Thursday 22 December 2011

Cultural awareness and responsibility?

(This article was written in a context of discussing the issues of paying for legal copies of the music we use - as opposed to sharing between ourselves or downloading 'shared' illegal copies - especially when such musicians are part of providing the culture we value and enjoy).









The argument for not undermining our own commonwealth and well-being seems self evident to me. But we each draw our lines in different places - and grow in our willingness amidst a culture of support. Is money the only currency of exchange? I think not. Sometimes the gift shares on, but not backwards. I certainly see that with my parents gifts to me that then get shared on to my own children - who like me have no real sense of that yet - as they haven't had children themselves. When the gift is not shared, it is forgotten amidst a life of substitution.

If we try and impose our own current view on others (by implied guilt), we just might get others to conform by the letter - but not in the spirit. Or, we may instead become a symbol of holier-than-thou-ness - or 'political correctness' against which there will seem to be a freedom in reaction - albeit in the dark of a hidden activity.

To meet those who hold a clear sense of value and boundary in a way that is congruent with their own integrity is to meet a conscious intent. They may or may not inspire the same outer forms of adherence - but they will hold a tone or quality of being in the culture of their dealings with others and this CAN be picked up and can grow in a freedom to feel and discover for ourselves.

The freedom of acting from an innate integrity is altogether different from the sense of freedom got in reaction to perceived restrictions. It is relief from a dissonance of being.

In the world, there is the Gift, that is felt and shared, if you will, in the Spirit.  And there are the practicalities.
Using our gifts for our private self interest may be normal to our (more modern western) culture - but this is because individualism has usurped the cooperative structures of family, clan and tribal cultures - some aspects of which we would no doubt find greatly oppressive to our modern sense of freedom to express ourselves individually.

I feel that a lot of my life has been exploring and uncovering a sense of self within relationship - rather than of asserting self amidst what might seem to be many conflicting or competing relationships. In any group or shared purpose, there is the ongoing awareness of the balance of self interest with group interest - and as one learns to tune in deeper than merely thinking about what seems to be going on and feels or discerns within - at the same time as looking without - there is the allowing of experience of unified being - in which the outer and the inner are as one - without the interjection of a thinking strategy.

We often - I trust! - experience something of this in our music and our dance - for here is an arena in which we are more readily willing to temporarily let go of 'control' into a relaxed and trusting appreciation of the flowing Moment.

The Gift is in the Spirit - but we may exclusively associate it with the forms of the music and the dance. But they are the conditions in which we are more willing to relax.  There are no words for Unified Experience - not because it is private to each mind - but because it is beyond the scope of any private mind and beyond the limits of symbolic or conceptual representation.

But love is one of the words that can been used. Unlike human attempts to DO love - which express a wish or a transactional attempt to negotiate or manipulate oneself or others, the love that is uncovered as shared be-ing is not personally generated or directed.

An unconditional love, is simply a willingness to be love in any or all conditions - and this may in practice be a willingness to NOT choose the path of withdrawing or withholding, but instead to watch and wait for the prompts or sense of integrated direction that rises to awareness BECAUSE we are listening directly to a subtlety of being that our old thought habit disallows.

Like the circle dance, it doesn't matter if we lose our way or fall of into confusion, because we can simply stop struggling, tread water in a manner that is kind to our neighbours and look for where we can come in again so as to simply rejoin the dance. IT didn't go away while we had our confusion and nor ultimately, did we.

But the living dance rejoined is a sense of connectedness that restores, renews and enlivens.
Even as recordings can substitute for a live musical relationship, so too can a sense of  'owning and knowing' music and dance undermine the direct appreciation of the Gift.

There are all sorts of ways in which we could be a purist in terms of what we do or do not accept or cultivate in our lives, but this is not always expressing a true wisdom if it makes us rigidly inflexible and judgemental. What allows or invites a Sacred dimension to our music and dance is not necessarily anything overtly present in the form, but is the conscious receptivity and intent, of both heart and mind, to the Gift which is tangibly shared and by which we are moved, not only around the circle - but shifted in our perspective.

The sharing of the Gift is always its strengthening and its extending. "Go forth and multiply" is an attribute of the  embodiment of expression. But what we choose to give value to, will be what is 'shared' - even if it is undermining of our peace and wellbeing. For this reason, I would always not want judgemental processes to block awareness of what is actually active as the current choice of focus and attention. For I can only release bad habits of which I have become aware at the level of choice - which is always deeper than the level of judging and self presentation.

Scientists need to release what they think they know in order to observe and thus describe what is actually occurring - otherwise they know that they tend to 'see' or interpret according to pet theories or unconscious beliefs, So they learn be curious amidst situations that normally one would be personally reactive in. We are all scientists in this sense if we want to observe our own mental and emotional processes so as to make an always fresh conscious choice as to what does or does not express and witness for what we really value.

Our bodies can learn a pattern and take it from our mind - but if we let our mind take over the true function of the heart - which feels whole bodily - we drift off beam with conditioned reactions to life that are partial, past their sell by date - and represent yesterday's stepping stone rather than today's discovery.


When I learned to dance our way of dancing, I also learned about learning - because the practice was an ideal scenario in which to observe myself in blockage or confusion and grow responsibility. To learn in joy is to uncover a golden path where others merely see steps to learn and problems to overcome or master.  As if our validity is about fulfilling an external requirement rather than opening an expression of wholeness, through whatever kind of discipline it may be.

Reductionism is an understandable polarity to ritual or symbolic approaches if they feel ungrounded or coercive.
But wherever we personally choose to make our own points of emphasis, it has a place in a larger culture, in both its strengths and liabilities. It seems to me that much of our attempt to 'protect' the sacred or indeed the secular aspects of life, only limits the full expression of life in an attempt to avoid the feelings of conflict that are necessarily to be found around where we find our treasure or connection in life.

But feelings of conflict do not have to be acted out from, or answered or resolved externally in order to be felt, abided with in a context of shared purpose or intent - and allowed to release in music or dance as a shift of perspective. This is not to say that action isn't ever required, but that to act from a perspective of connectedness is very different from reacting from personal histories reactivated.

In order to articulate, I use chosen words - but none of this is about words. I feel to risk into communicating because I feel the a bankrupted disintegration of modern life and choose to Occupy my life and give voice to what I feel moving in me. I stand in the willingness to look within - but I also stand with those who express integrity - whatever side of any fence they seem to be on - because I do not feel alone - but in shared purpose; a larger dance.

Thank you for your attention

In Peace

Brian

Wednesday 21 December 2011

Dance Culture?

Quite apart from any issues around recording music, I have yet to experience being financially valued as a musician in the network except by a few. Part of this is - I feel - because recorded music has devalued live relationship in music. In a switch on and click world, predictability and perfection of form, reliability and controllability of outcome, have to a very large degree replaced live music as a culture. Not unlike the drum machine often replaces the drummer in the band these days.

I might add that I frequently - if not normally serve musically to move dancers at a deeper level than merely 'doing the tune' - and have no sense of being devalued personally. (ie unappreciated). Perhaps there are other issues with the Teacher of the steps not being in the same role or position as with a recording. A live option is not a product that can be gotten legally or illegally - that can then be in the teacher's tool-belt - and doesn't contribute to their 'livelihood or income'.

For my part, I feel to accept that the world I live in values things over relationships, but that I choose to live differently regardless - because I feel relationship itself is the Ground of Meaning that all else finds its place in. To the 'getting mind' a relationship is merely something to get from or make transactions of mutual getting. I say this is for-getting!
To the getting mind, the point of relationship - our now - is a fleeting experience - easily dismissed or disregarded in the culture of mutually agreed definitions that serve to validate and reinforce the essential and active motivating values that underlie our activity.
But the difference - as far as I see it - between dance as a healing, renewing and unifying cultural expression, and of dance as a another part of the marketplace of getting something for oneself either privately or in mutuality of private interests - is ALL the difference.

I am not advocating sacrificial relationship - but I am advocating an openness and generosity of spirit in the context of a larger culture - within which a greater sense of value is shared.


Our larger society and our world has been and is being systematically asset stripped culturally and ecologically, through a mentality of divide and rule - often hidden in promise of personal benefits at the expense of others, or of ownership of key elements of supply.  I don't feel it is just the climate that is changing, but of unavoidable exposure to re-evaluation of the values by which we live.

Law IS vitally important as the embodiment of, and maintenance of, the values of Life- but human made law is not always serving the interests of the whole. The concept of wholeness is absent from the market minded approach. But the market has a legitimate function as a service and expression of the health or wholeness of our society.

Until wholeness is awakened as our own living expression, the problem always seems to be that others fail to live as we think they should - and who really expects that to ever work except in fantasy?  Without real communication, communication itself is lost to the attempt to manipulate or coerce personal outcomes. There are no real winners in a battle of wills - as surely every parent knows!
And while judgement and blame are atmospherically active, who would come out and share what is really in the heart - whether it was reactive from a sense of injustice or even if it were responsive to the wellbeing of the greater good.
So, for my part, I see no renewal of nor sharing of a truly human culture while blame and shame are employed as meaningful concepts. I am quite ok with waking up to that I hurt myself by acting selfishly and feeling remorse and a change of heart - but not with being coerced thereby.

Nothing is as tricky and deceptive as our minds. Every so often this truth comes home to us all in very humbling circumstances. But such also offers the fresh root of an Innocent perspective.
At risk of losing my readership, I feel to finally note that the mind uses 'recordings' or images of self and reality, as substitutes for living relationship - and gets lost in the own spin of its own story.

The culture of honouring and bringing ourself present in Life - in our relational Now - is not a fleeting moment - but is the context of every moment. So even the recording of something that you have danced and heard a thousand times can smite you with its beauty afresh. BUT do we cultivate this? Or do we use technology to insulate ourselves from Life's Wholeness, and fall for an ever more dissociated dream of a life?

In Life, the word 'should' doesn't hold meaning as an imposition - but simply the honesty of our heart's desire. In mental shenanigans, we have all sorts of resistances to owning our heart's desire - and are afraid of it!
Education, education education!


(I trust that some humour is evident in what is also genuinely felt in this posting)

in Love's blessing
Brian

Tuesday 20 December 2011

I feel for a process and culture of education

As a musican and teacher who often pays for the privilege of sharing what I truly love, I feel in agreement with holding a culture that honours and supports its contributors - but feel it is an educational process that is part and parcel of valuing and holding a culture, rather than to be imposed coercively.

What follows is addressing this movement of education towards a truly human culture.




My emphasis would be that we deprive ourselves and teach deprivation when we act without integrity - but to understand this, one first has to HAVE a conscious sense of integrated being. This isn't generally part of our education or our culture and so is an ongoing educative experiential process. But the result of coming into a deeper integrity is of uncovering a shared nature that is otherwise covered over by a fearful sense of self that is blindly driven to get for itself.  We generally associate it with personal survival - but it isn't the deeper wisdom that knows how to relate to its environment intimately and appropriately, but a concept of self that substitutes for a living relationship. A defence. A mask. A presentation. As such, this is also a withdrawal of presence. When presence withdraws, shadows come in. This also applies in reverse.


When I came back into the Circle dance scene after a decade or so in the Camp scene, I would have loved to have found some financial support for what I was devoting myself to with a very high degree of commitment - but I generally didn't and haven't. For whatever reasons, the scene in North Norfolk is sparse, the groups are small, and I hadn't felt movement in me to actively promote what I do - (not least because I cannot communicate it merely in terms of dancing folk dances in a trusting and friendly context).

 My sense of the network was that it wasn't large enough to support a career based approach. Rumi says, "If you cant get fed, be bread". So I felt to trust into it as a Calling toward seeding a living culture, by expressing and sharing it anyway.  To surface thought it can often seem that this is like trying to light a fire with wet wood, but in the willingness to take each step in a wholeness and fullness of spirit, I have found it a transformative process - that has given me far more than could be measured in monetary terms. But I acknowledge that I have been able to do this because of living off a lump sum from the division of my estate after my separation from Lynne - and from the very active and tangible support of Cathi, with whom I share life, love and inspiration.

Now if I had to, I could sing in pubs and get a significant return compared to teaching and singing for dance. But the relational quality of singing for dance is Home to me, and I can give myself into it unreservedly, subject only to my capacity to trust and relax.
I don't know if I would be able to be so open or honoured in being so open, in pubs with diffuse attention and a liability to want pleasing rather than to bring receptivity. Perhaps I should try it.

But there is a difference in commercial approaches to anything. Not necessarily a better/worse, but there is a difference - because it is in the market place.  The market place was part of my life as a candlemaker - and in many of the events I participated in, such as festivals and fairs, the market place (market stalls with products and services), played a vital role in the energy and atmosphere of the event. But also it was easy to see how commercial forces distorted this over time, such that the relationship with the people shifted from livelihood to targeting 'punters' and maximising profits. Most everyone 'sold out' as the energy of a movement became lost to mimicking the forms without the feeling.

The modern day market is a kind of war, where consumerism is mesmerically suggested as a way of life in pervasive advertising onto a society who are (often willingly) manipulated and milked. And very often with no real sense of a mutuality of value in their relationship, no real meeting, but getting stuff through an anonymizing business template that again has little opportunity for human culture to express itself. So not surprisingly there is defence and counter measures in 'consumers' - where the thing or service is generally sought at the cheapest price, with no real sense of support, loyalty or relationship with the companies and corporate interests that control the marketplace.

Now there is a lot of residual trust in many, such that they feel for the rules and play by the rules - up to a point.
But there is also a sense of having power where before,  the process of distribution was physical. It was socially acceptable to copy Lp's or radio onto cassette tapes and share with friends. The technology had certain bottlenecks that limited this - but it was pervasive and though possibly strictly illegal, I don't think anyone was ever prosecuted for breaking the law - excepting where passing off or selling as black market copies. Digital distribution has changed all of this to make it much simpler, not only to share a track or an album, but a whole collection of almost anything.  Distribution and access have become decentralized and uncontrollable, so new ways have to be found or new cultural expressions will occur that fit the new 'environment'.

For those of us who have subscribed to the Internet, we can access most music for a very affordable sum - so there is every reason to share links or artist and track information. There are exceptions. I have had to edit a few tracks that I made dances to, so if I want those dances to live, I have to make the edit available to those who want to share the dances.

Perhaps the internet could become a place where one can download directly from an artist - such that they get a better share. Or perhaps the major digital music channels will be the place where everyone goes to, so that is where artists have to sell - and take the terms given.

I would hope that there is more drive to share a love of music in a live relationship with listeners, and less manufacture of music as product with its posing and hype of seeking fame and fortune by 'selling' identity.

I feel that very few are sensitive to live music and many want to get what they want with minimal - if any - real relationship. Such is the mindset of the consumer, which in some ways is that of an infant demanding to be fed in its own terms.

In life we often take for granted what we receive, and see our own little part as if independent and a universe to itself. But life also breaks us of selfishness, and obliges us toward accepting responsibility. We may have to grow to the capacity of giving what we used to take for granted. We may still see this as carving our own path and becoming something, but again life may oblige us to grow to see a larger shared purpose, despite the range of difference of approach or emphasis, and hold a sense of that purpose in everything we do. In this we become holders of a culture, not merely because of resources, but because of a greater love and dedication that expresses as service.

Insofar as I have shared what I might call a truly human culture - (and I have, in various events and moments throughout my adult life), it has been a tangible love and joy embodied in our togetherness. It has to find its spark amidst a larger culture of fear, defensiveness and distrust,  amidst what seems a loveless and untrustworthy world. (Often called 'back to reality' though I challenge that in my own life).

From the perspective that has grown in me, I feel the dance can play a vital part in serving a larger purpose at personal, cultural and planetary levels than might be currently imaginable. Living in the foundations of what may not appear in my own lifetime is like - not waiting for anyone else to get it, before I can live it. But it does have to tune into integrity in order to offer a genuine willingness to be a foundation.

Honouring the source from which I receive - and honouring the willingness of those who join in sharing, is the principle I feel in Jesus' two commandments - (They were not made up by him - but are associated with his answer as his). This expresses a unified alignment of being that restores harmony and a true functionality. In this sense I feel there is Immutable Law that we either enjoy aligned or suffer in a false sense of struggle to be a someone in our own right. Its ok - it isn't an imposed law. We can struggle if we want to.


Unfortunately, human rules serve to undermine personal responsibility, because they program response. When imposed coercively they also breed reaction and resistance. When we are 'made to share' by our parents as kids - it needs be done enough to set a pattern of behaviour, but not so much as to deny and humiliate the child's spirit - or we teach denial of the basis of freely spontaneous sharing.

The mentality that sighs 'there is no answer to this debate' holds true if we were to try to lock down and define life with rules - about anything! But in each specific case in which these things arise, there is a process of discernment that  - if allowed and embraced, will lead to one consciously taken step. It may not be the same answer the next day, because each circumstance needs to be felt anew - otherwise we run on a template - that is … blindly.

It is the mind that fears itself that seeks control, and in attempting so - creates the very conditions that justify itself to itself. It is validated by opposition.

So I feel for a process and culture of education, that includes uncovering our integrity, our trust and our harmlessness. Words are never going to do it - and the last century surely shows that ideology is not a Foundation for a living culture - and nor is the shallow, opportunistic and asset stripping 'Global free market economy' that is currently expressed as an elite corporate power network with puppet nations and politicians indentured to debt and seemingly obliged to be progressively stripped of much of what kept them compliantly cooperative.

Discernment has to begin with not knowing, in order to allow a sense of perspective and priority to provide the next step or decision. I do not know what forms our changes are bringing us globally and locally in terms of our stability and freedom from war, our economy and essential services - but I do feel to come out - as insignificant as that may seem - in willingness to find a better way together.

Thank you for your attention.

In Peace

Brian

Tuesday 23 August 2011

Come, join the Dance

Our Dance is an expression of joy and passion in life.

But when it is mimicked in form so as to serve some private or mutually held purpose or meaning that does not itself directly express a vitality or freedom of spirit, it is becomes a vehicle for fantasy instead of a way of true integration and renewal in life.

To dance without feeling truly moved is to ‘go through the motions of life’ and to wish one’s life away. This is within our freedom - but is not the expression of freedom that knows itself free.

There is a phrase, ‘fake it until you make it’. This can seem to be necessary at the level of form because it is only in the dance of life’s expression that we truly remember why we dance and what we are as a dancer. So if we come from the mind that has forgotten its place in the movement and joining of the music, we need to bring our willingness to the fore by living out from our trust that the willingness is there! So at the level of spirit we Are allowing ourselves to be moved by a willingness that may start small, but grows as the music finds us. Therefore, we are not really faking our presence so much as breaking the habit of a self protective withdrawal from love’s presence that characterizes a busy, self concerned and problematic approach to life.

Unless we meet with something or someone that disagrees with our take on dance, we will persist from a basis that actually inhibits spontanaity, fixes the mask and persuades us we are dancing, when we are merely fitting ourselves to a design of steps and timing to a musical pattern, without opening to ourselves, each other or the music of life.

Such empty ritual characterizes the failure of human society to love, and we sacrifice our living dance to such a god in worship of a form by which we recieve only the meanings we gave it in secret. For nothing is revealed but is simply reenacted, and we ‘get’ reconnected with  a sense of life brought in from outside ourselves, yet such that we can each remain ourselves in secret ‘together’.

The God of Living Dance is not a matter of belief, but is the true nature of our relational presence now. Fearful beliefs tend to maintain rigidity and limits over an innate and natural willingness to feel.

The feeling and discernment of wholeness is lost to us in our adoption of fear inducing thoughts or ‘perspectives’ - not because it is no longer our true nature, but because loss of trust in self and life invokes a disconnected self-surviving strategy of mind and perception which covers over and distracts us from our need and desire for healing, for renewal, for joy.

In a world that has forgot how to dance, those of us who discover that we are part of remembering for everyone - may feel invalid amongst an upside down ‘culture’ that expects us to limit our expression so as not to draw attention to - or loosen - the masks by which others ‘cope’ with the ‘reality’ of a masked love. And we may find ourselves withdrawing or limiting our expression so as not to cause disturbance.

Living a secret unshared love is not living a love, but holding some kind of potential that seems to await the right conditions in which to come forth and shine and share. But in this we become the slave to conditions. We become easily manipulated out of our shell and sent back into it - because we are not joined with the unified nature of our being.

Just as we may come to a dance and need a period of loosening and willingness in order to be picked up or found in the music, so do we need to abide in the dissonance of our sense of conflicting relationship with external conditions and our capacity of inner willingness or trust - so as to begin to discern the movement of a deeper music than the assertions and judgements we carry from our past and come into a real and felt quality of relationship with each other - and ourselves - and the life and world around us.

Renewal is not a matter of recharging our batteries so as to manage a disconnected life. Renewal is the re awakening to the always connected Life, whose dance or embodiment is an ever new expression of joy; of passion and presence, felt and shared. To this wellspring we come to drink. But as we come to the Well in willingness to serve, we become one with the water.

To be one with, is of an unspeakable intimacy, yet there is peace in it because it is natural to our being. Letting the old habit go, first requires waking up to that it is running, and that it does not serve us in the truth of what is unfolding in our lives.

It does not matter where we seem to be in our life when we feel the Call or open to a sense of Life that both lifts us from meaninglessness - yet also exposes the mind we used before to cope and manage within its limits. For life isn't about becoming valid in our own eyes but of expressing an inherent value by which we share life.

The thinking mind is a rehearsal mind, a fantasy mind. It can serve but it is not designed to lead, for in the heart-sense it is blind. When the thinking mind seems to have covered over our joy in life, we need to disengage - at least for an instant or a few moments where we find our willingness and feel for the movement of Life.

Even the tiniest whisper or touch of Life is transformative, for it gives the way of the next step in trust. We don't always seem to find the answers to the problems as we define our problems - but if we take each step in trust, we will move out from the arena in which confusion defeats our spirit.

Why? Why bother to care this much and reopen one’s heart to risk of pain of betrayal, failure and self illusion?

Because you’re worth it!

And because the actual pain of a life in isolation and masked despair is no real alternative - no matter how well hidden - you - may be.

To realise we had left our path is an awakening. It Is an expression of the path that is still beneath our feet. From such moment we can either run our script of self exclusion - or rejoin the dance.

Self inclusion is the one thing that cannot be done for us, no matter how or what is done to lead us to water, we drink or not as is our will. yet the shine and freedom and gentle nature of all who demonstrate inclusion, is part of the same Call in others.

Our true inheritance in Life is wasted when we use it for selfish ends - because it is in the shared value that we remember its Source. The Music of our very being abides with us while we engage our fantasies of self and attempt to dress them and make them dance to our own tune. Now we can hardly hear tell what is, from what we thought we wanted it to be. So we put aside the desire to be a one who knows and open to being one that flows. In the presence of our willing now-ness - there Is no conflict or confusion. Join then, the Dance, if you will!

In Peace

Brian

Wednesday 17 August 2011

Running naked in the storm and dancing in the rain

I met the following quote

"Life isn't about coming in from the storm.  It's about getting out there and dancing in the rain!" (source unknown)

(also quoted as "Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass it's about learning to dance in the rain")

When I read this it reminds me - amongst other things - of once when at an early Dance Camp East, when a great thunderstorm arose.
Being at camps was for me also an immersion in the energetic and vitality of Life - whole bodily embracing the qualities of life in the natural world - rather than merely pigeon holing experience from an inwardness of past impressions and thoughts.
And the charge and exuberance of the storm - and then the pouring sheets of rain, had me suddenly throwing off my clothes and running in the rain in pure delight!
I often ran for joy in rain at occasions afterwards - but this first occasion was of such an inspiration and spontaneity that I remember feeling - "this could be where dance originates, for the very power of Life Moves and is given expression in movement".

Being Moved is very different from submerging self in a so called animal nature - because it is in and of an open awareness rather than letting urge take over in order to gratify a sense of need or appetite.

In the path of opening as a dancer - as one who is moved, called or inspired, I have had all sorts of openings in all sorts of situations, that are part of restoring or growing a capacity to dance. I'm not talking technical stuff here - I'm talking of an integrated being - though of course ease also allows more free attention to bring to nuance of form if that is called for.

These openings in life are primary spiritual intimacies where inside and outside fall away, as irrelevant or without currency.  Sometimes they are served by outer conditions that support or at least do not block the impulse of Life - such as a camp in which the above COULD be allowed without any fear of freaking anyone out or merely making spectacle of exposure. Or a held circle where emotional release COULD be allowed in the same light. But always the primary condition seems a receptivity that is lost to us if we take on a life of inwardness and self concern.

It's hard to dance in a suit of armour!
Or as Sydney Carter put it; "Its hard to dance with the devil on ye back!"

in Gratitude

Brian

PS - I remember also as a 4 or 5 year old with my friend Robert, in his garden, both taking off clothes and running and yelling in warm summer rain. I think we ended up in the sand pit until Robert's Mum carried us back in and dressed us on her kitchen counter - Something of that moment with Robert and his Mum was one of the earliest memories I have of consciousness stirring in me. Of noticing consciousness.
I felt to write this after being given more information via circledancingfriends about the Elm Tree Dance to the song: Kā man klājas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0Lv9CqaJy4
and also dance steps at:
http://www.joannamacy.net/theelmdance.html
and http://www.gaia.iinet.net.au/ElmDance.htm
My quintessential Elm Tree dance experience was when teaching a 'spontaneous' session outside in the sunset and rising stars at the first Passages Camp. (In England in the early 90s).
It was a spontaneous session in that I wasn't officially there as a teacher or in the program, but that I felt pregnant with the energies and qualities of the process of the camp and called out by the beauty of the feeling of the sunset. It felt that the heart of the camp had opened. Dancing out in such a glorious setting and in an already relaxed trust served as an expression of what was current - of feeling life as an intimacy that arose through our camping and being together, and which carried within it a sense of innocence or simple delight in the moment.

We finished with the Elm - in a hug and then instead of breaking off, we found ourselves forming a spiral hug that wound around one end and held all in embrace. The silence and connectedness was tangible - and then there were sobs from someone in the middle, so I said something (from the outer arc of the spiral) like - "are you ok - can you breathe in there?" and the one whose heart was in release replied, "Breathe? - I feel like I am breathing for the first time in my life!".
The blessing was felt and shared without adding word or ritual.


As it transpired - even though I held back the dance until after the programmed event started, and did so without any pre advertisement or notice, it still happened that a large number didn't go to the programmed event but did join in the dance.
As a result, there was deep disappointment and consequent blame directed at me for sabotaging the program, from the camp organiser whose heart was in running a camp where his passion could find expression in its own right - (instead of being a peripheral event at the big Dance Camp where Circle dance was the main focus). But he didn't communicate any of this to anyone until after it didn't go as he envisioned, and somehow managed to manifest his fears rather than his joy. I was asked not to return to those camps and was branded a separatist - which was not a term of endearment but of exclusion.

That was all very long ago - and yet the trust and willingness, to honour the movement of life in me, and finding it serves at a deep level, and yet also activates a script in the world of exclusion is a familiar one. I embrace the experiences of exclusion in my life as opportunities to uncover otherwise hidden judgement and release it from my mind- but that doesn't mean I do not feel pain. It means I choose not to make stories of grievance and suffer Self-exclusion as a result of self indulgence.

These days I sing the Elm Tree song for my dancers.  And the quality of opening through a cut heart into a deeper inclusion is in the song - yet held so gently.
There is an accidental 'meaning' in the song  just before the pause and the high notes where its sounds like 'oh feel this now'.
It is one that I accept as a gift of my Spirit regardless of that that is not what is really being sung. For the denial and fear of feeling is the exclusion of our own capacity for joy in life now - and to feel and flow and be released of exclusion and fear and conflict, is to breathe anew.

(Managing the denial of the heart or feeling being is a heavy burden of misplaced responsibility)

The true Heart has its own language - secret to the mind of command and control - which is blind by design. The sharing and moving through dance is a vehicle for such communication and communion of Life.  Breathing together.

(Elm dance note: Our groups often come into a hug as part of the dance and not just at the end).

There are all sorts of aspects to the nuances of the form of a dance - but there is also the issue of whether the form is mere surface, or whether it serves and is embraced as a vehicle. I feel the latter is often easily lost in the world - in any inspired cultural expression.

Shaking hands, hugging, dancing - even making love! - all can become an empty ritual of meaningless facade onto which any meanings may be applied or agreed BUT without sharing the Meaning of love.

It is our innate and inescapable responsibility - or nature - to be the love that we are. This isn't a burden of yet another impossible task for management-mind to get a handle on. It is simply staying present in our inalienable capacity to receive, to feel and to express.  And seems to be a matter of acceptance and peace amidst whatever moment of life we find we are in - that we feel as we feel - and - be gentle with ourselves and each other in the way of our expression.

"Music soothes the savage breast".  (this also often slips into using the term beast).

I feel music offers an alchemical process of uncovering the yearning beneath the hurt, beneath the anger, beneath the triggering thoughts and perceptions.  When as Rumi says, BE the yearning, we will find and be found in an Inclusion before 'the world as we make it' clicks into gear.  And NOW we have a perspective from which to choose anew. Without such a willingness of awakening beyond a personal protectiveness of misidentified thoughts, there can be no true restoration and no renewal, but only an endlessly rebranded repetition of the old rituals that sacrifice or deny our feeling being - our joy in life.

I feel to write openly of what is usually held secret because our human world is becoming very fearful and unstable in the directions and focus of its intent, its media and its thought. I do not feel to be defined by fear for it is the condition in which we are most easily deceived - but I do feel to be alarmed into waking up. Not to reaction - but to uncover and align in the perspective of my heart's truth. That on which a true foundation can be lived out from - whatever the world seems to become.

Seeing the related Elm Dance web pages linked above relating to other cultures joining in a deeper solidarity of heart despite suffering the oppressions of callous, careless and divisive intent, I feel, (as I long have) - that the dance that is seeded in my life is not a hobby or an activity in search of members, and still less a business - but is a path of transformation and renewal - available to be discovered by any who are willing to step out from their closet into a deeper trust.

Presence and passion communicate directly and energetically. And a lack of presence and passion communicates itself no less. The 'what' of what we do is either something consciously real to us - to which we bring our heart's committment - or is something we do in attempt to make ourselves real to ourselves and others. But we never did or could or can make, determine or define the reality of our awareness. We accept and be aligned with it as it Is, or, we imagine it as it isn't and experience our own definitions as real - even though reality remains - as it Is.

Such is the habit of living imaginatively in thought, that it has virtually (sic) replaced our real life.  But in all sorts of little ways, Awareness rises to life, and can lead out from confusion. Joining in a circle of dance offers a very simple way to be touched by an experience of unified being, in the company of others also touched. But if it is reduced to achieving conformity of form as a privately defined sense of belonging, held within a tacit agreement not to join, nor become present in our joy - then it has become like the seeds, that were sown on the path, but there was no soil so that the birds came and ate them - and there was no crop.

In Peace

Brian




"God picks up the reed-flute world and blows.  Each note is a need coming
through one of us, a passion, a longing-pain. Remember the lips where
the wind-breath originated, and let your note be clear. Don't try to end it.
BE YOUR NOTE."   
-Rumi

Wednesday 13 July 2011

Easter Gathering Feedback

I feel that the warmth and welcome, tolerance and friendship that characterizes the Easter Gathering is beautiful, heartwarming and witnesses to the spirit in which we gather. This to me is a condition for growth, in which to be stretched and inspired, rather than to get cozy in a sense of safety that then tends to resist the new - the life!
Perhaps, next year teachers could be invited to bring dances or sessions with ‘roots and renewal’ in mind - seeing as how this theme is coming up as an event next year.


Live Music
Our live music was very good in general and often excellent. I felt that the percussion could be more articulate or dynamic in the more energetic dances. Perhaps bringing a bit of focus to this might help bring it forth - or perhaps it’s simply a matter of drummers who can bring these sort of qualities out. An example was Odeno Oro. It didnt need to get faster - but did  - in my opinion - need to shift to more energetic ‘feel’ of a 6/8 - to inspire the shift into more hoppy steps that the recording inspires - and which otherwise were not supported by the music.

Teaching/enabling of the dances for live music was often poor in my opinion.

At the Gathering in general there is quite a strong culture of assuming that teaching the dance is:
1. Primarily a verbal description of steps and often without any sense of the rythmic movement or musical phrasing or energetic of the music.
2. Onerous and to be done as quickly as possible as if it is somehow boring - which of course it is when it is approached in such a way!
3. Often shared without conveying a sense of loving or honouring the dance that is being shared. As if a dance is simply steps that everyone seperately acquires and performs, with very little context, introduction or personal association.

So I would invite teachers to share and enable the dances that they love and enjoy - and are willing to communicate, rather than get live dances ticked by whoever simply ‘knows the steps’.

It is good to be succinct - especially in a live session - but not to cut off the nose to spite the face. If the musicians bring forth excellence then let it be matched with the quality of dance sharing and teaching - and our dancing.

Live sessions:
Live sessions can be difficult to hold attention and different in atmosphere from sessions using recorded music, and even if someone is supposed to be ‘holding’ or facilitating the evening, it often finds teachers shouting amidst a scatterred attention - which only invites the dancers to chatter even more.

An idea that could work until the nature of the evening gathers us to a higher focus - which it generally does - is to use an opening few bars from the musicians of the next dance as a call to attention and focus - and then stop to a gathered attention in which the teacher can then speak and be heard. I feel that dance teaching is served by a clear presence and sense of relationship.

Video

I would like more attention and focus brought to the quality and propagation of dances. Because dancing is almost continuous, there is little time to make one’s own stepnotes. I feel the organising group could communicate the expectation that  anyone teaching a dance at the gathering submit stepnotes as part of the sharing of a dance - no matter what session or workshop it is shared in. (Sooner than later). I would support the taking of video of the dances in addition to stepnotes.  Being videoed would also be part and parcel of attending so we come knowing that video will be taken. If this is seconded so as to be a working idea then further discussion could occur. It can be as simple as a camera on a tripod with someone turning it on and off for each dance. It doesn't have to be an ‘official’ video, but simply a helpful reminder.

Photos
In the nature of our event - amidst a grown trust and intimacy, I feel it would be good to create an advance expectation and invitation that the taking of photos or video of the group, during the gathering, will also be shared with the gathering. (Via something like a private flikr group perhaps).

Food
Yes, we could make sure to liase in advance and have a greater influence on the menus and ingredients. Though the vegetarian only idea is a good one, it is also true that many who do not eat meat, do eat fish and I met a few there so at least consider allowing a fish option in the menu.


Venue:
I enjoyed the venue though I’d like to be able to dance outside as well if weather is fine again next year, and would be happy to be part of running that if an occasion arose. The dance space was slightly too small for us all in one circle. I know that in some dances this matters less than others, but I would like teachers - including live session teachers - to be reminded to consider inviting an inner circle whenever it is helpful or indeed leading a spiral or many short lines etc.
Being scattered  in different parts of the building for different things does mean that spontaneous events are much less likely, but then the day is fully programmed anyway.

Sharing Dance information:
I would like teachers to be encouraged and able to share a bit about the background of the dances they share and not just steps. I would also like the active teacher to be able to invite or allow extra comments from others who feel willing to offer it - but only if such a teacher is freely willing. This could be ‘moderated’ so as not to allow derailing into ‘issues of contention’ and could actually enable a sense of the dance beyond the immediate behavioural entity of whatever happens to be shared. However, I appreciate that others may simply want to avoid potential issues and move on to the next dance and move on to the next dance etc. But I’d like to register a desire to be able to share more than we do - along with repeating that the way of our communication is the determining factor as to whether it flows or jars.

I have the sense that the protection of the feelings of teachers and dancers has become one of the primary cultural determiners as to the way the gathering is structured. I would rather shift to honour the integrity and excellence of our dance. Of course we need to act with honour and tolerance and respect for each other and ourselves - but there are ways to communicate amidst difference that do not fuel of the politics of conflict.

Dance Versions
I LIKED that in previous years, different versions of a dance might occasionally be concurrently danced in live sessions and felt it opened a greater unity that was less fixed in having to all dance the same version. I think as always that the WAY in which this happens is the energetic that makes the difference. So I for one missed this. I understand that some are fearful of difference as they see it as conflict - but an enforced sameness is symptom of a deeper conflict and affects the atmosphere even if the presentation of the form of things is tidy.


Dance music
I would personally rather simply access the music as mp3s that are to be made available, via private download rather than via a posted CD - which I then have to turn BACK to mp3 and name and tag it. There are many ways of doing this that do not make them public - one of which is Dropbox or a private space in one of the hosting sites. (I would be quite willing to personally undertake this - including the making and sending of CDs for those who still want CDs).

Proposal -  we could consider allowing private access to a clipped educational version of any tracks to enable dancing one whole round of any dance that is not to be made available because of being commercially available. This would help remember and promote getting to know what otherwise can get forgot and disregarded due to the extra steps required in accessing the music.

Spirituality and Communion-ity
There is much to do with content and background to our dances - but there is also the context of our relationship - within ourselves and our experience and with each other.
The surface mind denigrates relationship as mere getting mechanism - and tends to deal in personal or private satisfactions in place of common purpose and fulfillment in a shared trust. It tends to soul-less-ness and limits life to mere forms with shifting and conflicted meanings.

A culture of inspiration must recognize and honour the unifying power or nature of love without imposing personal definitions or  presuming others’s paths or teachings . Even as dance may become reduced to steps, so spirituality may be reduced to wishful concepts and ritual observances. Though such concepts may be derived from the experiences of others, they often express a second hand spirituality - a wishful thinking that fails to embody the presence and passion that it originally rferred to.
I feel that the spiritual dimension is a significant part of what circle dance is for so many of us. Mostly though, I feel the spiritual dimension is expressed in the quality of our being together and the way in which we do whatever we do. (IE: As lived rather than as presented or talked). But presence and passion - are tangible indicators of our Spirit and correspond with a unified wholeness or peace and the free expression of joy in the absence of a coercive mentality.

Culture:
Perhaps of all the comments that I felt to feed back the primary one would be to intentionally hold and grow a culture that honours the dance - the whole dance - and move beyond limiting ourselves to merely teaching steps and regarding teachers and teaching as being about teaching steps.
I understand that some teachers may indulge their role of being teachers and stretch or drag on in overteaching - going over and over with little faith in or relationship with their students and giving little sense of the nature of the music and movement that the steps will in fact be expressed as.

To honour the listening attention that is brought to play in trust and willingness is very different from identifying with a role and getting off on it - and at times it seems as if THAT is the cake that is to be shared out fairly among attending teachers. The privilege of being a teacher is of being given such an oppportunity to learn to serve.
The quality of our teaching generally and of the context and content that dances are communicated in, is part of what creates and maintains our culture in broad terms. There’s nothing wrong with using circle dance as a form of P.E to music - but it is so much less than it - or we - can be.
Unless there is a recognition of what inspires and feeds the culture of our dancing, we tend to drift in the direction of the lowest common denominator - though of course individuals remain free to express themselves as they are inspired to do, but within a larger ‘culture of expectation’.

Feedback process
Feedback for market research is often a symptom of trying to identify market trends so as to position products. I know there’s more than this and what I have written is of my own desire to communicate. When communication occurs, something shifts because of speaking it and somthing shifts because of listening. I don't write to change the formula - but to connect and share what is alive for me - as part of the gathering, and to add my voice to include my sense of the gathering.

Its also true that I see it all (the gathering) as a process or journey of self in community amidst various levels of responsibility - and whatever the format, I undertake and enjoy the fruit of the journey - for that is the context in which I come, within which are opportunities to meet and share on many levels.
I quite like the idea of feedback as a fruits and shoots part of the whole event; to spend a while contemplating and sharing - not for any other reason than to share from my own perspective into the gathering. Discerning directions is about feeling the life rather than about data crunching - in my humble opinion. That which moves us, is where we are feeling the life.

Thursday 24 March 2011

Some dance to remember, some dance to forget

“Some dance to remember, some dance to forget” ~ The Eagles ‘Hotel California’.

The forms of our dancing draw on folk dance from many cultures, and from contemporary movements to a wide variety of music, old and new.
But what is it?
One can say it is many things to many people or that what it is can only be known in the dance itself and cannot be articulated. One can itemise benefits or describe the mechanics and origins. But I feel there is something I want to try to say - so I will see if it can find a way to speak through my willingness.

The areana I would address may seem beside the point but I feel that the context in which we do anything  is the determiner of what it is. Indeed the same external behaviour can demonstrate opposite things. It all depends on where you are coming from. It is not so much what we do that is important, but what we hold in our heart. I don't mean this in any superficial sense of emotional affirmations or wishful thinking - but the actual and active desire sets the purpose or context from which all else follows.

Though it seems we have  many options in a complex world, they can all be seen as either self transcending or self fulfilling - and I use the latter in the sense of seeking to maximise a personal sense of satisfaction in terms of a currently defined sense of self.  Self transcendence is not unfulfilling - but is an expansion or a shift into a greater sense of self and life than as themind tends to define - and arises from a willingness to join or open in relationship in the moment as it moves.

The mind that sleeps in its own self definition is a kind of taken for grantedness that doesn't need to really look or listen because it believes it already knows. It sees forms but attaches its own meanings and manages its sense of itself and world in an essentially private way. It is self protective and will maintain an insulated or separated experience as a way of protecting against believed chaos, pain or inner conflict. It uses forms of communication and joining without conscious embrace or extension of trust - as in a masked presentation. We are all very adept at such behaviour as it has seemed to protect us in a loveless world - and mind.

But in innocence of any strategy, we may find life surprises or undoes us of our defences in moments of transcendence, of beauty, of joy flowing freely, of an opening of our heart that occurs spontaneously and naturally. And  not surprisingly, we want to experience that again, and again and yet again.

In time we move from innocent willingness to join or trust, into a mind that acquires history, preferences and partialities and begin to grow a personna in place of a relatedness. We become opinionated and judgemental and conditional. We look to certain forms or arrangements to satisfy or qualify our involvement and withhold unless such conditions are met. We associate ourselves with specific aspects of a wholeness that carry our personal sense of the sacred or true value - and hold these over and against what seem to be misguided or off centred - or even heretical or corrupted - movements that we do not feel at one with. And so we factionalize.

to be continued...

Friday 18 March 2011

This I would share with you

What is it to grow a living culture that uses heart-connected music and dance as its vehicle of expression and renewal?

What is it to uncover the inner dancer, whose movement expresses as a whole and from within?

What is it to grow trust within yourself and therefore from there with others, so as to move through what had before seemed either difficult or obstructive to a greater joy in life?

What is it to take a few steps in trust and then find the dance somehow knows where to go? - and without your having to control the process?

What is it to know a oneness of the moment and movement of being that cannot be spoken - yet is a shared quality in which we naturally become released of a need to focus on differences and defences?

What is it to expand our horizons such that we grow our sense of participation in our world and in the dimensions and qualities of life?

What is it to share life without a sense of contractual obligation, one-up-mans-ship or ownership?

What is it to transcend the inward thinking judging mind and experience the body as love’s expression?

What is it to have regular and frequent renewal in spirit as part of a life lived on purpose?

What is it to serve and grow the culture by which you yourself have so much to be grateful for?

What is it to step out of a closeted existence that only seems safe - and embrace life as the transformative process that it unavoidably is?

What is it to find life each day ever anew - because of living out from an awakened heart and mind?

What is it to be a part of bringing the world to the light that it forgets and hides from in ignorance and error?

What is it to be called into a dance that will not let you forget nor hide again because you feel the call in your own heart and will not deny it or rest easy if your should try to?

This I would share with you.