.....ain't it strange

ain't it strange....
hand of god feel the finger
hand of god I start to whirl
hand of god I don't linger
don't get get dizzy
do not fall lord
I don't get nervous oh I just move in another dimension
come move in another dimension
come move in another dimension 


patti Smith "ain't it strange"





To dance then, is to pray, to meditate, to enter into communion with the larger dance, 
which is the universe. 
-- Jean Houston

It's hot, but I'm cold.

Tired, had an almost sleepless night and weeding the garden near my studio this morning seems to have zapped some energy and it is time to do my nightly meditation .....my dance.

The music has been playing for awhile now but I'm not feeling it...

I'm still sitting.

I feel a little heavy.

I'm waiting for the music to do its stuff and it doesn't seem to be happening.

Toe is tapping a little now.

Maybe it's time to drag my tired butt up and do something good for myself...

and it is good for many reason...the obvious is that movement is good

but of course it's more than that...

During this year of dance I've learned that freeing my body of tension often leads to an opening up of  my heart...

opening up to my emotions.

When my heart is closed life becomes difficult...nothing flows...Emotions dull...the good ones and the bad ones...

About the same time I began to dance I wrote to a friend that I want to experience all emotion.  As I write that here I feel a little trepidation that I would ask for such a thing.

Why would I want to experience all of them?

Hate,

Fear,

Sorrow,

Anger...

Why?

I don't...

But the truth is I will.
Burying them, denying these unpleasant sensations does not make them go away
Buried and denied emotion manifest themselves in illness, disease, insomnia, eating disorders, addictions and on, and on, and on.


I think if I am to be fully alive I can't hide from the things that bubble up.  What I know too, is that love cannot function in a heart that is half closed or 
in the grip of  unexamined emotion...


So for me the question is, what to do with them?


When I dance into the chaos, when I'm in my body, tension goes, and very often as I come into the stillness the dominate emotion of the day comes gently with me into the night....
and sometimes not so gently.


And at this moment, as I write this, I realize that my best interest is not served by denying them, but by transforming how I feel about them...


How can I truly experience love or joy or peace with a sheltered heart?

....dance to ecstasy?

I like electronic trance music because it has no lyrics...every once in a while there might be a phrase that pops up but they aren't emotional for me...the are simply phrases like "are you the dream or the dreamer"...or "thoughts cross over, thoughts cross back".  
There is no emotional hook for me in this music...no girlie hook, no memories hook.  
There is emotion, but it is the feeling of freedom, no hook...  It's a full body, in my body, takes me over kind of emotion.   


It's been almost one year since I went to my first trance dance gathering, featuring performers  who create different types of electronic music.  

Very loud electronic music....but that is part of the experience....actually being able to feel the vibration of sound.

These gathering are usually held far from "Civilization" 

because the music is loud and non-stop for most of 3 days.

It's like a heartbeat....
It is a spiritual experience when the dancers and the music become one with the beat.

..I don't why or how...but it got inside of me...the music, the dance, the people.

When I got home from that first gathering 
I borrowed a cd and started listening

and dancing in my studio...I'd dance all day with my muse.

Now, a year later, 
I realize it is a nightly ritual 
and I don't feel as good if for some reason I don't take the time to do it.


I light candles...turn on the music and begin to move...
and there are times when I just want to get out of my head..
But mostly it is a celebration....
the music and the movement speak to me somewhere outside my mind


The steps don't matter.
This dance in my studio is for me.
A reconnection with my body.


The tracks are long...10 minutes or so and I usually dance to 4 or 5...
each usually starting out slow....lulling me away from my everyday thoughts as I feel the music wash over me.  It is a wave of both letting go and a tension of feeling my body so fully.
In this kind of trance music everything builds...until it becomes primal...a chaos of sound that defies me to hold still...... begs me to partake in a frenzy of movement
Feet connected to the ground, but mind and body vibrating within another space.


Gabrielle Roth in the 'Maps to Ecstasy', says it is the rhythm of chaos in music that "is an announcement of creativity seeking form."
Maybe that is why my muse most always comes during dance


On the nights when I fully let go and enter the chaos there is always a release....and as the music slows I stay in that in-between, open and accepting place as long as I can, and I feel joyful, sure that the Universe and I were in sync for a time,
 both the dreamer and the dream.


....and so, I do it again, and again, and again....





http://youtu.be/ZMFFkCM07mw
http://youtu.be/FgrECWf0hgc

http://youtu.be/SxyYJxQH5nE

xo