Was it Heraclitus who said a man cant stand in the same river twice because the man has changed and so has the river?
Our experience of a dance (or of any thing in this world) has to change.
Rock and Roll burst into pop culture as an expression of freedom from stuffed shirt restraints - but soon became simply a normalized form in which conformity and uniformity could be expressed.
Because the context changed.
The first time we hit something new it is in innocence. But to look for the experience again is to be grasping and predefining by definition. This always reflects in a way that might still be energised but is not in the blessing or joy of innocence - because coercion is at work!
What is a dance?
I feel a dance is a vehicle or conduit that - if used as such - is an invitation and invocation of connection with life. The living dance comes through the vehicle - which is a way of bringing focus of attention to eternal qualities that express in changing forms.
There is also the channel opened by the musicians with Life as inspiration - and relationship with the dancers as the expression and extension of the music. (Though I once shared in an amazing silent circle dance).
With recordings one becomes used to the same form, but in life, music is responsive to the atmospheric of that moment in that group.
I heard a concert pianist describe once how active the audience was in his capacity to play. An engaged attentive receptive audience lifted his capacity to play to capacities otherwise inaccessible. I can testify to this.
As a musician I find I sing where I find the life, and also bring to life.
I want to allow an essence to be communicated through me. Because I love to be so alive and it is a joy to share it.
But also I come into a freedom to express or convey qualities within the music that might have been only potentials in the recording.
A dance's form is the brush strokes by which the living mind paints in a creation that reveals itself to itself.
I have always had the sense in the music and dance we share of:
"What it is to be human"
Embracing this in each and all of its energies has always opened:
"What it is to be Divine".
2007/07/28
"Behold I make all things new!"
We CAN open to the experience that is Being the flow.
Which is a singularity and is thus perfectly shared - or shall I say - not a privately gotten experience. We may yet have filters of perception that limit the fullness of such knowing but each step is a lightening even if it sometimes seems that fear seeks to pull our mind back.
This is like letting the scales fall from our eyes (or the armour from our hearts) and being more directly smitten by the subtle beauty of the world.
I now recognise this opening in the archaic expression of 'leading from Glory to Glory'. Its not about getting somewhere else but letting the perfection in.
How relaxed, receptive and open a conduit are we willing to be?
Not a lot perhaps while we are given to validating our own private meanings.
But in a shared trust this tends to fall away and we find ourselves in a dance we have danced so many times and yet as if experiencing it as if for the first time.
"Behold I make all things new!"
Which is a singularity and is thus perfectly shared - or shall I say - not a privately gotten experience. We may yet have filters of perception that limit the fullness of such knowing but each step is a lightening even if it sometimes seems that fear seeks to pull our mind back.
This is like letting the scales fall from our eyes (or the armour from our hearts) and being more directly smitten by the subtle beauty of the world.
I now recognise this opening in the archaic expression of 'leading from Glory to Glory'. Its not about getting somewhere else but letting the perfection in.
How relaxed, receptive and open a conduit are we willing to be?
Not a lot perhaps while we are given to validating our own private meanings.
But in a shared trust this tends to fall away and we find ourselves in a dance we have danced so many times and yet as if experiencing it as if for the first time.
"Behold I make all things new!"
2007/07/25
Found in Translation Part 1
I sing songs from many lands and in other languages for dance. I add these to my repertoire from time to time from a fairly large archive of recordings that I used to use for dance – before I started singing them.
One such song was an expansive Greek song that had always opened a celebratory heart so I felt to learn it. “Tsamikos Ivalla - also known as Maria’s Tsamikos”
I asked a network of other dance teachers if anyone had the original lyric – and as an afterthought – any translation.
Someone did – but the translation was just the sort of thing that might have prevented me wanting to sing it! Here is the Lyric translated:
Yesterday as the sun turned - Ivalla! Yesterday afternoon They came and stole -Ivalla! The morning star They were eleven, they were 12, they were 13 All with horses, all with weapons, so they would be feared!
Up runs Botsaris - Ivalla! And Karafotias. They take up weapons - Ivalla! Against the Arvanites. And from the fighting, from the bloodshed and from the carnage, Houses cracked and collapsed, the mountain shook!
Yesterday as the sun turned - Ivalla! Yesterday afternoon They did not take from us - Ivalla! The morning star Here's to you Botsaris - Ivalla! And Karafotias, You have shamed - Ivalla! The Arvanites
The form of this is not at all initially attractive to me – but I found myself asking within to be shown what it was in its primary symbols as a story - and this is what came:
Take 1:
I see a story of having had our treasure (land/place/woman?) stolen by a greater force. They are Others. But that by courage and a bold intent and resistance and at cost of the ruin and change of the world as we know it The treasure remains with us and we stand tall against those who sought to deny us.
The treasure is a symbol of beauty and truth - expressions of the Divine. The Arvanites take the role of the feared and repressed forces that would overwhelm the seemingly outnumbered self with fear and consequent loss.
The heroes are the capacity and willingness to risk all in doing what must be done to keep connection with light in the mind though it shook the foundations of the world and all was changed. They are praised as the embodiment of a saving force that held back the darkness and kept the 'Morning Star'.
As with all stories, all the characters, roles and symbols are in our mind. "out there' is internal scenery serving as a prop for the story.
This story seems to speak of the ego's version of itself and the world. Special self supported by its symbols of the divine. Competition and conflict. Victory (and loss).
Something did not feel complete n me with this, so I asked and listened again to see what would be revealed.
Take 2:
The fear that would judge, and thus rob us, (as if a separate power), by endarkening the wholeness of mind from itself is seen in its intimidating array of force but is refused.
This refusal allows in and supports the single clear intent that is willing to express integrity even though in so doing is the foundation of the self shook and the mind and the world changed.
In gratitude and celebration is the Spirit that restores sanity and dispels the fear of loss recognised and glorified.
Notes:
This the essence is derived from the substance but the reverse does not hold true.
I am not offering any justification of conflict worldly terms. I am addressing the mind that thinks and then believes its story.
The refusal to obey fear's dictate is the seed of peace within a mind in conflict. In time and by welcome it grows to a level that has some consistency and can be discerned as the voice for truth. (Though it may still be feared as it does not fit into the status quo and the consequences of following it seem dire).
Until then it seems mixed among the clamour of reaction and yet grows to the point where the ‘Yes’ for life expresses as the ‘No’ to allegiance or subserviance to that which undermines life.
This can get messy because reaction is still triggered by seeming external events but is essentially standing FOR and WITH. It becomes clear that taking an identity against something is to give the power of your mind over to it.
By releasing all claims to power as if a separated mind that has to enforce its will, is welcome made for the power of Oneness or the expression of innate integrity.
Rather than identify as a self-made-self we rediscover Identity as a living expression of that which is alive and which we do not create.
This is the basis from which we can respond from a fresh and conflict free place rather than react with rebranded answers from the same old database of past experience.
I felt to put the whole thing like this as a reference in case anyone was actually curious as to how a warmongering horror story could be a source of inspiration and homecoming.
I read it with my heart and my mind served behind.
I was inspired to practice this way of reading as a result of reading the NTI.
The Holy Spirit’s Interpretation of the New Testament ~ A Course in Understanding and Acceptance or NTI ( “New Testament Interpretations") To be published next year - but freely readable online at www.forholyspirit.org
In Peace
Brian
One such song was an expansive Greek song that had always opened a celebratory heart so I felt to learn it. “Tsamikos Ivalla - also known as Maria’s Tsamikos”
I asked a network of other dance teachers if anyone had the original lyric – and as an afterthought – any translation.
Someone did – but the translation was just the sort of thing that might have prevented me wanting to sing it! Here is the Lyric translated:
Yesterday as the sun turned - Ivalla! Yesterday afternoon They came and stole -Ivalla! The morning star They were eleven, they were 12, they were 13 All with horses, all with weapons, so they would be feared!
Up runs Botsaris - Ivalla! And Karafotias. They take up weapons - Ivalla! Against the Arvanites. And from the fighting, from the bloodshed and from the carnage, Houses cracked and collapsed, the mountain shook!
Yesterday as the sun turned - Ivalla! Yesterday afternoon They did not take from us - Ivalla! The morning star Here's to you Botsaris - Ivalla! And Karafotias, You have shamed - Ivalla! The Arvanites
The form of this is not at all initially attractive to me – but I found myself asking within to be shown what it was in its primary symbols as a story - and this is what came:
Take 1:
I see a story of having had our treasure (land/place/woman?) stolen by a greater force. They are Others. But that by courage and a bold intent and resistance and at cost of the ruin and change of the world as we know it The treasure remains with us and we stand tall against those who sought to deny us.
The treasure is a symbol of beauty and truth - expressions of the Divine. The Arvanites take the role of the feared and repressed forces that would overwhelm the seemingly outnumbered self with fear and consequent loss.
The heroes are the capacity and willingness to risk all in doing what must be done to keep connection with light in the mind though it shook the foundations of the world and all was changed. They are praised as the embodiment of a saving force that held back the darkness and kept the 'Morning Star'.
As with all stories, all the characters, roles and symbols are in our mind. "out there' is internal scenery serving as a prop for the story.
This story seems to speak of the ego's version of itself and the world. Special self supported by its symbols of the divine. Competition and conflict. Victory (and loss).
Something did not feel complete n me with this, so I asked and listened again to see what would be revealed.
Take 2:
The fear that would judge, and thus rob us, (as if a separate power), by endarkening the wholeness of mind from itself is seen in its intimidating array of force but is refused.
This refusal allows in and supports the single clear intent that is willing to express integrity even though in so doing is the foundation of the self shook and the mind and the world changed.
In gratitude and celebration is the Spirit that restores sanity and dispels the fear of loss recognised and glorified.
Notes:
This the essence is derived from the substance but the reverse does not hold true.
I am not offering any justification of conflict worldly terms. I am addressing the mind that thinks and then believes its story.
The refusal to obey fear's dictate is the seed of peace within a mind in conflict. In time and by welcome it grows to a level that has some consistency and can be discerned as the voice for truth. (Though it may still be feared as it does not fit into the status quo and the consequences of following it seem dire).
Until then it seems mixed among the clamour of reaction and yet grows to the point where the ‘Yes’ for life expresses as the ‘No’ to allegiance or subserviance to that which undermines life.
This can get messy because reaction is still triggered by seeming external events but is essentially standing FOR and WITH. It becomes clear that taking an identity against something is to give the power of your mind over to it.
By releasing all claims to power as if a separated mind that has to enforce its will, is welcome made for the power of Oneness or the expression of innate integrity.
Rather than identify as a self-made-self we rediscover Identity as a living expression of that which is alive and which we do not create.
This is the basis from which we can respond from a fresh and conflict free place rather than react with rebranded answers from the same old database of past experience.
I felt to put the whole thing like this as a reference in case anyone was actually curious as to how a warmongering horror story could be a source of inspiration and homecoming.
I read it with my heart and my mind served behind.
I was inspired to practice this way of reading as a result of reading the NTI.
The Holy Spirit’s Interpretation of the New Testament ~ A Course in Understanding and Acceptance or NTI ( “New Testament Interpretations") To be published next year - but freely readable online at www.forholyspirit.org
In Peace
Brian
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