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.

Reflections on sharing the dance and singing in Norwich Cathedral

On 17 October I led the dances (and sang for the dancing) for an annual event called 'Encircling the Land with Sacred Dance' which we initiated by the late Suzy Straw with chosen venues in and around the British landscape and marking an aspect of the Zodiac. So St Michael's line runs through Norwich and Libra's full moon, found me in a great vaulted building sharing, singing and serving the dance.

- - -

It is a unique experience for me to sing and teach and share the dance in such a context. While the living of something is simple - even if multithreaded and multidimensional! - talking about it can seem complex if approached in terms of the vocabularies used rather than the meaning shared.
I do have this sense though - that we can share inspiration and support at the simple level of our presence - so as to open to, and allow more of, what is truly here to our appreciation.

It is of course very different to being invited into Church communities to share the dance - but it still has an opportunity of blending and unifying energies within those of us who come.
The unified expression of Being does encircle and embrace us always - and in ways we may not guess or understand whilst busy within the dramas of a perhaps too easily distracted attention.

Sharing or acting out in what we love, because we love to, is not in itself difficult, but culturally there are so many blocks and inhibitions that seem to make it so!
I am glad we all aligned in a such a moment of expression and I am also glad that we were able to relax and enjoy it, despite - or because of some perhaps slightly more involved dances than in previous years.

One of the qualities of making music and singing in such a space is that of being extraordinarily exposed - although my sense is of not being able to push anything but that such attempt is exposed. Otherwise even the gentlest qualities are held and magnified, so it really is a lesson in yielding or trusting to the presence of life as it moves and not trying to add - or indeed to take away.

The uncovering of gracefulness or beauty in our being may or may not find welcome! I am grateful for meeting a grace of movement in circle dancing - and even more grateful for that I let it in. I ascribe that in part to what was moving in my life back then - but also to the open relaxed and accepting atmosphere that was evident in those early days which has always been integral to my sense of sharing the dance.

I feel a deep truth in that what we give out, is what we get back. As in the saying 'smile, and the world smiles with you'.
These things are forgotten when we lose our connectedness. We 'wait' for the world to smile… … … …
and the weighting makes us dense and heavy!
I feel the dance is a way to hold the remembering in our lives and thus live more fully.
I'm blabbing on a bit about it here because I feel these matters are often left out when we focus somewhat on the externals as if they were in themselves sacred. As if to get authority or validity from something outside our selves. I've always felt that sacred can become mixed up with scared, simply because we tend to call on the Divine when we are in need - when we have no answer to our predicament, and then become attached perhaps to the forms that Life found by which to gain our attention, trust and acceptance, and so make special or sacred to a truly felt experience.

I feel that we make all things sacred by using them only for Life, just as we lose sight of our Life by using them for purposes of division and personal wilfulness.
I was interested to note when researching 'fig leaves' recently, that they were associated with ancient priestly rites. Here then is another level of symbolism to the myth of the Fall - or Separation from our Divine Nature. For as surely all circle dancers discover, it is when we think we know that we err most blindly!

Our relation with our brother, sister and world is one with our relation with God/Our Divine Nature. Hence Jesus' choice of the two commandments - for they are one. The bit that was missed out is love …thy self, because unless we disallow and release our own self-judgements, we have no basis from which to truly recognize each other or our world.

I've never found a better vehicle for releasing self-judgement than circle dancing (not that I've gone off looking), but like so much that I hold dear about it - it is only there for those that are ready to embrace it.

I did have a moment's regret on driving home that evening - in a beauteous moonlight - and that was somehow omitting the dance and re-translated lyric I made for the Huron Carol. But I also trust 'what lines up' - including of course that which lined up to be missed - but the noticing of personal attachment is the opportunity to release it to a deeper root.
To all things their season!

Brian

The energetic presence that the dance embodies

I expect whoever we are, we feel the world we perceive to be self evident, but a moment's reflection reveals that my sense of the world has grown with me and that we all have our own unique focuses or preferences and consequently different perspectives and experiences.

For my part the energetic is a foreground thing - and if it is lacking, it doesn't matter to me how well the dances are taught or danced in technical terms, the event is hollow.

An awful lot of 'the human conditioning' is like the Microsoft joke:
"How many Microsoft engineers does it take to change a light bulb?"
Answer: "None - they simply declare darkness to be the new standard"
My point is that we can all agree to be so much less than we are and make it the official reality - such that we learn to live and become relatively comfortable or temporarily feel safe in darkness - and then protect our investments against the influx of light.

For my part, the Spiritual dimension of the dance may be served by external aspects of content; of the dances used and using ritual forms and themes, but is discernible as living presence regardless of where the event is 'pitched'. We never really have a common language in words for presence because it is the language of the energetic itself and can only be referred to or given some kind of witness in the art of our words.

But I don't actually feel that I am a thoughtful person so much as one who has become willing and able to let thinking go - let it rest, and allow a subtler appreciation of the moment to rise that has a unity and simplicity of being and yet cannot be 'taught' or rendered into the verbal mental constructs of a mind that operates as a sort of defence mechanism.
But it can be learned - and I believe that such learners actually teach automatically (whether they are teachers or dancers).
It is not commonly learned or desired, because it is in the other direction to that of reinforcing one's sense of self presentation or getting a better handle on the world.
I see it more as learning to relax so as to 'get out of the way' or let the armourings or masks fall off, allowing a trust in the love of music, dance and life to be the essential support, so that what is coming up is a cooperative fruit of a shared sense within myself that extends out naturally, because it is there.

So here I am again (anew!) finding words to clothe the focus of my attention.

I noticed at my last dance, that I was less willing to simply give support to everyone beyond the measure of their joining. Less willing to simply feed the dancers expectations of being pleasured or excited. What we do or don't do energetically is a lifetime's learning (and more), but whenever we release an unnecessary belief or role, we regain the power we had given away to it and enjoy a deeper clearer calmer presence regardless of the conditions.
Perhaps another reason for the lack of conscious joy, is simply that so much energy and attention is engaged in the 'steps'.

I would really love to work (play) with people who are eager to grow and learn (be transformed) by the embrace of the dance rather than engaging the steps. I know the argument goes that you have to learn the steps and then apply them until you have them and then you can dance, but somehow I feel this is upside down.
Perhaps because our dance forms particularly lend themselves to those who lean heavily towards the verbal mental approach rather than 'getting' the dance by induction. Because this is so often true of the teachers, it follows that it draws the dancers and sets up the culture that expresses such control, rather than a spontaneity of trust.
Children - of all species that learn behaviours, do so mostly by direct induction in the presence of clear demonstration. Clear being a term not just for the form, but for the manner or spirit of expression.

I don't think it is just that dance is not in our (Western) culture like in the Balkans etc - but that our approach to life is so much more in the 'head', as a sense of being the controller. I feel this may correspond with the 'Patriarchal aspect' as opposed to a more unified expression - but I tune into this in the Now. For the unified is always the living presence and not the packaged and processed interpretations of any kind of elite.

I've rambled on a bit - doing something I love, because I love it.
That's why I dance and share it and sing for it too.
It is a vehicle of expressing a simple and undemanding love in a world that is largely defended against it.
Being in my element; (the loving) is connecting within myself and therefore with others and the world.
When I try to live outside such a, everything goes awry!
There are no substitutes for our genuine presence!
No one else will do!

Private - Keep Out! ...?

If I have dancers who are locked into looking at feet I often invite the group to have a specific practice or repeat of a dance to explore finding the dance in our bodies. I do so in clear invitation and offering support.
If dancers are locked into looking at the centre (whether I have one or not), I tend to choose dances whose energetic opens to a present relationship in a looseness of fun - unless a more grounded joining felt more appropriate.
The pallet of dances offers itself as a moving focus of our group attention and energy.
Attention directs energy and energy follows attention. Freeing attention opens the space in which to feel and behold the full quality of our dancing.
Looking down is part of a spectrum of range, but locking the attention downwards denies aspiration in shared endeavour.
Subservience looks down, the unworthy look down, but to what do we subjugate ourselves?

The private 'spirituality' that is so easily lost, spoiled or exposed by coming into relationship with others is a sham(e).
Nothing Real is threatened, but can be lost sight of if the unreal is accorded an equal existence. If two or more gather in some other name...

Now surely our relationship is not in itself a joining of hands or meeting of eyes - but is joining in shared purpose.

To talk about this level is more difficult because we don't have shared vocabulary for it - but the symptoms or effects of withholding  are indeed a joylessness or flatness - which then demands a private 'spirituality' to compensate. But our simple presence shared is already a spiritual Fact.

This hole in our culture is buried beneath a lot of stuff that a lot of people are dedicated to defending. It is of a similar nature to the story of the Emperor's 'new' clothes, where none can see or admit to a nakedness because to do so is to reveal themselves as unfit for their positions or hopelessly stupid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Clothes

Of course Life is still Life and happens or leaks out in all sorts of ways. But the exceptions prove the rule rather than disqualify it.

In a culture where everyone agrees to look the other way, love does not exist... and so people make substitutes for it because a purely hateful life is both unliveable and intolerable to the love that we are.

What then is the art and dance of relationship that allows us to meet without making demand of, asserting power upon, or appeal to?
This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day,  Thou canst not then be false to any man.

I am not raising issues to assert myself - but to invite a shared focus in areas of our dancing that  - I sincerely feel - will benefit from being brought to light.

The degree of differences in various groups around the world will not mean that there is not a legitimate conversation to share regarding this - for those who feel drawn to engage in it.

Not everyone has interest in anything except 'dancing', but what is that??
Private - Keep Out!
Authorised persons only!
?

Brian

Acceptance

Good morning all,

There is an aspect or level of our awareness that can always pick up when someone is trying to get something from us  - or put something on us.
If we join with this, we make mutual transaction, we make social rules and expectations of behaviour.  We set up conditions for 'love' such as if you behave as I desire, you will please me, and if you do not you will hurt my feelings and make me upset. Of course this gets very very complicated - except that none of it is real, so much as an attempt to make reality (and the reality of others) fit the ideas or the wishes that are given priority or held dear. When people join in the attempt to make reality fit their own image - they believe it! - and live out from such belief as if they actually were together in the ways they imagine. As if Life (the Living Universe) actually is supporting and enacting our plan for it.

But when we meet someone who is accepting of us as we are, we find a spaciousness in which we can feel, and move with what we feel, for our defences are not triggered into reaction  - unless we are afraid of being without such structures of control, in which case we become aware of the tight fit of our own mask - and thus invited to become self aware of our presentation.

When we can truly be ourselves with another, we feel it as love. We not only feel loved, but feel a freedom to be love's expression.
But the way of this is like a dance in that the self-revealing and the acceptance are not transactions of getting something - nor of getting away from something - but are a cooperation within the 'movement' and the music of our being. one could say a deeper sense of connection with Life, with ourselves and each other. But it is actual, rather than symbolic. Real rather than rehearsed.

Such communioned sense may well become the basis of a new set of transactions - in attempt to have it again, or get more of it, or make sure we don't lose it - and so it is temporarily lost to our awareness while we engage in attempt to make life work - as if it is not already working. But it remains true that when we accept and embrace the moment (of ourselves and each other) exactly as it is, we become available to Life and Life becomes available to us. We have - so to speak - rejoined the dance!

It is very possible to define life and joy in terms of struggling in the dark in terms of moving toward light - if one can get others to join with such definitions or meanings.
Nothing is so lost as that which we set out to find, in the conviction we do not have it!

Sharing the experience of the moment - by neglecting to withdraw, withhold or make separate, may initiate an awkward silence - and unexpected intimacy. Yet if we abide in the moment without reinforcing our reactions, something occurs between us that is in effect 'uncovered' or restored to us - of relating in a way that is unforced, and natural. So many cling to the surface simply because they avoid the personal chaos or conflict that underlies the sense of being 'guilted' by rejection, exclusion and inadequacy. The first time another man hugged me, I froze up. I said (though it was also obvious) - but I said, "I'm all froze up" and he said, "That's ok". And it was - because it was simply honest of that moment - acknowledged and embraced - and moved on.


Brian

Some background in teaching dance as joining in relationship

I almost never teach a dance without there being a sense of the music and therefore rhythm - and nearly always sing as well as demonstrate the dance - in slow motion if helpful. And the rhythm is present throughout the learning - as is a sense of sharing rather than learning in isolation. (Though of course the dancer is free to learn in isolation if they insist!).
(If I could not sing I would at least play a bit of the music first - and call attention to the rhythm if helpful). As a singer, I can not only sing - but can sing without embarrassment or self consciousness. Not that I make a fool of myself - but that I am indifferent to such in the willingness to share - and if I sometimes do - then it is of no moment because it is not about me.
I minimize the aspect of the mind that associates learning with school (at least as school was for me) and maximize the joy, relational trust and relaxed faith in everyone's willingness and ability to join the dance. I will reinforce with verbal mental instructions or mappings - but that isn't the primary mode of teaching or communicating.
If I have dancers with less ability, I may offer cheats or workarounds or simply pointers such as keeping their steps smaller as well as inviting them to tread water 'in the manner of' with kindness to neighbours and remaining with the music and the circle - until they see where to get back on again. This is so much better than chasing after the lost moment for all concerned!
There could be pages of things I might say of offer to such dancers - but would generally be as felt appropriate to their demonstration. I tune into when or whether to directly help as making them self conscious is not help! But I also don't overteach as if we all have to be perfect before we can meet the dance and I raise the bar at least such as to induce some aspiration and some willingness to join in work and play (and rest).

I have a 'workshop' mode that tends to focus on a few dances in more depth, a 'celebratory' mode that focuses on the shared energetic - including very slow or intimate dances - and mostly these days am 'at Home in the dance' not only literally - but actually.
Being at home in something is to be at rest - even in its dynamic - and even through apparent chaotic aspects. I feel this is a mastery - not of cultures or forms - of which one could never perfectly complete an education - but of oneness with. Like we master walking when we no longer have to manually 'do it'. Walking is just part of our expression of ability. We can then use walking without it being a big deal.
This quality of fluency or at-home-ness can extend and invite because it is not trying to become something or validate itself. I notice that the focus can be held clearly in the heart yet in an informality. Our willingness is the measure of our sharing and as the teacher/host I am willing to set the intention and invite joining through example - so I extend that willingness in ways that feel appropriate or receivable - according also to my current level of trust. The more trust is extended the more perspective we share in which to bring more willingness...
But there is a current level of trust in oneself and in each instance of every group that is the guide - because if one attempts to push the river - disconnectedness and struggle replace guidance with self protective blocks and one is obliged to release it and be restored to serving rather than controlling!
In a willingness to serve the dance we can ask of the dancers - and receive freely, what could not be accessed with targets and incentives!


Brian

Relating in the Dance #1 - Personal and transpersonal

If an issue becomes polarized into good vs bad, then real communication is lost. If identifying a block becomes merely the mapping out of judgement, instead of releasing the block, then the 'understandings' reinforce the conditioning that constitutes a block to the natural flow of our being.

Perhaps this is why so many no longer meet in the dancing? - because of a history of (and thus an anticipation of), blame and judgement?


There are a number of indicators for health that are not a matter of the absence of symptoms, but a tangible presence; the qualities of Life.

I am aware there are different 'gazes' that are natural and appropriate for their respective occasions. There are dances that are not social and which call forth a centred interior awareness.

But even so, I stand by my observations (of an avoidance of relationship in the dance). In part I feel a pervading culture of fear and blame that is like a gestalt of our times, and I see it affecting almost everyone either to reinforce fear and control ... or to force its abandonment.

There are a number of ways in which so many dance so much less than their actual presence - presenting an acceptable 'joining' in terms of form but not really joining in Spirit - in living and present movement of inspiration and purpose.

And I feel that there are many who have settled for cherrypicking the 'bits that they like' and are willing to go through the motions of what they don't care for. This being a mentality of separation, comparisons and judgements - and not a circle of joining through music and dance at all.

In this sense I feel that what once was a ritual space in which to take off our ego's along with our worldly habits and tensions, so as to be renewed in Spirit - has become somewhat absorbed or subverted to being a sophisticated presentation. I'm not 'picking' on the dance in this. I see it happen to every new movement or inspiration.

Is it 'good or bad'? - Or is it an opportunity for growth and awakening? We each make our choices - and live by them.

And the reason I raise the issue is simply to invite more conscious attention and appreciation of the power of the dance when we join through it rather than get something for ourselves each.

Being someone who is generally open, receptive and appreciative, in the dance, I enjoy the oneness of purpose that I can feel with others, and I enjoy noticing and joining with the joy, shine or radiance of anyone who brings their presence into the circle in any degree, and I appreciate the moments of spontaneous shared welcome that for me are not merely personal, but the moments of the touch of an unselfconscious quality of being.
In the last post I called them 'darshan' moments - but namaste moment is also apt. To not only enjoy, but to be known in our joy - without inhibition of denial, recoil or avoidance. This is never a matter of will so much as willingness; to let the movement of our being be a fullness of experience that is never altogether private of subjective - but always has a quality of shared or unified being.

At some of Friedel's dancing, I noticed the cultural focus discouraged social connection and focused toward a centredness that was transpersonal. I found it excellent for bringing forth the 'inner dancer' into embodiment - as a serious undertaking of willingness to work!

Yet without grounding in the heart, this could become a culture of personal achievement; self-serious, special and aloof. At the last such occasion, a few of us sang one of the songs live for a dance she had choreographed (Raglan Road) and the heart quality in the singing enabled the witnessing or sharing of the transpersonal through the personal. Such indeed is truly a moment of fulfilment!

Ritual dance sessions can be a vehicle of sharing depth - but can also remain on the surface in somewhat self serious compliance.

Social dances can be deep fun, but they can also be a sort of conditional high without much grounded connection - such as to lose the shared attention of a circle into an immediate chatting in energy overflowing.

Consciousness either tends to use the form or stop at the form.
Transcendence or gratification.
When we stop at the form we have - in my terms at least - fallen asleep in distraction.

The distracted busy or mesmerized mind is 'elsewhere' and unavailable. It does not even realize it is 'engaged' until an awareness rises from a fresh perspective. I don't say this as a 'bad' - but simply to remind us that the human consciousness is expert at forgetting its true nature in the world of its own conditioning.

Anything that serves to re-mind and re-member us in Life, as conscious appreciation and gratitude, is part of our healing - that then extends in our lives to others. Because that's the way life works unless we break or block communication.

When there is a block, energy builds up as part of the healing or unblocking, and if denied, generates crises toward healing - yet humankind tends to dig ever deeper into a personal wilfulness or obstinacy in trying to overcome an adversity, rather than pausing reaction in order to look or listen more honestly.

Where there is a block there is the 'poor in Spirit' - but where the block is undone or passed through is the blessing of the 'Kingdom of Heaven' (I know you and others don't personally lean to such a term Laura - but it points originally to our essential and shared divinity, Now... and not to a Christian commentary).


Brian

Relating in dance #1

Relating cannot meaningfully be imposed, but is uncovered in the extension of trust.
While one can exercise methods or techniques toward such discovery, these are only bringing one into a place where realisation can occur.
The willingness for insight or realisation is the essential determiner of the outcome and not applied force or method.

In this sense our primary relating is within ourselves,  as an expression of self acceptance in expression.

As we see ourselves, so will we see others. If we are judgemental and rejecting of ourselves, we will experience as if others are carrying our own thoughts. Therefore an unjudgemental circle of trust will not reinforce a tendency to withdraw or retaliate in a sense of justified defence.

The attitude of defence is often one of damage limitation, of presenting one's self so as not to attract or merit blame - with all the feelings of rejection, invalidity, hatred and rage, that are associated with guilt, with exclusion, and with unworthiness or denial of love. Much of our social adaption and learning, works to suppress and limit our exposure to the hateful, but it does so at a cost of also denying or suppressing the life principle itself.

The desire or calling for dance has within it the desire to feel and be life in expression, and in joining in dance as a community, to share in and witness that expression.

If this desire is suppressed by a defensive attempt to limit and control our experience, we essentially usurp the movement of life with an imposition of forms of correctness in which we feel some sense of temporary protection and validation - relative to a hostile environment.  And because we cut ourselves off from our life expressing by such controls, we feel less at rest in our wholeness, and more susceptible to threat. Fear becomes a self-fulfilling loop of experience in which the seeming answer or protection, actually fuels and feeds the conditions of division, conflict and the need for defence.

Hence we dance in 'suits of armour', with little free attention to notice or behold the expression of being that is presencing itself as our relatedness - our sharing life.
But if there is any movement of the call to joy alive within us, we will have moments or periods of being-in-expression that are portals or stepping stones out from the mind of thinking, and into the mind that aligns with feeling. It may be these moments are brief, if our desire to get a handle of control on our experience interrupts by habit - because such moments are clear experience of being in harmony with - yet not being in control over - our experience of ourselves in the world with each other.

Investing in such Self-revelation so as to give it honour and welcome in our life is simply a matter of not persisting in suppressing it. This might be a simple moment of releasing what doesn't work, or it may be a process over time in which we notice the ways in which we are still attached or identified with in some protective or personal sense, and shift our identification by degrees until we feel safe enough to trust or move more freely.

A culture of joy establishes the conditions for learning are present, and each of us finds our own way in relaxing and accepting our inclusion in such joy - for though we can lead a horse to water, we cannot make them drink. Self-inclusion is the basis from which we relate in wholeness of presence in which 'life finds its way' because it knows itself. But the definition of joy in terms of a self-specialness will lose its way and will not realize it does this but to itself.

The dance has always spoken to me as a way of releasing self-specialness (in oneself or others).
One can say that everyone is special - but really it is that we are all significant, as the presence of life in expression - as the movement of relatedness of which we cannot really separate out from excepting in imagination that always becomes fearful and always loses the 'music' and the joining.

I thought I was going to write some simple examples of things that I have found helpful - but as the above paragraphs appeared I accept that a foundational perspective is essential. To abide in an expression of trust without attachment to outcome is to break the habit of a coercive intent.
The movement of trust is like a small quiet voice beneath the clamour of the mind in reaction, yet when it is desired, it can be discerned, already present.

Brian

If we build on the sand of merely wishful thinking, it will not stand.

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.

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