Sunday 30 June 2013

On smiles, masks - and joining in truth



I tried writing a short personal bit of personal background and it became long and as
yet unfinished. Perhaps I will get a bit of time to finish it soon and link
to it here in case it interests - though the personal can so easily be a
focus of distraction. I am 'any one' or some one that speaks to the centre.
A voice willing to speak to an attention willing to listen.

The loss of communication is the loss of trust.
The mind serves to provide a mask of protection in a 'loveless world', such
that we we become in some sense withheld and behind our presentation of
ourself. Where our presentations 'work' in protecting us or find social
acceptance, we accept them as handles on living and coping in the world and
develop them and in time identify our self and 'the real world' in terms of
the mask, and relegate the stirrings of our being to our dreams of a better
life or our sense of what life 'could be' if the 'world' or others would
only change to support our needs. And in some ways we find others who we
make relation with on a basis of mutual - but separate - needs met.

And there is a kind of love, for while the 'other' fits my dream, I feel
permission to be unwithheld and allow my natural presence or joy to shine.

But we find there are limits and demands to others and our self that
essentially say, "if you do not be as I need you to be, then you will upset
me", and so to enforce the behaviours of others so as to maintain the
controls in which we will not be upset, we 'guilt' them.

So a smile can become a coercive intent of both presentation an intention,
which may have some currency of acceptance and yet be felt as forced and in
some sense demanding.

Within the 'mask' is a complex world of seeking validation, mutual stroking
or competitive reaction. And one of the ways of reacting to the seeing
dominance of others is to present the mask of withdrawal, sometimes called
passive aggression, because it is not neutral, but has its own atmospheric
effect. Minds are very complex, and some study these dynamics endlessly...

To restore the conditions in which communication naturally occurs is to
restore trust. This calls for a defencelessness to honesty within ourselves
such as to be with others in the clear purpose and presence of what we are
moved to share and be.

This honesty is a 'spiritual path', that is innate to the form of any real
path of commitment we have in life, and is not merely a private
accomplishment of making a spiritual connection to our person, or in
private, but is the restoration to an unselfconscious trust in  - and as -
the movement of our being, which is shared because nothing to withhold from
is given value or meaning.

I read recently that 'love begins the moment we decide not to take offence'.
What was once given the power to trigger my defences is being turned to an
opportunity to restore communication.

This isn't the email that responds with specific ideas and suggestions or
examples of what invites a shared and free attention into our dancing, but
any such forms might be implemented as part of the mask of 'social
engineering'. So though there are conversations which I look forward to
sharing on such, at the moment I found myself writing this.

We've been busy but have a few days where I hope to get to come back on
this.

The 'culture' that we teach and share is not always conscious. Indeed we are
often blind to our own presumptions and need others to help us see that we
have them.

Noticing symptoms or effects that indicate a lack of well being is part of
waking up to health. If we are curious rather than defensive and reactive,
then what comes into view does not condemn us, but frees us.
It is all a matter of trust.

There are adverts that use the slogan "Because you're worth it". I recomend
using this not only for hanging in with ourselves through the difficult, but
for and with each other.

I might say that there is no way to 'come Home' without your brother and
that to be joined in clear and happy purpose is not so far from Heaven.

Acceptance and honouring of another just as they are is part of moving with
them, and reflects the same quality in ourselves.

We cannot 'do' love and any attempt to assert or control can be felt by
others, even children. Especially children!
But we can learn to let love move us and abide and be with us - without our
interference. This is 'deeper into the dance'.

We don't have to call it love - or call it anything! - but the movement that
touches us in an uncontrived moment of welcome or togetherness is a natural
expression of being alive.

We like to talk of 'cooperating with Nature' at the level of our planet, but
if we are interfering and exploiting our nature at the level of our personal
sense of being - then can there be a true foundation for otherwise sound
ideas?

Being out of control is fearful to that which still believes it needs to
wield it, but in the moments where we feel the music moving us, we are one
with our experience of life in a very simple way.

Rather than plunder this until the seam runs out, why not let it abide in
our hearts and grow?

For it is a portal if we walk through it - or rather realize that that is
the real self and world, and begin to give welcome and commitment to it.
When masks no longer serve, they are nothing. But you - the movement of life
that is being all that you are - is still here.

Why do we hide our light?
Fortunately we are not completely successful, and another who is in their
acceptance can see another in a worth and beauty that they don't yet have
for themself - but in the sharing is the remembering.

We may have a special relationship with our music and dance in that it can
be used to 'keep the ugly world out' and protect the 'little that we have
left', but it can be consecrated to life in a way that transforms us and our
world in ways we cannot pre-think or imagine from the stance of defence.

The matter I speak of are deep and far reaching in implication. But the
world running as it has been running, has deep and far reaching implications
too. The sense of coming out of the closet is not fear-driven, yet the
nature of our times are such as to activate a greater leaning into trust
than I might otherwise allow.

"Smile and the world smiles with you" is a simple truth for a compass
direction in life. But the wherewithal for our smile is a trust and a
willingness of discernment and cannot be a technique to get a better handle
or become more 'spiritual'. We don't need to validate ourselves, but to
accept ourselves exactly where we are - and let that be the context of a
natural curiosity and joy in learning and becoming more able to abide in
life.

Brian

Reflections on the practicalities of opening joy
and moving through inhibition in our dancing


1. When the teacher’s attention is such that dancers feel included, but not overly focussed upon or made to feel self-conscious, there is a culture of invitation, in which teaching and learning can more easily occur.  The teacher needs not to be operating out of a sense of ‘pass or fail’ with regard to themselves or others, but simply ‘being present with’, This means the teacher generally knows the dances well enough to dance AND have attention free for the circle.

2. The teacher has faith in the intentions and abilities of the dancers, such as to serve their willingness to learn and discover their dance, rather than compound any sense of inadequacy, difficulty or resistance. The teacher also has faith in themselves, in their sharing of dance and ability to communicate it.

3. The teacher can bring a critical perspective to the group or TO any members of the group without being critical OF them, within the focus This also invites and creates an unjudgemental atmosphere in which discernment and focus are valued, rather than merely focusing on steps as a 'problem to be solved'.

4. The teacher is essentially sharing and facilitating the joining in dance, through a selection of dances. The joy in the dance is not just getting the step right, but is being in the full flow and feeling of the dance such as to embody an example of the joy in dance as well as a proficiency of the step pattern. Teaching through the body reaches directly to the body of the dancer and operates whenever the dancer’s attention is not too bound up in themselves.

5. The joining is firstly the inner receptivity to the music and its clear embodiment, and the automatic or natural expression of that joining or connection is a joining in wholeness. This is open to meeting and being met in dances that have a social aspect as well as being relationally and spatially aware of the shape and space and synchronicity of the circle as a whole. It is not an attempt to be present so much as actually joining and abiding as part of, or one with, the presence or movement of life.

6. A culture of intimacy is that of uninhibited presence, which is not an affectation of closeness or any personal act or communication, but is the relaxed and open demeanour of sharing an experience by fully embracing it.

7. The teacher can remind, invite and practice with the dancers regarding weaning their attention from the teachers feet - or anyone else's feet.  Though this is down the list it is one of the habits that should not be encouraged or allowed to persist without reminders  and practice of finding the pattern in our own bodies and enjoying the freedom to take in the whole experience.

8. The permission to make mistakes while learning is not to say 'anything goes', for we are not without caring, but to put the focus into the joining and support the willingness for learning by not reinforcing fear, so as to be without anxiety. There are many creative ways to offer help to those who are either new or struggling, that invite a more connected approach than a head only approach.  Inviting the dancers to feel the music, the rhythm and the qualities of the dance as well as the sense of joining with others, works to counter the mentality that tends to withdraw into a private space and solve its problems 'all on its own' as if it WAS all on its own! As if to first BECOME worthy or valid in its own terms, rather than joining with what is already true.

9. The culture of the expression and communication of joy in dance is felt in the quality of our dancing presence, and in dances that have an outward or social aspect, in our spontaneous or uncontrived meeting in glance and smile. The quality of our touch also becomes energetically communicative and our clearer brighter perception of the moment is reflected in our presence.

10. Though there are step patterns to communicate and points of style, this is communicated to serve the expression of  the dancer from the inside-out rather than to join in or teach a formula to be intellectually understood and applied manually.  The safety to allow an inside-out expressing of felt spontaneity is also associated with a feeling of connection, kindness and gratitude.

11. The repeated temporary success of private unshared satisfactions of 'getting' a dance or overcoming a challenge, can pass muster as a a social enjoyment where dancers feel a sense of inclusion in an entertainment as a substitution for joining in joy. It isn't that this is wrong, but it is expressing an unreadiness or unwillingness to truly join with, enter in and be moved in the dance. It is so much less.

12. The willingness for, and inspiration in, an opening to love of life in music and dance, can not be forced. The teacher can learn to listen and feel for both the inspiration and the willingness to receive, in shared purpose of the group. Trusting ourself, is the key, because when we trust ourself, we communicate without coercion and find a free willingness in others to be or stay with us. An inspirational presence is one that draws from others what they may not know they have, or are. It is not the act of one will upon another, but is a joining in willingness to work and play.

13. Singing along with the music is not always desirable or appropriate, but, within the discernment of the moment it often is - and is also an expression of being moved and of uncovering a joined or shared joy. Singing and dancing, when true, are self revealing. Thus we may find we are inhibited in allowing their true expression. To be open to a release of inhibition is to be allowing the movement of our being to more fully express.

14. The way of self integration, expression and realisation is primarily one of willingness to identify or notice blocks or fears within oneself and to bring curiosity and willingness in finding a freer expression instead of a limiting factor. The focus is never on the blocks as they present themselves, but on the joy or movement of life in which the blocks will become discernible. Our mentality will show itself in our dancing; anxiety will contract the circle and hold back on our aspiration. Our attention will be withdrawn into a defensive mode and our eyes inward or locked upon the teacher's demonstration, with all else tending to be forgotten or excluded from awareness.

15. Living out from a presumption of a joined integrity of being is not a way to get a handle on others or the world in order to make it more 'loving', but is an expression of loving that is receptive and discerning enough to find creative opportunity in what otherwise seems a block or limitation. In this sense the teacher is also the learner, in terms of discerning and moving through limitation.

16. The willingness to learn, to be receptive in trust and clear in expression, is a fundamental honesty of being; of not trying to be more or other than one is - nor pretending to be less. Though all the facets illuminated 1-15 are examples of what is present in a joining in dancing as an expression of an integrity or unity of being, they are not a 'to do' list but illuminate or reflect a perspective that opens as we shift from thinking and controlling, into feeling and trusting; into a degree of mastery of the form. The essential realisation of 'trying to dance' is of getting in one's own way - and the essential practice is therefore of releasing or relaxing within a greater trust and awareness.

17. The experience of personal chaos, at some level is an 'initiatory' portal that cannot be sidestepped, but only passed through. The chaos of trying to understand in advance and then apply that understanding is  one of struggling always to maintain control and to feel invalidated when one cannot. Yet the willingness to abide with the music, the group and oneself included, is a pathway through to a shift in realisation - where 'the music tells us where we are, or the rhythm is felt that before was not, or the patterns and timings are found in the body in a way that no longer requires manual imposition.

18. A ‘control mentality’ has an aspect of demand, necessity or compulsion in it, and it is never wise to fight it - for that feeds it's sense of threat and of needing to control. To join with the worth of another will use whatever is helpful as a stepping stone in uncovering that worth, but will not be held hostage by it, because one remains in the purpose of sharing worth - and in our case, the joy of the dance.

19. As teachers, our personal responsibility is in keeping open to inspiration and on track in conscious purpose. If we 'lose the signal of our calling', we will see this reflected in the circumstances of our practice. Such feedback is never a validation of blame or failure of self, but is the call to release the thinking or attitudes that undermine or substitute for our true desire, and making a space or pause in which the movement that inspires us be felt anew. It may be that we pass through difficult personal experience in the course of a desire to share what we love, but within all of this is an essential simplicity that is exactly this; we love to dance and to share in dance, and this movement in our lives is part of our being in the world and sharing life. If we do not bring our presence into the world, it will be lacking for us - AND for those in our lives.

20. The music that moves is a living metaphor for our Spirit - in that the energies of life that are embodied express a spectrum of our humanity - of what it is to be truly human, as tangible felt qualities to our whole body-mind. In a society that has become imbalanced in the thinking or rational aspect, our music and dance offers a wholing, where we can 'let ourselves out from being led by our head' in the sense of struggle and stress management - into a present and felt wholeness of being. This is not an escape in to a private temporary alternative state but a reconnection and renewal in our true being.

21. The attempt to get a control, or handle of understanding - along with the sense of successful achievement in so doing, can make us more sophisticated in our presentations of ourself (to both ourselves and to others), but this is always at the cost of losing the immediacy and the inspiration or healing power of joining in dance.
If we allow our social persona to substitute for a willingness to join in dance, we become judgemental, opinionated, and defensive, such as to make and take our identification from the externals or forms of dances or music, rather than sharing in their living qualities. This also can lead to substituting mutually agreed meanings for living qualities - which tends to use dances that are considered powerful in their presence, as ways to leverage or bolster the dance experience, instead of as opportunity of a deeper receptivity.

22. In one way or another, the ‘ego’ is always tending to arise as a facet of consciousness and habit. This is not ‘bad’, but is a mistaken and self-defeating identification. Trying to grasp and keep and protect the living quality of our dancing, is something we will discover we are - in one way or another attempting, whenever we find ourselves in struggle or conflict. This is referred to above as an attempt to control our experience all by ourself. Wherever this is encountered in ourselves or with others, is an opportunity to be curious as to what is truly present, because there is another perspective available than that of opposition and conflict. A perspective in which we can freely and fully rejoin the Dance.

23. Learning dry theory without practice is a sort of blindness. To have a living sense of what we are learning before and preferably during the process of learning, reaches to a wholeness - where defining step patterns verbally specifically demands the head. The cultural bias toward the head is of a scientific impersonal non participance, in which we our FELT being is denied or subjugated to the demands of an external ‘reality’, associated with judgement. Reclaiming our wholeness is reclaiming the languages of expression of all levels of our being.

24. In the freedom to use all aspects of our being we may find freer, more joyful and more effective ways of sharing the dance, as our own learning unfolds. When we limit our learning, we limit our teaching. Surely, Life Itself is the Teacher, and when we move out from our self-preoccupations, we notice more of what is here to be appreciated and shared.

Monday 17 June 2013

Circle of Shame

I love connected dancing. It is a joining with and an enjoying of. It allows, invites and facilitates relaxing and harmonising into a congruency of being in which the defences and armouring of any sense of problematic existence that I bring with me out of my past, fall away or are forgotten in a present fullness of being that is at the same time empty of demand that it be different than it is.

The joining with is not really joining if it is not also reflecting an inner state of communication or honesty within myself, for it is very possible to join in with the form of a group activity without really joining in purpose or willingness for joy.

Circles dancing for me has always had this 'inner track' learning and communion, without which the forms are similar but nothing - or very little is truly shared. Indeed the rituals of the world seem to embody a desire to share the form of togetherness without any real commitment of presence - so as to leave our little ego-sense of ourselves intact - untransformed - except perhaps just a little - but in private - where we 'join' in rehearsal or imagination but never look up to meet another.

Since I came back from a decade in the camp-scene into the circle dance network, I have been struck by how un-relational and disconnected it has become. There are individual exceptions and there can be situations of informality among friends or in smaller groups where dancers allow their natural being to shine, but generally speaking I see a "circle of shame'. For why else would anyone be downcast but that they fear unwelcome or indeed share a sense of unworthiness?

There are factors which play into this for circle dancing - for its very inclusivity means that dancing ability can be not required to join in, one simply has to be able to 'do the steps'.
And 'doing the steps' can become the focus - as if a problem to solve and a dance 'mastered' in order to move from one to another to another dance form and music as a pleasant and undemanding way to pass some time, in a warn social activity offering some recreation and exercise.

Now there is nothing 'wrong' with engaging life at whatever level or depth one is comfortable with - but to accept so much less than life, as if it is Life is likely to become defended around a fragment against the Whole rather than in a process of uncovering Wholeness.

In our world today we don't discern the difference and see things in terms of similar forms rather than their living qualities, and so are 'templated' into a sort of mass-managed existence because we essentially demand it!

It is as if our true presence must be hidden and protected from life and from the world, and a mask presented and structures found whereby to keep it hidden - because we fear the un-love of the world that we all have met and which we find intolerable.

And so there is a tacit conspiracy in society that works to keep us unconscious of a deeper dissonance, avoiding anything that threatens our automatic defences and trying to impose a sense of order upon life from a place that is not actually centred or grounded or ... connected.

Yet we also have the movement in our hearts to know and be known as we are - and this is quite different from the desire to 'become' someone valid in the eyes of our self or parents or others. Whenever we are inspired to step out of an old or obsolete defence pattern, we embrace Life and though we may pass through a process of risk, excitement and fear, we feel and find a deeper or more real sense of ourselves, shared, as a result.

But if this willingness for Life is not nurtured, the pathways into Life become a new territory in which the old habits reassert themselves and a sense of private control comes to replace a willingness to join in purpose. And so the forms that once brought deep gratitude and  spontaneous expressions of appreciation, become a ritual of 'the crumbs from the table' that are protected as 'the little we have left'.

It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks they say, but a human mind has another perspective available upon its own consciousness in which to wake up to a fresh way of seeing. The way we seem to 'lock' our minds isn't just our conditioning, but is the beliefs and assertions that we invest in as our very sense of self; that seem to be ever more justified by the reflected perspective of a conflicted sense of self.

The movement in our mind that seeks to become valid, is the unconscious sense of invalidity which is reinforced by our world. But the movement to know and be known truly, is a wholly present expression of life. These two directions are mutually self defeating, but only one is true.

The inclusivity that I love about the dancing is that of a sense of worth - shared. That is, a lack of the judgemental one-upmanship or withholding of attention that communicates in terms of of personal status and communicates an atmosphere and distrust.

It was this sense of inclusivity of worth that attracted me to hang in through my difficulties when I first turned up at a dance event. I wasn't trying to join something 'outside myself' but was joining consciously with a sense of worth that I felt both stirring in myself as well as held in the 'culture' around me.

I came to the dance FROM a context of spiritual experience as part of the learning to express and therefore abide in that realisation. For the coming back into a true focus and perspective in our being is not adding to our self - but is in so many way the releasing of what we recognize to be who we are not - of what no longer serves us.

Yesterday after introducing a fairly demanding dance that was new to my dancers, I felt to share with them that we had all experienced real glimpses amidst our learning, in which the 'dance did itself' - or we were somehow held and guided in an experience that was harmoniously 'out of control'. And this is a miracle for it directly attests and witnesses to a capacity that we don't have within the perspective of control, and yet is freely given us or available in the willingness to receive.

And yes, if we try to bring control mind into play with 'how did I do that', then we immediately 'lose it'. Such moments are rich in true insight.

A control mentality is quite different from being on purpose. To be on purpose is to be single and clear and not struggling - but persistent in willingness to stay on purpose. This also looks like the efforts of learning, but is not the reinforcement of a desire to control life and 'become' someone, but is the holding open of the conditions in which the miracle can witness directly what no amount of struggle can attain - or indeed imagine possible.

The Life that lives us is not operating through a filter of wish-beliefs and defences, but our experience of it may be thus distorted. And thus we are out of step and stumble as we move to where we think life should be rather than feeling our way in a greater trust.

Trust always begins with an honesty within ourselves from which we can reach out. It is not a matter of technique or ritual but a living dance within and between ourselves in which we allow the condition in which Life happens because it is already moving.

The human consciousness is largely a device of 'forgetting', of busyness and distraction. But at its root is the creative movement of Life to know and to be and to share.

The circle of trust is a relationship in which our focus shifts from distraction and dissonances into a natural and free presence of acceptance, that we can only access by sharing, and which renews and encourages us. To seek 'salvation' or completion on purely personal terms is to deprive ourselves amidst a self-deception.

In a recent mail to another dancer I said, that although I bring a conscious attention to form, I also bring it to the joining and to the joy, for without ALL of these present, the dance becomes an empty ritual or mimicry of life.


Thanks for your attention

Brian