Tuesday 18 December 2012

Deeper in the dance - or in anything in life!

We have regular intimate dance gatherings in our Home that don't need many and cant take more.
Our New Year Gathering this year is full but we have gatherings and days throughout the year. If dancing in such a context appeals, then consider joining us. With sufficient interest, dance days can become weekends or longer - and with time for walking the land and being together and simply being.  We feel for sharing and growing a culture of joy in dance and accept support rather than charge a fee. If you want to pay a fee, invite me to run a workshop!

I was just going to link you to our Christmas Greetings:
http://www.livingcircle.net/amerrychristmas.html

.... But then I found myself writing.....  I like writing. It isn't about asserting definitions or opinions - but my best attempt to cloth meanings that have tangibility of feeling, in a tangibility of form. It is like a dance or a music because I have to 'get out of the way' to allow its fullness. It may 'look like' intellectual stuff just as circle dancing may look like whatever the mind of the perceiver looks WITH. Always what we choose to look WITH is the guide for what we see. We are never independent of the mind we employ.

There is no call to read on in what I write unless something of a similar resonance occurs.
A stirring within that the mind is willing to hush in order to feel.




I see Dance as a vehicle and not a thing or end in itself - and yet of course anything that becomes associated with a tangibly shared joy and freedom of expression is easy to love, hold special - and become possessive of and identified with. 'Holy' wars are made of such idolisation of forms.

I have long noticed that our human minds are predicated to see the things and forms of the world as if they are separate things, and miss entirely, the Living Context in which - and of which - all expression rises. Human vocabularies may not articulate a unified appreciation without being open to misinterpretation. Because the mind is a layer of interpretation that runs largely unconsciously along preconditioned lines.

But the languages of music and dance operate at a different level and open an experiential quality that doesn't need to be interpreted into the 'meanings' of a mental mapping in order to be felt and known in the heart.  This 'level' of being actually is conscious and not merely thinking itself as being conscious.

So much of the meaning of love is lost to us simply because we are culturally too embarrassed to allow its witness and expression in our lives - and the world then easily becomes a tacit agreement to keep our light hidden - often by 'ritual behaviours of love' that may pass muster but do not communicate an underlying ease of being.

The first and most important dimension of circle dancing when I first met it was a tangible atmosphere that was akin to spiritual states I had witnessed - but was a shared communication of a cultural willingness or intent. Simply put, it was without judgement - to a significant degree, compared to any other social events I had participated in. I found a capacity to include myself even though at that time I had yet to uncover the 'dancer within' or the unashamed expression of life in movement and grace. A lot of the early phase of any movement is a relative innocence and discovery, that becomes lost as we make history together and become covered over by what passes as 'knowledge' - or experiences that condition us to no longer open in a willingness of discovery and growth.

The 'deeper' of the dance or of life is simply available when we cease to skim the surface realities and let the moment live us. This is always a releasing of apparent controls or defences, into a greater trust, for it is always fear that triggers such a mentality - which then starves us of our Soul and its cultural expressions in every walk and dance of life.

People look out and decry the 'state of the world' and may or may not engage in attempts to influence it at the level of effect, but very few look within and see the mentality that gives rise to the world we experience and tacitly communicate, because it is very uncomfortable or dissonant - and tends to trigger a great desire to escape such feelings by any means available!

I have found the dance to be a relationship 'within' that also extends 'without' in which a harmonising occurs not only in myself, but in the group - as we are willing to accept. I also find that the simple willingness to share serves as a safe and trustworthy context in which armouring or inhibition falls away of themselves. Not in order to become a free or fearless someone 'in our own right' - but as a transparency to the qualities of being that are present - in this group, in this place, at this time.

There's another thing I was drawn to about circle dancing, a freedom from the cult of 'individual expression' that has taken our culture into anything but the witnessing and sharing of an indivisibility of being - which is the true nature of our individuality and not the outer presentations or packaging - which are transcended rather than perfected.

There is that in our human mind which becomes distracted very easily from Wonder, and Gratitude. It becomes self-absorbed at the drop of a hat and cant be reached while it is so engaged. However, I feel that to heed and to accept the opportunities that DO arise in our day and our lives, to allow (even momentary glimpses of) a spaciousness of perspective is to grow them instead of grievances - and as this becomes self aware rather than moments of self-awareness, it becomes a seed of cultural renewal.

Unless a culture is being lived and shared, it remains a fantasy or rehearsal of life, unlived. What can be shared is what we are willing to accept and this is the fruit of the level of trust we can allow in the honesty of our being.

I find it ironic to see reports making fun the 'end time' - as in Mayan Calendar or other communications - amidst such fundamental change as is now occurring. For sure, the tendency of the mind to fearful and dramatic reaction has to be seen for what it is - just that! But that is not to say that the attempt to operate on the basis we have been operating on, hasn't bankrupted us, laid waste culturally and environmentally, and lost the power or capacity to maintain itself as a credible and cohesive authority.

It is all in a kind of slow motion paralysis - the falling apart - because of the global indebtedness and investments in holding the appearance of order intact. Bankruptcy is often a surprise to all but the insiders - because of drawing out to the last in hope of rescue - and in denial of the true nature of the situation. When the world has changed - there is no option to remain as we were. We either suffer resistance in seeking to control life, or find the movements of inspiration and sanity from which to build anew.

Wednesday 17 October 2012

From longing in loss, to love's presence shared

This writing came out of a discussion around the dance Thalassa. A song of loss and longing that has a circle dance which has remained popular over many years.

I have a songsheet with translation HERE (pdf) - and a version of the song can be heard HERE


The theme of separation from love - as a disconnected longing that persists in bittersweet dreaming amidst an absence of loving is surely one of the most universal human archetypical expressions.

I am reminded of a Rumi poem that points the way out of dreaming on lost love - (at least to me it does!)

"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

There is a polarized expression of emotion and experience in the mind of loss and longing which becomes the basis of all human drama. This particular song doesn't bring in guilt or fear as ingredients or developments of losing love - the 'why' of it isnt referred nor any sense of unworthiness - just a black fate and a personalized sense of 'Sea' as the power and effect of separation.

There is also a healing and transcending expression of feeling-being in the waking up as unified perspective and presence.
This is a shift from identifying with a polarised part in an emotional drama to feeling the movement of love's presence now.

Although words and concepts are clumsy things and associated more with the wars in the mind of Human than communicating in love - I felt to write this much with them anyway...

The healing nature of music and dance is at least partly because of feeling the energetic of our drama and being it as embodiment in music and dance, such as to open or shift into a perspective of a shared loving presence. Such understandings are in the heart and not the head - and are facilitated rather than imposed or used as costume.

What it is to be human, and what it is to be Divine - are not so far apart. Its all a matter of perspective.

(No need to read on, if you don't relate to the subject, but I felt to write on...)

In singing and dancing Thalassa, I feel a tension of an outward longing in the verse that remains in motion unfulfilled - with the second part (where we move into the centre) - having a sense of seeking solace and connection within, that brings a temporary respite. Then in the chorus there is a wonderful release as an expression of full-feeling. (Which dances a different energetic through the same step pattern).
A true catharsis lets the movement of the heart find its expression in a context of trust - in place of the censorial mind that was set up as if to suppress and control a sense of mental and emotional chaos.

Self-Realisation, (or whatever phrase points to the same thing for you),  is at least in part the coming back to a perspective of wholeness - that cannot be defined or described and constructed or achieved within the context of the framework of thought that we could loosely call our 'separation experience' - where separate concepts manipulate separate things as if there were no unified field of awareness - in which and of which is all existence.

I confess to having a bias towards embracing the separative, as a means of remembering the unified, rather than persist in its drama.
If there is an end of the world as we know it and a renewal or shift of consciousness going on, then it will be a simple but profound shift in us all as one - whereby we wont be able to afford to maintain the structures of a conflicted self sense and will need and desire to learn and discern from a unified perspective.

When people find the mind of clever thinking is not the way to safety or abundance, but to a desolate despair, then music and dance and the true art of all things will find soil in which to grow.
It isn't that we do not in some sense know - but that the knowing of the heart is disallowed and usurped by a polarized experience in which conditioned reaction has denied any true receptivity.

The receptive is not passively acted upon - but calls and embraces with discernment!
The extension of life is not blindly projective - but is rooted and guided in the receptive.
When we get out of kilter - what I tend to call 'separation' occurs.
Then we embrace or accept what we do not truly want (or love) and yet share it as if we do, and fuel it with dreams of connection - acted out in rituals of not really joining hearts and minds in shared purpose.

Forgetting seems to me to be a condition that calls for remembering - and this world is a very distracting experience!
I feel our dance offers one tool, path or vehicle - among many - to serve the desire for renewal of perspective and purpose.
I recall crispbread adverts from long ago that qualified their slimming claims by adding 'as part of a calorie controlled diet'. I have always felt the healing and renewing power of our dance to be likewise - part of a whole way of life.

The breakdown of old patterns of human culture at all levels - along with changes in climate, makes a very compelling case for the uncovering of the basis for the renewal of culture - both in personal and universal terms.

Sharing in the passion and the presence of life.

Now of course there are those who simply want some exercise or to allay alzheimer's in a pleasant musical way - (or any other perfectly valid motivation). but if the intention of the dance is held as a core culture, then that is what will be called forth - in a way and in a manner that freely arises in relationship together.

In Peace

Brian

Saturday 14 July 2012

A Truly Human Culture Shares Music and Dance

I have always felt the the dancing belongs within a larger context and live it as such. The idea of things 'on their own' is also the idea of giving things the meanings we make up, (and fight over). In made-up meanings we are cut off from Meaning; a 'Prodigal journey' away from our true relatedness.

The wish to 'go our own way' has an allure of becoming something in our own right; a self specialness that sets out from a place in ourselves that is turned away from our true being - as if a curiosity, taken as real, becomes mesmerising - losing perspective in a self protective mask.

Prodigal journeys promise fulfilment but lead to depletion, conflictedness, limitation, and loss - an utter loneliness of being that cannot be merely salved; a convoluted thinking that cannot be extended or reconstructed. In one way of another the structures that expressed attempts of a self-will, disintegrate.

It is in the context of a willingness for reintegration that true culture originates or in 'Prodigal' terms the willingness to be of service in true relationship. In putting self will aside a deeper current rises through us and finds expression. To be moved, rather than being the mover, danced rather than being the dancer. To be wholly lived rather than playing out apart.

The interrelationships of wholeness transcend any organisation of seemingly broken or separate parts because each part expresses wholeness. In a willingness to 'be with'; to remain or abide in relationship, we invite the living spirit or principle of relatedness to express, in place of a compartmentalized mind. And are harmonized thereby.

I have never been able to articulate what the dance is that is truly shared, because even the manifest aspects of its expression are the least of its being. When I see a community learning to dance apart; of joining forms without joining of hearts, then I must dance as stillness; for joylessness is not my heart's desire to share or multiply.

In the disintegration of a joylessness is the prayer for love's awareness remembered; to see the love, and to be the love. This is an order of need of each other that cannot be measured.

Without a true basis, culture cannot 'take'. Establishing such a basis, is of giving welcome in place of a 'self-protective' script that blocks our own ears with fear of loss and costs us recognition of our true interrelatedness.

To step out of 'problem', fears, self-unworthiness, prejudice and the liability of self righteous isolation; is to step into the Music and the Movement of Life, as an integral part of wholeness. As a living embodiment of trust and connection.

Unless we give it, we shall not (know that we) have it (to share).
Perhaps losing all that we think we have, (and are) is the only way of awakening to (and as) as wholly fresh appreciation of all that is alive.

In some form or another, gathering in a shared heart, in music and dance, and in silence of our being, is integral to any truly human Culture.

The need for truth - for a true sanity of heart and mind and whole communication - is kindled within the disintegration of identity.

The wish to survive in our own terms initiates a protracted delay in which the new cannot come in because the old is barring the way. This doesn't stop the new, but simply covers one's eyes while all about is moving on. Has moved on.

The gestures of community tend to be subverted in reaction to ill fortune; to evils besetting us or adversity to overcome. Then dissipate when new evils come into fashion.

The passion with which fear is invested runs counter to the innate qualities of love's gift.

I feel it is time to own the mind that we called 'unconscious' and to become willing to share consciously of that which expresses a true interrelatedness. That isn't subject to spin and self specialness because it embodies in act, rather than being encapsulated in ideas that become used out of context.

To have a point of reference and witness that is not itself a reactive group of us over and against them or of a me over and against others, offers a true foundation. "When two or more gather in My Nature, there I am".

This is what I feel in the circle dance and this is what I hold sacred.

In Peace

Brian


PS: I also write. Some of which can be accessed via the blog links on my website:
http://www.livingcircle.net
Because it arises from a willingness of listening, it is only available to a willingness to listen. Twitter disciplines me to 140 characters!
https://twitter.com/binra

Wednesday 6 June 2012

Kefi - Joy of life at the heart of the impulse to dance

Reflections arising from reading that the Greeks have the word 'kefi', for the joy of life at the heart of the impulse to dance.

This phrase stands out as a reminder of a truth the world so readily forgets.

The heart tends to be denied and suppressed by the impulse to define, identify and defend.

In earlier years, our dancing was more open, Though I don't travel that much, I often find what I tend to call dancing with the drawbridge up.

As if what once opened a way of naturally moving in a shared joy became but another environment in which to self differentiate (in self protective conditionality).

Intellectually, I am not surprised at this for it is 'the way of the world' to absorb and neutralize the heart's innocence of being - for it often seems to undermine or break our rules. But in the place of joy's expression I feel a kind of shock in meeting a joylessness within a natural occasion of joy - no matter how normal it might be in the 'culture'.

The (dance) teacher is also a point of invitation and demonstration of culture. Culture is broadly speaking, the values that we embody and share in all that we do, but in specific activities such as our dancing, we have an opportunity to invite and embrace in personal and cultural renewal. A truly Recreational activity!

Drifting, could be used as a term to indicate when old habits are running in place of - and perhaps unconsciously denying -  a conscious appreciation. When everyone drifts together, they tend to support the status quo - and the fresh energies that would rise as healing and renewal do not find a way through. The old rigidifies form and protects against change by exercising control. The new will always break through - gracefully or otherwise.

Nothing new in all this - but to read something so very true, prompted a little reflection.

Joy is innate rather than acquired - though of course we are all conditioned to relax and enjoin in some situations and not others. Joy is not only effusive or expansive - but is the felt quality of Soul (for lack of a better word) that shines quietly in a heartfelt connection and as a tangible presence in a shared trust.

There is a lot of folderol around spirituality - but freedom to feel and be moved, is joy's embodiment. Any attempt to become a someone or something in our own right always works against such a joy, no matter how it is presented.

When I first came to circle dance (without coordination!) I also came to a wholly joy based learning - in which the basis and context of learning was guiltless within a movement of recognition (of value) and an act of self-inclusion. I did not want to exclude myself on the basis of 'cant do it' or 'I don't belong here'. I wanted IN - and so listened within for the way of hanging in despite the triggers to fold, to back off - and to judge.

Such inclusiveness was also amidst an aspirational movement; in which we were willing to open and grow.

It is perhaps ironic that the opening of such joy invokes a self-protective grasp which inevitably patterns into factional historical perspectives over time. But just as we all sometimes feel the dance moving us that 'knows itself in its flow' - so is there in the greater dance of our lives - of the culture we create together and the perspective in which we live.

The key in simple terms might well be joy. To risk into our joy may make us more sensitive to joylessness in our life - but wherever joy is denied there is an opportunity for noticing what is really going on beneath the story our mind's set. Only the tension of which we are aware can be released.

I can can recall coming through aspirational inhibition in a willingness to reach up. Relaxing through a belief-identity that said 'boys don't move with beauty and grace'. These are easy to describe and share - but the opportunity for uncovering the so called inner dancer (you) as an embodiment of a shared innocence of being is ongoing. This speaks to me of a way of life - not preset with identities, so much as an ever releasing and renewing in a greater participation of discernment and trust.

Anyone who has danced with me knows I am not careless of the step and style of the dance - but that these are communicated within a relationship or living context that invites and extends a willingness to joy.

To be undefended to our own joy is to be without inhibition or embarrassment for THAT we love (are moved). This witness is denied our world if we hide our light under a bushel, for it is not our light ALONE - and that is what we have forgotten when we contract into a defensive posture of isolated ones seeking to connect as isolated ones through ritual acts that re-enact forms of what once Moved alive.

Please take all this as a sketch. It isn't a tirade against anyone or anything, but a prompting of joy to share its own nature.


Thank you for your attention!

In Peace

Brian

If this is at all interesting, you may appreciate reading

"Reflections on the Spirit of Dance":

http://preview.tinyurl.com/cfhgden

Wednesday 18 April 2012

Feedback about feedback, the mind and the roots of culture

Before I have began to even write my feedback to the Easter Gathering, I have pondered what feedback is, and what it may serve at a deeper level than votes on likes and dislikes and consequent tweaking of the form of things to please the many and perhaps to less displease the vocal few.

Feedback, in a scientific sense, is neither good nor bad, in that it is communication that can serve to illuminate the underlying mind or culture of which the experience of the event was a fruit. The ‘feedback’ reveals meaning according to the questions we ask. Therefore we are never dealing with external facts, so much as participating in a relationship that inherently includes our desires, questions and the accepted beliefs from which they spring.

What is the purpose, basis or culture of the event for which feedback has been invited? If this itself is fragmented and conflicted, then on what basis can feedback be reliably evaluated? Is popularity or its opposite a reliable indicator of value? But feedback can simply be a vehicle by which issues can be raised and communication shared with the organising team. In that case it is enough that they read it and allow it to speak in their hearts (discernment) such as to walk with it in the next step. But the event itself is already feedback - as each organiser's experience and participation - and carries far more information than can be written or conveyed in words.


Before presuming to gather or articulate my feedback about the event, I consider my own journey of experience - that was my participation with you all - and discern its fruits. I cannot honestly say it wasn't perfect. But this is not perfect at the level of my personal shopping list of likes and dislikes. Perhaps I can clarify.

I have realized that the experience we meet, tends to be set up for and by ourselves according to the desires and intentions that we set out with. Much of this is usually running unknowing as personal wishes and fears, and in the process of experience some of what had been hidden may be brought to light of conscious awareness. This is always transformative.

When fears come to the surface, we tend to become defended, controlling, rigid and reactive. But finding a way to move THROUGH such states without investing in them IS the release of fear and this always opens a more spacious, tolerant, accepting and compassionate presence. In this freedom, love and the true desires that arise from love of life can move us directly, and we feel blessed, joyous, and grateful in an ease or natural harmony of being.

The attempt to control or manage fear IS fear, but it is fear operating strategically and coercively to seem fairer in some respects or less extreme in its effects. And by adopting mutually agreed definitions as a culture of joining without really meeting, in empty rituals upon which each projects their own imagined meanings. Joylessness becomes the new standard - against which background our personal satisfactions become our reward and the cost of conforming to a joyless culture, becomes the price exacted.

To share a living culture, as a positive life honouring gift - known in its sharing - we must learn to move free of the fear of upsetting the rules that the fearful put upon themselves and each other, by living out from a different place than a fearful separated sense that seeks to validate itself or become something valid - as if we are not already worthy of love.

Our natural authority, or integrity of being, is lost when we feel disconnected from our love and joy. We feel undermined and confused and tend to mask this with what seems to work as acceptable to or aligned with that which seems to be given authority. And we then defend and identify with our masks and their allegiances against unmasking - as if they were our selves.

Our mask also filters and limits our communication, for whatever appearance we may present, the actual energetic is what is communicating beneath the appearance - and fear or division calls a mixed response - because of wanting conflicting things. But joy calls forth wholeness of being because it speaks directly to the same in all and disregards the mask altogether.

In our teaching, we demonstrate. We firstly teach ourselves - for we are learning by what we teach. If we teach that we are moved or inspired to share something we love and value - as an expression of trust, then THAT quality will bring all else into alignment in ourselves and others - and we will teach and grow and learn in trustworthiness. To trust our self is not the same as being in control.

In a heartfelt safety, the mask evaporates of falls away of itself as unneeded, and joy shines the freedom to be unlimited and unconcerned by such thoughts as feel the need to hide. This is the context that we can invite and share as the basis of our dancing.

The form of what we teach doesn't matter - IN THE SENSE that joy is not strategic and can discern in the moment how to teach, what to emphasize, what manner to adopt - in short, how to be in the moment. So we may then also focus of the particular exactitudes of form without getting bogged down in the mind that clutches them as a mask.

The masked mind may be the normal but acquired culture of our society, but it is not our Nature now to be drawbridged, under siege, joyless and withheld from sharing in the presence of being alive. Because we feel a sense of temporary security in such attempt to control, we resist opening into life energetically and emotionally, as the feeling beings that we simply are, regardless of how locked down that sense might seem to be.

The true safety of our being, arises from growing discernment and trust within our selves, as to what we open to, and join with - at the level of our thoughts. Instead of using and identifying with a fearful template that re-enacts our past judgements and locks us out of our connection now, we live out from a felt or intuited sense of life, listening and feeling as we go.

A dying network, a dying culture, or a dying planet - these are all symbols of a sickness of our thought - even if their fruits seem irrefutably tangible. Allowing that the world is a transient phenomena that cannot be held onto anyway, we still have and Are the life that Lives us now - in and of which we may behold in a wonder and appreciation that inherently moves in us as shared being and not as withheld thought.

That whose nature is wholly shared cannot die - though it can seem to be killed over and over again. The Source of life is timeless. When the structures that arise around ‘loving to hate’, disintegrate, the birds are already singing as the dawning of a spring morning.

Thank you for your attention
In Peace

Brian