We continue our theme this month of “Arise and bloom” through the practice of dance (please visit our Community Lectio Divina practice, Invitation to Photography, and Invitation to Poetry which all explored this theme for April).
I invite you into a movement practice. Allow yourself just 5-10 minutes this day to pause and listen and savor what arises.
- Begin with a full minute of slow and deep breathing. Let your breath bring your awareness down into your body. When thoughts come up, just let them go and return to your breath. Hold the image of arising and blooming, planting a seed as you prepare to step into the dance. You don’t need to think this through or figure it out, just notice what arises. Let dance guide you on the journey, listen for how your body wants to move.
- Play the piece of music below (“Comptine d’un autre été” by Yann Tiersen) and let your body move in response, without needing to guide the movements. Listen to how your body wants to move through space in response to your breath. Remember that this is a prayer, an act of deep listening. Pause at any time and rest in stillness again. Sit with waiting for the impulse to move and see what arises.
- After the music has finished, sit for another minute in silence, connecting again to your breath. Just notice your energy and any images rising up.
- Is there a word, phrase, or image that could express what you encountered in this time? (You can share about your experience, or even just a single word or image in the comments section below or join our Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks Facebook group and post there.)
- If you have time, spend another five minutes journaling in a free-writing form, just to give some space for what you are discovering.
- To extend this practice, sit longer in the silence before and after and feel free to play the song through a second time. Often repetition brings a new depth.
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4 Responses
Margie Ann – you are a treat! Thank you.
They say that nobody is perfect. Then they tell you practice makes perfect.
I wish they’d make up their minds. ~Wilt Chamberlain
So What?
What feels like way too many
moons ago,
just when the Kaballah was gaining in popularity
long before Madonna put on a veil and believed
when it was still a street corner ministry
and Philip Berg
the propagator of popular Kaballistic thought
stood at 23rd Street and Fifth Avenue
with a square card table
and leaflets covered with Hebrew letters
asking people to join him
at a gathering
almost any night of the week
I stopped
fascinated by the calligraphy
so into the Goddess
and so not into my own Judaism
that I was ready to argue
He handed me a book
with a pearly sky blue cover
and black lettering
round bulbous happy letters
An Introduction To The Kaballah….
I took it, greedy with my gift,
and listened as he spoke
he so involved
me so yet to evolve
But I don’t know Hebrew, I confessed.
Ah, but you don’t need to, for it is not in the
letters on the page but the space between them
where the magic lies
My brain lit up, the flame of recognition of this
grand idea flooding my heart with heat so
dense that my whole body joined in the
celebration
Now I look between the forms
and where others see an unscalable palisade preventing them
I see the footholds of opportunity that I can climb into and on
Now I listen between the notes
hearing the waiting, the longing, the connection that runs rampant
needing me to build the suspension rigging that bridges the was with the yet
as I remain bonded to the experience
Now, I read between the lines
between the negative and positive
planted on the page to tell its story
and buried within are the seeds of my own story
my own conception
my own perception
my own reception.
When I teach improvisation sometimes
I use a John Cage piece of extended silence
and, before surrendering my audiocassettes
to advances in technology and their own antiquity
I used a piece written by my friend, Nicky – who has moved on
as well – long, seductive sliding guitar notes bluesy woozy
and my students were asked to dance between the notes,
between the sounds, to dance into the emptiness.
At the nursing home, we would stay active in the stillness
holding a pose while listening to the emptiness travel within
fostering the next movement and the next
Or I would play a bolero, or, with kids, Peter and the Wolf,
or my favorite – Miles Davis’ So What? – where the piano spoke
the words and the other instruments talked back
Each student would choose white key or black,
Except for Tanya, too timid to try,
and was assigned to be the piano legs
and provide support
I would demonstrate the riff on a little Casio keyboard – showing white keys showing black
and each person would listen to the whole piece finding what was theirs.
A trumpet, a drum, a bass, a piano, a saxophone – whatever was within.
Afraid to be wrong, at first they stuck to the rules
white black trumpet sax bass drums
Tanya bit her bottom lip
then I remarked: There are no mistakes. All that happens is meant to happen.
And slowly then suddenly then magically they were so So What
and Tanya took a chance
embracing the musical phrasing and the literal phrase
being imperfectly impeccably whole.
I used to do worship dance as prayer. I love how dance involves my whole being as an expression of worship. It was wonderful to dance this morning. I feel rested and balanced. Time to fly.
indescribable joy in Rising Glory