits – but if it is not rooted in a willingness to join in a spirit of peace then it may be using the forms of dance to protect against real or shared experience. Rather than make such a statement into a basis of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ judgements – is it not enough to say that we can discover a greater life than we thought we knew before – right in place where our unrecognised judgement before had worked to obscure it?

The ‘awakening heart’ cannot be anyone other than you yourself as you are, and have always been.
Not as our thinking presents its story to oneself or the world, but simply present without apology or justification.

The forms that joy delights in or expresses through are many but their light is one. In this recognition we naturally find willingness to an inclusive mutuality even in difference.
But in our tendency to defensiveness we are quick to see what is ‘wrong with’ the other or them or it. This seems to come naturally – yet it is a learned reaction.

In a desire for peace as the condition of a true appreciation of life we discover that this old habit works against us. It has to be owned and moved past or we are in effect choosing against our peace and against our own true desire. The value of peace is that it is the condition in which all things find their true relationship. What does it profit a man or woman if they gain an orientation to the world – yet lose their very capacity to feel and know the truth? Peace is far more than an absence of war. It is the unspeakable dynamic presence of life in our heart and mind as one. Unspeakable humanly – yet speaks itself perfectly where we are still enough to listen in our heart.

I have found life to be an ongoing opportunity for deepening and revealing the heart.
To be restored to a fundamental trust in our own life is to be restored to sanity – because it is the condition in which we are not playing games with our mind.
Yet I can only release the ‘obstructions’ of which I am becoming aware.

When I first danced I became aware (the dance brought to my notice) obstruction to reaching up, to moving with grace, to accepting beauty in myself, to trusting that I could be accepted and belonging amongst a community of people.... I am sure that if I meditated on this I could make a long list of ‘obstructions’ to the flow of relationship, inspiration, and expression of joy and connectedness. I am still becoming aware of them almost 20 years later – for whatever seems to rise to limit or interrupt the music, the dance and the channel of inspiration – comes to mind to be relaxed and released.

But the principle is that there are ‘places’ in us where we hesitate, hold back, disallow, withdraw or contract from the field of relational existence. These instances are not sinful or bad or blameworthy – though they may be associated sometimes with such confusion. They are like an old program running that no longer fulfils. However the program is not really the behaviour itself – but the beliefs that give rise to it. A sense of unworthiness for love is somewhere to be found in that which obstructs our innate or natural joy. To feel the courage to open into the dance even so is an opening to whole-ing – a healing in that unnecessary armouring or outmoded strategies of defence fall away and let me move!

It is a delicate matter in moving from a mode of apparent self protection into one of self trust and expression, and every case is an individual relationship because it has to be a dance of trust where willingness to enter or accept relationship is freely chosen. The condition in which peace can be discerned in our hearts and minds is always one of freedom from judgement. This is not to say noticing ‘judgements equals my bad!’ – but that they represent an old program running that no longer fulfils – and the habit is being brought to re-evaluation. Judgements have no power to be more than momentary distractions unless they are invested in, subscribed to and fed with attention and identification. It is quite possible to be more committed to being right than being genuinely happy in real relationship – but only while knowing not what you do.

To stay in with the music – with the hall or place you are in, with the hands you hold, and the group of dancers – when experiencing the result of judgement in oneself – is ego transcending. Feeling the block but not engaging fight or flight – but feeling within for a better way. - a way to become present with. The external will always mirror within and in solidarity with our dancing neighbour, we are growing a truer sense of self worth. To ‘love one’s neighbour as oneself’ is not a social manipulation – but is an expression of simple truth. The world will blind us to this while we fear love and trust fear to keep us safe. But my witness is that we are given steps as we are willing that are within our range, such that we become more grounded, calmer and grow in a natural kindness of heart.

As civilised people, we do not tend to express our naked thought and feeling openly – but rather we mask and suppress and tend to dissociate such that we are often strategically self serving. We can and generally do make society like this but it tends to be a negative cooperation: a joining in order to minimise discomfort in terms of whatever ideas are the power or fashion of the day; a joining against something defined or inferred as bad, dangerous or hateful. This is not joining in life but in illusion!

Truth is not a matter of argument or definition – nothing to think about here! Truth as I am using it is the renewal and refreshment of our spirit – the orientation of our heart’s desire. It doesn't matter if there is any such thought as mine here in anyone’s mind – but it does materialise tangible results when anyone finds or brings willingness to recognise and accept Life’s Invitation - and take a step in a greater music.

I love so many things about joined up dancing – sharing in common – celebrating what it is to be human in a larger context than boy meets girl – or boy meets lots of drum’n bass in anonymous darkness and flashing lights. But I also know that the Spirit is also right there wherever we are - offering an optimum path from wherever we seem to be – like a GPS offering the route anew with every wrong turning. So I trust that – just as I sometimes hesitate or back off or become confused amidst the willingness to live and love – so too do you all. But the heart is like a compass that we did not make and therefore cannot unmake.

Things may often seem to get worse before they can get better – perhaps because we do not want to accept responsibility because we equate it with burden or blame.
But we are not responsible to actually do the peace or do the love – but merely to become willing to undo the blocks to such presence and make it welcome.
To share common purpose with a happy heart is not difficult! To open our hearts to those who seem to want or do differently than us can seem impossible but the undoing of obstructions arises spontaneously from the willingness to look upon them exactly as they are – and not as they are presented.

I hold the experience dear of being guided and supported as a dancer within the dance itself and see this as ‘keeping the channel open’ in the whole body-mind.
It often looks a lot like having deep and serious fun – yet just as we are - and on purpose.

Notes and stories from some of my recent dance choreography

I have recently choreographed dances to these songs.

• ‘What are they doing in heaven today’ by the Be Good Tanyas.
• ‘Farewell Shallabiye’ by No Blues.
• ‘Drive the Cold Winter Away’ - a traditional Carol.
• ‘The Huron Carol’ (Twas in the Moon of Wintertime) - a traditional Carol.

Heaven Today?- as I have called the dance - is already a song I enjoy singing and in a simple way holds some deep truths that are supported in the lilt and yearnings of the song - which lends itself to harmonies and a heartful expression. I have also long held a sense of wanting to dance more of the songs I sing - and to add more English songs to our dance repertoire.
At various times, unborn dances nudge or prompt me. Some attempt to be born and have many hours and moments spent that yield only a dance in pending but not really through. It isn't a matter of finding or deciding steps but of feeling the qualities in the song and music and honouring these in the dance. Heaven Today? has a lazy lilt where the singing lags the waltz just a little - and hold the theme of human loss, suffering and courage - and asks a question that cannot really be framed in worldly terms which in broadest terms holds a sense of life beyond the world we seem to know and struggle within.

When I choreograph, it is a form of playing. I allow movements to occur and explore those which feel alive. But often many possible variations arise and it can become quite maddening - so there can be a need to establish some basic sense of the way of it - as a sort of skeleton structure or idea in which to focus. But always the head has to serve the heart or else the dance becomes a sterile imposition. Of course the experience of this is more about trusting myself than it is about rules of any kind - but there is a rule of asking within as to how it feels - and what it speaks of or teaches. I often find lovely movements that nevertheless do not have a home in the particular dance I am working with.
It is often the case that some of the movements evoke or symbolise aspects of the dance - and where these fit without force they are welcome. In the parts of this song where hardship is sung, I found the dance moving closer to centre but turned away from it - and for the part that approaches ‘heaven’ we simply move to centre and sway - but initially with downturned eyes and humbly - because we do not expect to deserve Light, Love, and Peace from our worldly identity. But when we look up we actually find neither sin nor sorrow - this has a reaching up and discovery that is also shared at the centre. ‘Peace is found/abounds like a river’ is one part of the song that does not have this lazy lilt - and flows as a continuum - which feels congruent with the lyric - so also in the dance the continuum of sway, turn and grapevine and sway is all exactly on the beat and without pause in a flowing movement.
I also like a dance to have something unique in it that carries a moment of discovery for the dancer and perhaps extends the vocabulary of movement - but again this is a matter of discovery rather than invention. In this dance there is a common motif of a sway that on completion spills into a turn on a swivel and another sway - which is not something I have met with before.

‘Farewell Shallabiye’ by No Blues.
This is an exercise in Arabicana - a fusion of a US blues track and an Arabic song. I feel that to join these cultures in shared joy is itself a prayer that heals. It is feelgood and upbeat with exotic Arabian threads through what otherwise could pass as a JJ Cale track. I danced a very simple intro dance to it at an IFD workshop that was like a congo and quite unsatisfying to me - but I got a copy of the music and found it lovely - and desired from time to time to dance something more congruent to it. The whole dance came to me while my partner Cathi went to post some parcels at the local Post Office - almost ready made and effortlessly - (Whereas heaven today had required concerted persistence and been crafted over many sessions).

There is an instrumental theme that is very catchy and occurs between each other part of the music and this found a simple crossing step with a slight lean and a lift of hand and foot as one. Totally brainless and immediate as well as easy to gain orientation without need to count anything. The blues part found a series of step, slipstep and sway that just fits the flow of the delivery. When the Arabic singing comes in I felt to let it be an expression primarily of the hands - so I let the feet have a sort of grapevine where the latter two beats were more expansive - like the singing - and the hands were free to move to the arabesque singing. This is an area of growth and awakening for most circle dancers - and with appropriate permissions and encouragement is enjoyed greatly. So much of our expression as dancers is forfeit when we hold hands all the time. The second time the Arabian part comes round it is much shorter and subtler. I invite this to focus more on the energetic of presence expressed through subtly held gesture - and scarcity makes it precious as there is no time to take it for granted! At the final part there is blues and Arabic singing in fusion - and I hold this as an opportunity to do the blues part of the dance in the hands free and expressive style. This is not accessible at first for most so I leave it as the standard ‘blues’ part of the dance until the dancers have found the dance in their bodies and their own freedom in hand gesturing - but again is an opportunity for growth as a dancer.

What is growth as a dancer?
Not really the acquiring of techniques or skills so much as the release of obstacles that allow the fuller freer expression of life in dance.
Of course this coincides with increased perspective and freedom within a more spacious awareness to feel and be presently expressive as the very resonance of the music in ones own being. A grace and lightness of being. A natural un-armoured demeanour. A calm and receptive presence.

‘Drive the Cold Winter Away’ - a traditional Carol.
Well actually I made this last year - Christmas 2007 - but wanted to add a few notes here.
It is a merry and convivial carol with references more to the warmth of forgiving, restful and celebratory hearts than direct references to Jesus’ birth - and I wanted a simple but fitting movement that flowed in the manner of the 6/8 music. As I write this I have just seen a partner option for the first part that would add further merry meeting.
It has a pattern that naturally invites looking up in greeting - with a ‘Condor’ moment at the centre. The Horslips instrumental version is fine for when driving the winter away appeals but the seasonal celebrations are behind us! I haven't news of a good recording of the sung version that fits yet - but it is fun and hearty to sing and I enjoy doing so.

The Huron Carol - a Trad Carol.
I found versions of this Carol on youtube and liked elements from different versions - but for the dance initially I was drawn to a version that can be viewed HERE
I was drawn to the sense of opening and aspiring in the third line that then falls into a pause amidst a rather strange and wonderful incompletion from which the chorus then stands forth. I immediately ‘felt’ a dance!
As it happens the week before I had made up a simple dance on the spot for 4 seasons because I didn't recall or like the original but wanted to sing and dance the song - and the first part of this tapped me on the shoulder and said "I fit this Carol just right" - and I agreed. It is a forward travelling step slipstep step - slightly expanding and contracting.
The third line faced centre and palms up moved in to right, in to left. The 4th line has us step back before then stepping in to centre and bending knee in reverence and pausing. The chorus then bends again and suddenly rises our arms as we steap back and rock and sway to indicate the cardinal directions which is also a cross and arms come down with a slow grapevine to finish.

The feelings of this are a travelling around that comes to face centre in willingness to behold and receive - yet this is in some sense hesitant as of approaching a holy state or place that the conditioning of our past might have us feel tempted to unworthiness or fear of - for we are stripped of our pretensions in such a light. Yet we do approach and in essence kneel or give recognition, welcome into our heart and honour. This for the wise men who left their kingdoms in guided search for truth and received it. The immediate response of the awakened heart is to give joyously and to rise and release and allow the light to plant itself in the world through them, here in this place, here with these hands I join.

Now of course these words are not in the dancer - but something of such energetic symbol is innately in the dance and it is a way to bring the appreciation of the entrance of the divine into the human story - into wordless experience felt and known.

There are other aspects to the Huron Carol lyric that I hope to address. I will make a new lyric from the literal translation of the Huron version that was made by St Jean de Brébeuf a jesuit missionary in (then) New France c.1643. The popular verses used are simply a version made by Jesse Middleton, a Toronto journalist and church musician in 1926 that renders the standard nativity in American Indian terms - whereas the original included aspects of teachings in addition to nativity references.

That Christianity may be associated with the white man’s subjugation and genocide of indigenous peoples is distinct in my mind from the story of Jesus - which is not owned or ultimately interpreted by Christianity.
The crucifixion was an act of ignorance. The mind in ignorance knows not what it does - for it does not know what and who it is! Jesus is a story of a man who did know he was ‘of the Father’ - and who released his own will in service and love for ‘the Father’s Will’ found in his own heart’.

Which brings me to consider the sacred and dance as a subject for a future blog entry.
But for now I would say that to be congruent in receiving and expressing the music felt in heart and body, is to be adding not - nor taking away - but is in effect surrendering one’s self will to allow a greater Will - and this is the open ‘door’ to the sublime in whatever kind of quality of life we share.

PS - The Huron Carol - I have gotten a version by the Crash test Dummies which I will try with either a slightly adapted (simplified) dance - or use Amazing Slow Downer to play it a bit slower.

A bit about me and dance and the journey of awakening

I came to circle dance in the late 80's when a friend sent me a flyer for a dance weekend. I'd been involved in spiritual search, which had fruited such that I no longer felt to be seeking in private, but growing by sharing from a willingness to join. I didn't know what this dancing was - but felt it had a spiritual aspect - and that we could go as a family.
I couldn't dance - a helpless grin on discoordinated spaghetti legs! But the atmospheric was tangibly open and inclusive - and curiously from the outset- I 'knew' something was offerered me to share through. A path and a tool. A song at the time summed it up: “From you I receive, to you I give, together we share, by this we live”. Yet the dance itself didn't need even such few words to be potent in opening the heart.

I use the word heart here simply as our truth sense. Living with and from the heart is closer to the life of us - though in opening we also uncover the 'human conditionings' that tend to self-protection and denial of life rather than its giving and living. Grounded guidance is found within the music and the flow of our present - yet as long as there is an attempt to control from a mentality of self protection, this will not be felt or recognised. 'Knowing ourself' is not a collecting of data for developing a new self presentation - but simply growing a capacity for trust based on self honesty. Trust is the bedrock on which all sanity rests and it is not a matter of thinking or analyzing so much as feeling our way. Safety, is an inside job.

Immediately after the weekend, I saw on tv some Arab guerillas dancing preparing to fight, and Hitler youth folk dancing. I saw joined dancing carries an invitation or expectation to join a form - which may not mean what it presents itself as - and a response - which is the faith and intention of those who respond. Dance is a tool or a vehicle that serves the purpose for which we employ it. This is a fundamental truth of mind: All things serve the purpose accorded them.

My early dancing years were an incredible time for me. A living path is like as to where the inspiration within is alive and life aligns with learning in joy and an unfoldment in grace. From the early 90s I shared the dance and hosted network events from my home as well as connecting at Easter meets and Dance Camp. I worked a self employed craft candlemaker with 4 children - and Emily - our second - was handicapped. The care of Emily and family life meant I had to cut back on my dancing path - though I kept local groups. This became a sense of stillborn child in my own heart - but I felt a duty of priority and we had very little support around us.

Camps came into my life as a deeper golden thread - again our whole family could participate, again I was sharing of a freedom to be. Joy is the light that the heart shines whenever it knows its freedom. I don't dance to get something - but to be restored to a presence of giving and receiving - and dancing is an extension of living. So I became involved in running camps and that became my creative path or focus. I didn't want circle dance to be the invitation of my camps - but to be a tool within a more inclusive invitation - that expressed a community spirit in our whole camp.

When I last wrote to Grapevine it was with news of loss of my firstborn, Elanor. That was 1995. My response to that event was to let all that I was, be brought to renewal at the most fundamental level, for I had squandered an enlightenment in trying to make 'my life' work. I'd got it back to front. But I let go of teaching dance outside camp in 2000 amidst a dichotomy of the atheist and the martyr; either feeling juke-boxed by my own liability to 'give without joy' - or overstretched in giving all when leaning out into raw new creativity using live song and music (often found in the moment with whoever joined in). They both seemed to cost too much - though in opposite ways. I had a few more years to come to the point of choosing life and letting the fears go - in which my livelihood was lost to cheap imports, my marriage failed, my camps were lost and I was 'in the wilderness'. But for all the dramas and the stuff of it, I have come to a calmer and clearer abiding in life and letting it abide in me. Allowing 'new wine into new bottles'. Releasing old thinking that essentially made the script by which I forgot what life is.

To 'come out' again in teaching dance and singing for dance was extremely hard because it involved opening up an area where I had lost trust. It wasn't an issue of ability - but of true intent and dedication. When the very heart's desire seems to die or fail it is a loss of communication. Self unworthyness is so deeply embedded in our minds that it has become normal currency. But it is joyless.
For the core of what I felt moved to stand in and support was and is joy. Survival to me is all about living in truth and spirit, which is less about mentality of fear and more about trusting to live this day well, to feel the music of the day and move with it in gratitude. The call to joy is innate but often hidden, and works in mysterious ways that I don't have to know about or control - but I do have to heed the call in my own heart to know the gift by which I live.

The songs and music I sing and play for dance are the song of the human heart in all its cadences of yearning and delight, and they are each exactly felt and brought present such as I can 'get out of the way' and let the song live through me. This is the same for dancers: Relax of the world we carry in our head and feel the quality of whatever this dance is - in its unique setting in this place in our lives - becoming simply present where the flow of experience is alive and no one needs to try and say it or grasp it. Be found in such a grace and all facets will be uncovered in due course and take their place in a dance like a tapestry of threads that are distinct and yet express relation to the whole.

It's deeply fun - a moving experience - it's joined up and alive! - and runs as deep as our willingness to receive - which cant be separated from a willingness to share. To hold a welcome in one's heart for others is not to be a doormat - but to be consciously receptive.

If something alive isn't made into a 'Solution' it can be free of the problem - and a wellspring of sanity for all who come to drink. For sure when we have regained a healed perspective we are encouraged and more able to discern practical solutions where before seemed unworkable and dispiriting.
When we grow trust within our own being - it shares out, our armourings become automatically obsolete and we can share life in depth and subtlety without a word.

When I look at the world and see so many who share so little - I am glad to realize that they have such discovery awaiting them. But for me I have come to see that giving is not the cost I cant afford to keep making - but is the only way to remember the love in which I am whole. And so whatever it seems to 'cost me' is not to be weighed and measured. But that I find a willingness to share the dance I love is true cause for gratitude.

(This was written as a draft for a Grapevine article but something else I wrote was used instead so I put it here).

Dancing with Friedel Kloke- Eibl

(This has been transferred from my matters 'spiritual' blog where it was written on 15/04/08)

I have just returned from a dance weekend with Friedel Kloke- Eibl - a Sacred Dance Teacher who as a young ballet dancer trained with Bernard Wosien - who brought Sacred Circle Dance to Findhorn Community 32 years ago from where it has spread internationally. Friedel exemplifies the dance as an art and as a path of initiation - not merely an outer form that is acquired, mimicked, traded or collected.

I felt that Freidel communicated a warm and clear presence of no nonsense and in grounded but natural discipline. It was we who were expected to embody the willingness to bring attention present to what she offered. Her expression is of a directly felt conscious response to music and life and she held faith in us as dancers in process of discovery and awakening.

Freidel’s demeanour throughout the process was calm, present and considered in the light of her clear sense of purpose. Her joy was evident in her love of dance, her patience was acceptance of where we as students were currently at, but always inviting, a greater involvement than that which the current mindset or approach of the student allowed. So she was also willing to ‘trick’ of tease of drop the dancers into the deep end - or experiences of chaoticness - but she herself held and communicated a calm and connected composure and expressed confidence in all that she undertook even when we did not feel it in ourselves.

Circle dancers who are used to accessibility, exhaustive step maps in advance and motherly inclusion, as well as dancers used to being fed exciting and challenging dances had to let go of that expectation of habit - or be disappointed. Freidel used many simple movements as exercise for stilling and centering as well as using them as basic components of a more elaborate dance forms later in the session. Yet many of the dances she shared - most of which she herself choreographs - were precise in their intent and used hand and arm and gesture that was ‘just so’. This was challenging in a different way as it was really something to open to and allow or discover - rather than something to impose upon. Though Friedel would often comment on where some or all of us were not getting it or were asleep to the actuality, she never acted in any way that demeaned the dancer or worked to undermine their trust - though she was quite capable of simply not supporting a dancer’s expectations or demands and obliging them to take self responsibility.

Freidel would usually give a brief demonstration of the dance with an also brief and not very voluble description of sequence and then drop us - the dancers in it. I sense that she does this according to her sense of our capacity and not as an act of indifference. Although she would often answer questions with a warmth and patience that felt very loving and encouraging - she would often do so in ways that indicated that she wanted a greater trust from us for ourselves and her, and her composure discouraged casual questions or indeed acquaintance. but also she would repeat the dances many times and at each time we would be given further help or instruction as to our readiness.

Because of her approach we would often experience shortcoming and even chaos - which brought us into the arena of control and the lack of it but also of where the control is coming from. For the attempt to control life must yield to the heart if the dance is to become presently embodied and alive. In this and so many other ways she gave maximal opportunity to awaken to and from from our mental patternings and their interference with the dance. The manner and the art of travelling was emphasised as the dance and not the getting there - yet not with adding decoration or embellishment but rather of expressing innate qualities.

The workshop overall was rooted in and from a poised appreciation of one’s own relationship with ground and above - our vertical, and from there opening relation with others. Many of the dances were danced without hands joined - often to facilitate less distraction when learning and more freedom of movement. The social element was economized throughout the event excepting during breaks or outside the hours of practice. Yet Freidel would often express humour - particularly in her demonstrations and exaggerations of what not to do! She also took a few opportunities to read poems or talk about the dance. Being a large group in a large hall made active listening essential but even so we could not often hear as we may have wished. We did receive copies of the poems though.

Her sense of honouring the dancer was tangible and she worked with many at various times without showing either partiality or any lack of care to any - yet also she was spontaneously present in many moments of gesture , look or touch. In being so clearly the centre of our attention she also deliberately also made herself absent from being a replacement for our own responsibility - often leaving the circle - even before the dance began. her manner outside the circle was never one of scrutiny such as to intimidate but of a happenstance meeting with general attention to us on many levels and some periods of having her back to us so that we were not in the emotional dynamic of being seen or exposed to being seen. Yet she was also acutely open to opportunity for supporting her dancers and would not hesitate to engage directly in the most understated but direct expression of approval or a very subtle disappointment that itself seemed not to matter for what was gone but invited ongoing willingness to persist in the process of mastering the form in the heart such as to meet her in the spirit in which she teaches.
Whereas in circle dance we may often be used to a menu of dances whose intent is to be a journey of self fulfilment often using ‘known’ steps that we may exercise in boiler plate fashion, Freidel’s dances were more aimed at grounding and awakening us to aspects of where and what we truly are via the journey through what is obscuring that expression. The degree to which we are able to be willing and accepting-expressing truth is simply where we each and all are at any moment, but her willingness to serve and grow in willingness for such work was tangible. Her choreography extended and attuned the movements of dance but also returned again and again to the most basic stances or positions - as in classical ballet.

For a collector of dances Freidel’s workshop may have had a gem or a few such - but the experience was much more that of deepening one’s own dance and growing more present as the movement consciously expressing. This is not merely about dance - but speaks of life itself.

As such Freidel is not merely a dance teacher of professed sacred forms or notions but is in service and mastery as a demonstration and relationship in spiritual practice - a spiritual teacher or catalyst and invitation to wake up to Life. As with the dance, there are levels to pass through in uncovering and embodying a spirit unalloyed, and Freidel is accepting of these as with dance as stages that we pass through and not marks of status or specialness. Her teaching is expressed in dance and not as mental constructs to be asserted, refuted or chosen from.

My impressions here are my own. They may not resonate with others but they do express my experience. As my first meeting in dance with Freidel I am gladdened and encouraged to find such capacity and willingness at work in the world and I trust that something of what has occurred continues to be nurtured and grow through my own living and dancing.

Many look at Freidel and see a form that they could never hope to match - but this misses the point. The outer form is an expression of an integration of heart, mind and Spirit that will express uniquely and appropriately through us as we allow and discover the same within ourselves. A perceived or believed lack of self-worthiness is an obstacle that would bar the gate against grace being allowed expression through our very self. But if such thinking is put aside and the experience is embraced and allowed in, then we will discover more of ourselves than we could have ever found within the bound of such thought.

About this particular blog

I have been writing for some time on another blog at
http://livingcircle-dot-net.blogspot.com
mostly about matters that I regard as spiritual - of the heart, of the mind, of the spirit that moves and enlivens.

But I now want a place to address dance and music as a vehicle of expression of integrated being - and I use this broadly in terms of the experience of dance as well as particularly in terms of dancing in joined community and participation within such as circle dance may invite.

So as you can already see, no doubt, I remain a writer who seeks to raid on the unspeakable; matters of the heart, of the mind of the spirit that moves and enlivens.

Dead truths don't dance!

Inhibition to flowing, expressing, joining and generally being a presence of Soul in Expression is because in some way we hide our light under a bushel - or as the more recent Bibles would have it - a bowl ( I think a bushel might originally have meant a measuring basket or bowl).

What does it profit a man or woman who gains the steps but loses (the appreciation of intimacy of) their soul?

So yes I will let myself remind me - and perhaps you the reader - of this inviolable intimacy from which the world has turned our mind, but I will also address specific aspects that arise - as they arise and my fingers follow the dance of writing.

But in all that I write I seek to let fly from the cage and not to imprison.
It is true that the mind of words has sought to control and deny the heart - by listening only to his or her own private thought.

But tools are defined by what purpose they are employed to serve.
This is as true for the reader as for the writer - But - the intention is here. Feel it between the lines - in the phrasing.

The call to dance is not in the perfection of the form of the music - but in its spirit.
And the rest shall be added ye!