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?'.

- - -

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?