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Winter 2007
--->Quote of the Month
--->Winter Practice
--->Winter Events
--->Reading recommendation
--->Practitioner Experiences
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Quote of the Month
Never trust a thought you came upon sitting down.
The muscles must be in celebration with the mind.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
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Winter Practice: Embodiment, Injury & Emotion
An injury is a creative limit. Limits force us to reconsider how we accomplish a task. Mind and emotions grope for road signs, billboards; we steer off into untracked woods. I taught the recent Winter Movement Monastery, watching more than usual; I’d been injured for almost six months – first one thing then another, the hip bone being connected to leg bone and all. As the introspective intensity of the Monastery developed I craved a good blow out. I did find ways to move gently but these didn’t satisfy the fiery part of my nature since all my life I’ve used my dance as a healing catharsis. Now this injury cycle forced me to remain carefully embodied while processing high intensity emotions.
This is a subtle point. Often physical catharsis releases anger and deep pain, but what if those very movements threaten to wrench already fragile joints? Do we have to be physically muted? Somewhat, yes. Do we have to dissociate from our bodies. No, no, no. We can stay inside our flesh, our sensorial world, moving and feeling our way as emotions course through us and discharge. The experience may be entirely unfamiliar and require acclimation.
Though disconcerting, I’ve always found getting off my familiar interior highway enormously refreshing. This time I returned home from retreat to perceive my world newly, finding solutions to niggling problems. I saw color more clearly, tasted tastes more distinctly. I felt my breath in the soles of my feet. My injury is still present, healing in its own time, but has it really mattered to not be able to thrash around in my habitual fashion? No. Another vista has opened instead and my Dancemeditation practice deepened because I couldn’t deliver my usual cathartic avenue to myself.
Practice:
Begin moving so that you feel no physical pain. Bring your attention to the sensation of your motion. The sensation needn’t be intense. Continue moving. If emotional discomfort emerges continue to be move with awareness and without physical pain. Embrace the sensorial fullness of a body feeling both emotion and motion. Moving mindfully and employing undeviating concentration helps integrate intense emotion without abuse-fully hurting our precious bodies.
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Winter Events:
Course: Monday Night Winter Series in NYC
January 8 - April 2 * 212 226 2116
http://www.dancemeditation.com/monnigspirbe2.html
Seminar: Cape Cod Winter Weekend
February 11 & 12 * 508 487 2724
http://www.dancemeditation.com/capcodwinwee.html
Seminar: Release of Fire: Dancemeditation in Highland Park NJ
March 4 * 732 777 9642
http://www.somactr.com/workshops.shtml
Seminar: Spiritual Bellydance in Wakefield RI
March 10 * 401 782 2126
http://www.allthatmatters.com/
Seminar: Reconnecting to Rebuild: Dancemeditation in New Orleans
April 13 -16 * 225 229 3755
Seminar: Sensual Alchemy: Spiritual Bellydance at Kripalu
April 29 - May 5 * 866 200 5203
http://www.kripalu.org/program/type2/selfspirit/SASB71
Retreat: Summer Movement Monastery
June 17 - 23 * 212 226 2114
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Reading Recommendation
The Gift: Poems by Hafiz, the Great Sufi Master
By Hafiz, Daniel Ladinsky, translator
From Booklist
Less well known in the U.S. than his Sufi predecessor, Rumi, Hafiz (Shams-ud-din Muhammad) is also worthy of attention, and Ladinsky's free translations should help see that he gets it. Hafiz is so beloved in Iran that he outsells the Koran. Many know his verses by heart and recite them with gusto. And gusto is appropriate to this passionate, earthy poet who melds mind, spirit, and body in each of his usually brief pensees. Ladinsky has deliberately chosen a loose and colloquial tone for this collection, which might grate on the nerves of purists but makes Hafiz come vividly alive for the average reader. "You carry / All the ingredients / To turn your life into a nightmare--/ Don't mix them!" he advises, and "Bottom line: / Do not stop playing / These beautiful / Love / Games." Nothing is too human for Hafiz to celebrate, for in humanity he finds the prospect of God. In everything from housework to lovemaking, he celebrates the spiritual possibilities of life. A fine and stirring new presentation of one of the world's great poets.
--Patricia Monaghan
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Practitioner Experiences
I had such a strangely marvelous time during the intensive. Thank you so much for giving me that opportunity. This morning when I woke up, wanting to dance, I began to cry, and then, the only word I can use to describe the sound that came out of my mouth is keening, though to my memory, I have never actually heard keening. They were grief sounds that went way beyond crying. Animal sounds. Sounds I had never heard before, never knew I could or would ever make. The grief was overwhelming, pouring over me with the sounds, then ebbing quickly.
Tonight I did a quick search on keening. One of the first things to come up was the fact that as far back as the 1600's, keening and wailing by women were outlawed at funerals in Ireland. It struck me as an example of how much we are asked to withhold.
It feels like metal bolts have broken inside of me, and though it is not a comfortable feeling, I am grateful for it.
--- Kate Temple-West, playwrite
Throughout the long opening sequence during which you had "Passion Play" going, I had quite an intense experience. I got to the place where an acute focus absorbed me; I felt that I was taking in all your movements and the richness behind them with all my senses. At some point, with the music building, your movement became so unbearably exquisite that I found tears were rolling down my face. To share something of that poignancy is an unspeakable gift. Thank you.
Whirling is a challenge for me, and feels somewhat terrifying. The first several times I've whirled, (whether in your classes or on my own), I got very sick to my stomach, but this time I at least did not feel sick at all. Whirling on Saturday night, I felt as though I were filled with dark matter, as though a body with gravity that has yet to become a star, and then I saw a ring of light emanate out from it, as though the center had left me and was traveling outward. The second night of whirling was different--more like experimentation with balance, with physical placement so as to avoid vertigo. And then, at once, a striking urge to cry out and exult in the Glory of the divine. I see now that whirling is, of any physical act, perhaps the most symbolic of surrender.
---Anita Boeninger
And that is the end of our newsletter. Thank you very much!
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