Issues arising out of website chat

Adapted from a conversation on website presence for the circle dance network. Though some facets may be somewhat irelevant out of context - there are others that I feel relate not only to what we use circle dance for - but to the social issues of our world far beyond our sharing dance focus.

Yes - some people have the wherewithal to implement a working website - and there are various ways of doing that which may result in an html web site served but use various tools, templates, online systems and programs. Some of these work in the code itself and some via template interfaces or create the code from creating the design in a wysiwyg interface. They are not all compatible with each other and so don't suit a group effort unless a group all use the same tools. That's the wiki idea probably because it is the lowest common denominator - as far as I can see. However, I notice that ANYTHING to do with computing whatsoever brings up a sense of incapacity or inadequacy in MANY - and is associated with 'technology' which is presumed complex, dangerous and liable to get messed up. People then HAVE exactly such experience and are reinforced in their convictions.

So I also have doubts about ANY attempt to share via computing as being conducive to a truly shared creative responsibility. And as I've said before I don't see the signs of any such willingness either. This is not the condition into which I give myself.

Dance notes and dance videos that ARE available become a model from which any uncertainty often finds a pattern. I often find various example of a dance and use my own discernment as to what I then choose. The fact that I learned X from Y does not make it authentic - and even 'sources' can in effect choreograph certain elements and styles to particular recordings. If the range of information available is presented one can then make choices. The only way I see an 'orthodoxy' being imposed is when extant versions are invalidated and excluded from being communicated - or communicated about.

I still don't know why the teacher contacts cant be restored to the regular groups list - which in effect was the regional list.

The existing setup finds pdf easier to update - I don't know why it is lest 'harvestable' - almost any downloadable pdf becomes available via a plethora of websites. IE: Birgit Karlson's pdf songbook appears through all sorts of sites that simply 'supply access' with no connection - just as youtubes are used as 'access' to mp3s extracted from them, or news items are extracted by Google. Anything 'up there' is harvestable unless hidden behind paywalls, encoded links and etc. But even so  - only one person needs download or access such a 'private' file to then propagate it or be compromised and it be propagated - such as sextexted photos in the news recently.

However, most people's details are already public - in directories, electoral registers and various public records. I am happy that interest in circle dancing can link to my site and have a way of contacting me. But I do not seek to maintain a segregated existence of different personalities. If someone wants to be a bit more private, they might set up a special extra email account SOLEY for use as a contact - and indeed a PO Box if they want. Then they can release further information to a legitimate request.

Health is witnessed in a diversity that can nonetheless interact, relate and blend or cross fertilize. Self-protective segregating movements withdraw into factions that become a body politic at war with itself - and a body politic afraid of its own capacity to change.

Coming out of the closet - is to my mind what is meant by 'when good men do nothing' in the phrase 'evil flourishes when fear prohibits or inhibits, a true presence from coming out of its closet'.

If one does not in fact choose to 'die' then one has to step forth, or at least stay standing when fear says "run and hide".

The inmost aspect of this is simply an recognition of the choice that one is come to, but one of the ways a change of heart can manifest is to become a giver rather than a getter. To do and be and act with what is in accord with who and what you truly feel yourself to be - in relation to this moment and this situation and this relationship - as an ongoing 'spiritual' practice of self-worth.

A website is not a way to get people to dance or to get more work as a teacher or get more dancers - unless you insist that that is the culture most aligned with who your truly feel yourself to be. It offers a communication - if you want - of who and what you are through sharing something you are passionate about. I know its a challenge - because it is sharing dance and music that one is passionate about - not websites dealing in largely static and linear verbal communications. But this is where I feel Teaching is what comes through the vehicle or tool or instrument and not focussing on the form as if that was the 'author-ity' in and of itself.

Materialism forgets what anything and everything is FOR. I do not want to invest in setting up a system that everyone can use to include themselves and their offerings without some sense of shared enthusiasm - propping up something that doesn't have the energy to stand otherwise. And that is significant to our culture of dance because if we set up dependencies then we do not seed culture that is self-sustaining, vital and expanding in creative unfoldments of passionate discovery. 

This leaves me with the thought that conversations often coagulate around "what can we do to attract more support and participation?" - where we might be thinking "how can what I have to share offer more support and inspire and invite more participation?".

I always come to the realisation that dance as I live it, is part of the 'spiritual' practice alluded to above and is boxed in by various dogmas or beliefs that it has acquired - which may be good in their context but not as a blanket orthodoxy.

And of course, even voicing such suggestion induces reaction in many readers because it seems to 'threaten' even the little we have left!

But I sense the crumbs on the floor are not the Feast Itself. Such is the 'austerity consciousness' that suits the few who have the most investment in the status quo.

Whatever one chooses, change happens anyway - but we can only experience it according to the perspective we have chosen. 

If a bright circle enjoys but one stays downcast throughout - they were integrally part of the gift , but can only see through the lens of a privately maintained framework. As such they are 'less harvestable' - but in the sense of the joy that goes out and shares itself as the experience of a truly connected moment. Such is the Feast - as I see the harvest of our living. Not a secret download serving a private agenda in a place set apart to be a power unto ourselves each alone. Or a cartel of the few who set the parameters on the many and protect against any change that doesn't suit their personal investments of pride, reputation or wealth. I am not talking about 'persons' here but simply acknowledging human psychology - regardless of the organisation or society.

If anything here serves thought for food - good-oh! But I have no authority that everyone else does not share in, and only use it to include the presence of what I am moved to share - without any strings attached, to take or leave or use or ignore as your free will moves you - which I see as a willing-ness to be moved rather than the wilfulness of coercive struggle - and its corresponding identity in defence and control. THAT's what I aspire to use the dance to teach, as an experiential and shared knowing - from the free recognition within the movement itself.

To be or not to be is not the question

I wrote the following into a Sacred/Circle/Folk Dance forum to the issues of the fate of the circle dance network website following the dissolution of the circledancingfriends  company that was also aligned with the Grapevine quarterly network journal and an annual teacher gathering. When structures disintegrate or change, is it not a call to re evaluate 'who we are and where we are going?'.

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I too see the issue not in terms of an apparently existing web site or not, but as an expression of cultural values lived... or not. (Or rather other values chosen that result in other manifestations).

Grapevine, to me is like sailing ship news often of a sailing ship mentality that somehow separates me from a feeling of relationship in dance rather than connects. I take full responsibility for my experience - because of course the way I choose to see it is what gives me my experience.
Static web sites are like museum artifacts floating in disconnection unless serving as living library resources or information exchange.

Fears of worse outcomes often justify a persistence in choosing known poor outcomes. But embracing change in a positive determination is the very process of renewal.

I know of no reason why the internet cannot provide a medium for networking the needs and enthusiasm and offerings of those who are inspired... apart from the generally hidden fear that segregates and separates and invalidates.

Practical considerations are dealt with within the context of a decision. Modern fear-controlled thinking works in reverse and gives all its power away excepting the power to cling on to a dwindling echo of what once held promise.

The network is a relationship and like any relationship, it can develop an ego or an imaged construct of itself and then live as if that image is the reality. But actuality is only a relating, a channel of communicating that is open... or not.

So much of what is called communicating or relating is an assertive or coercive effort to maintain perceived structures of control, status, or identity. We may gain such a world, but lose sight/appreciation of our Soul.

Death, in terms of the evaporation or dissolution of that which no longer serves, is innate to the very process of manifestation, but that which never changes - which can be called Spirit - is not itself subject to time. Perhaps the letting go is the only condition in which true renewal can arise from a pure or clear decision in willingness to live the movement of life... without perhaps any real sense of 'how' apart from this step now.

I note that the issues in our local universe (dancing network) have much in common with a larger cultural shift. For my part, I only see one thing going on within the movement of change we call the 'times we live in', and that is a tectonic cultural shift, though of course it simply looks terminal from many perspectives.

I did not have any involvement with the website or the CDF company. It wasn't that I was against it, but in a sense indifferent - there was no 'chemistry' or resonance or relevance for me - though undoubtedly others bring and share and experience according to their choices and actions. Perhaps it has served its purpose?

I've put out invitations to join in collaborative networking online in various forms including this list as an example.
Even this list could function crudely as a simple way to publish articles, reports, poems, resource lists links - and living ongoing discussions and explorations. It is not unable to serve all such functions. But it is not embraced in such spirit or purpose - for whatever reasons each knows in their heart to be 'their' reasons - excepting in a very small way for 'find that track' sort of Q and A, and for advertising often local events across an international membership.

I feel there is another way of addressing purpose/spirit or indeed Spirit that extends such Purpose, and that is 'willingness'. Without willingness there is no influx of inspiration and enthusiasm, but instead to suffer a gradual or perhaps sudden defeat. Wilfulness can come up with all sorts of strategies to keep the game running, but only free willingness renews. A sense of 'should' or 'must' can only drag the dancers feet into treacle - which then sets as a sacrificial belief that says to get your 'when' you must give up your 'now'.  But ends and means are one and fear's denial grows strange fruit!

I sing and dance in a perfect joy and touch on / am touched in a perfect love. The groups are often very small. Each step can seem precarious in certain lights, but the opportunity for me has been of truly embracing and sharing (music and dance) as what I am and not for what it gets me. Each step is a good step once fully embraced. I live the day and life unfolds not by plan so much as in willingness.
I can look at the immensity of untapped willingness for music and dance and sharing life that I might say I HAVEN'T allowed a way yet to really bring forth and of course I can paint a picture of heaven on Earth and suffer the sense of how far short from the blueprint one can seem to be - but when I say each step is a good step I do mean it is one with that degree of harmony and integration - as each event is willing to embrace. To even be aware of the blueprint of one's life is a great blessing and not an excuse to self-judgement!

The mind can look on what is NOT here and make a world/self of lack.  Persistently appreciating the truly heartfelt nature of what IS here, will walk through the 'cold-turkey' of negative mind-addictions to discover that what we appreciate (give our focus of attention to) appreciates or grows of itself.  Abiding with and within us and extending through us... by our will.

Humanity has been/is now expert at manifesting an abundance of lack. We mostly are unwilling to look within and see the activity of our own thought, not least because an unwatched drifting mind is open to further manipulations or deceptions that maintain blindness against the light of a simple noticing.  The 'deceiver' is not merely an archaic superstition while fear yet hides protected but is in a sense actively distorting one's life-appreciations 24/7 - but only as a case of mistaken identity that then seems to operate as identity theft!

I first embraced Sacred Circle Dancing FROM a life that had already embraced and been embraced in Spirit - (though by no means fully integrated to such embrace). I felt the kinship of the energetic atmosphere of communion arising from sharing life in un-judgemental willingness and openness. Though my path with the dance has served a true integration in my own transformation, I could say the 'network' has gone downhill ever since. For we make history, judgements become identity,  fears become cultural forms of correctness, factions become protective devices to limit meeting those aspects of ourself we find most intolerable.

There is Universe enough for those who want to use the dance forms as their way to enjoy a segregated sense of a limited communion. It is  But even it the forms are the same, its isn't the same as letting the forms serve us to be opened to the formless - from which life rises ever anew.

So embrace can say 'both this AND that' where exclusivity will insist 'this OR that'. But the actual movement one uncovers in freedom from negative appreciations is a discernment of what is currently resonant and relevant to your core vibrational signature - to WHO you truly feel  and know yourself to Be - and the themes that your are in this lifetime focusing on and exploring.

Aligning with our truth - with our joy in being - IS what integrates and aligns our life with abundance in its sense of ability to do what you need to do when you need to do it.

Others must be free to choose their own, if we would know our own free will in flow. There is no persuasion or coercion needed or possible. No one goes anywhere but for their own reasons, but we play the game of saying 'you made me do it'... very deeply and very seriously! The way presence communicates is automatic or 'of itself', there is no manufactured presentation. I feel most of us know such moments of freedom - of 'not getting in our own way' in music and dance - but then try to cage the golden bird.


In Peace

Brian

P.S
I shared lovely singing and dancing in Norwich Cathedral last night.
"Encircling the Land in Sacred Dance" felt like embracing the world through this particular instance, (Norwich), as I myself am embraced by my very Existence. 'Be ye merciful even as your Father in Heaven is Merciful'.
We DO 'go forth and multiply' but as Consciousness. Being 'unmindful' of WHAT we are living FROM is literally to be one who knows not what s/he does.

I sang a bright 'Bells of Norwich' out of season because the ELSD pilgrimage incorporates Julian of Norwich. "All shall be well" because we shall awaken to 'know or own what we do' and thus drop what has no belonging in us to embrace wholly what does.
'Love waits on welcome, not on time' and I find opening a step at a time, raises me in a dance I can accept and integrate - rather than feel coerced from without or fear coercive deceptions within. How can I not feel gratitude for those hands I HAVE met in willingness to dance and be danced! The waiting on time is a conditional 'love' that says, when the conditions are right I will come out from withholding my presence from you and desist from withdrawing from yours.  But what set up all the conditions but a fearful self-conditioned attempt to take a living inheritance as if for one's self alone?

Dancing the end of war

Responding to a general request for dances to use for an Armistice Day commemoration I wrote the following; a little of which relates to the request, to the meanings accorded to the event and the mentality of ideas and definitions that makes a kind of religion out of death, destruction, horror and cruelty; the insanity of war.

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I just happened yesterday to have read up a bit on how the Germans expected terms of surrender as per Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations ideals - but got crushing terms from their European victors, designed to destroy any prospect of Germany ever again being a threat in Europe. Is it not so that what we attempt to deny comes back at us - and what we try to prevent ever happening again becomes a sort of unconscious self-fulfilling script! History repeats itself until we truly own our own creation - that is - our own participance in defining ourselves and others in negative or segregative terms. As long as we identify - even unconsciously - in a mentality of war, we guarantee it into perpetuity.

I feel that rituals of remembrance can be vehicles that make 'religion' of war and suffering - as if terrible victimhood makes us special and apart from common life - instead of compassionately recognizing and embracing our suffering as a universal humility that calls for a greater perspective - a truly heartfelt perspective in which we join in this Life anew rather than joining in dark symbols of a past 'never to be forgot'. I actually feel that the moment loss itself is worshipped, the truth of the Life that is here is forgot. But I do feel for honouring those lost and our feelings of loss. Our capacity for full feeling is our Humanity - our Soul-connectedness... so different from emotionality.

Daronee
Andaman Palikanari (Looks back in bittersweet blessing and then moves forward in hope.
Shoror
Jovane Jovanke
Garuda (O where is my Spring?)
Heart Like a fire
Heaven today? (Few would have this in their repertoire as I made the dance but its sentiments align and one could make a simpler dance easily enough).
Hora Mirissi (I know its a bride's dance but its energetic of transition is a song that would hold meaning for me)
Misirlou - Sto Periagiali (I'd read out the poem).

Honouring the joining in new agreement and intent for a universal peace:

Lo Yisa Goy
Ma Navu
Oh any of a number of dances.

Dances that celebrate partisan heroes - such as Kalamfil wouldn't be my likely choice - (as well as being a lengthy and steep learning curve for non dancers).

If this is for people who haven't a dance vocabulary in their bodies then not only might the steps be simplified, any piece of appropriate music could be chosen and simple steps made to suit. If not using live music where the qualities can be embodied then feeling for those recordings that have it - and not just dances that might line up but be dreary or unengaging. Going through the motions is aka 'empty ritual'.

The underlying process I engaged was of tuning in to what the event signifies collectively - and then opening in what it means to me in my willingness to embrace it, and then using that energetic as the basis of feeling what dances and music serve as vehicles for the qualities to bring present or invite in the hearts of others.

If one does under the aegis of external authorities, it is the tendency to 'tell' everyone what to feel rather than invite the feelings to arise from freely reflecting.

I embraced this response in a simple willingness and have enjoyed the process. Without joy is a loveless world with distant gods and grave and terrible secrets that demand sacrifice, over and over and over again.

If it serves you to embrace YOUR OWN process then great - that is my desire. In a sense it doesn't matter what you choose so much as that you feel at one with what you have chosen. Then your choices will have integrity and you will hold that presence in the way you hold and teach them. Of course you can be open to guidance from others - but the true guidance is always the discernment of our heart while we open to whatever. If we deny our own response-ability we give our power away to externals and this hides our presence rather than brings forth.


Now I'm rambling on in the themes that have arisen in me in this moment, in this day and this willingness - no one is required to read on or understand or be involved with anything that is not resonant or relevant to their desire.

We seem to have designed a consciousness and thus a world where only dire calamity brings forth the love we are. Love is not war, but recognition and service to the Life in All. Only a Prodigal Wasteland seems capable of waking our true relation and turning away from the false association. 
"All wars are banker's wars", just follow the money and the consolidations of power that are effected under the guise of wars or financial crashes and revolutions. Perhaps the greater tragedy of war is the blindness that invests in, identifies with and re-enacts such insanity whilst believing itself free, righteous and justified. Over and over and over again.

I think it was HG Wells who imagined a time machine future in which humanity had split into two branches and contrary to first impressions, it was the beautiful ones who were simply farmed as prey by the others- and not in fact evolved excepting as their farmers designs had effected. Our mind is split - and while it is split, "we know not what we do" - because we are unconscious in large part by desire and design. I hold that the world we take as reality cannot operate as our reality when we wake up to our wholeness. Even in the midst of the symptoms of a broken world is there the potential for the reflection of Wholeness, of true Holiness. Not by our own power, but by the stirring of that Memory within which reaches to  and yields to Wholeness. This may be covered over and denied - by our use of our minds - but still Presence-ing and Gifting Itself as the Life we share.

I enjoy word-play. "Ah missed this day" speaks of the life unlived. To embrace our day and live it in alignment with the joy that is discernable and can be acted from, is to extend joy instead of waiting for some future condition that the past - or others - or your failings - have deprived and denied you. But it is such conditional waiting that deprives us. The world will never meet our set conditions but terrifies or breaks our heart.  Accepting an unconditional love is the releasing of our demands Life serve our agenda, and the transformation of our perceptions and therefore our behaviours and our experience.

I also notice war is the reverse of raw. To be unprocessed is to be pristine.  A separative mentality has redefined our nature as fallen, evil, untrustworthy and flawed. It has then 'split' to limit, control and coerce this nature. Thus we limit the help that would reach us, usurp the movements that would heal and awaken us and refuel the mentality that imprisons us.

To be in the raw - is associated with nakedness of the body - but naked unto our Source is another way of signifying the movement of and unselfconscious spontaneity of joy. I read recently that fig-leaves were associated with ancient priests in the ancient middle east. The 'middleman' who usurps one's direct relationship with Life and becomes the owner and controller of the System in which everyone then has their 'life' through.
The psychology of such fraud is emerging as a sort of financial-corporate corruption that is no different at root than the mentality of the medieval dark ages, and it uses war and destruction as its means of concealment, and reinstatement.

I dance as an expression of Wholeness by living forth from such willingness to be moved and not hide or fear or be embarrassed by love's presence. It is something that was initiated by a self-inclusive act to join with, rather than set apart from. The steps give the mind something to do to get it out of the way - as a sort of permission slip for the heart to know itself in expression. All things then become a language or vocabulary for the reintegration with what truly never left a sense of sense of being cut off, denied, abandoned or betrayed.