Shamsi

My second time posting a dream board, but my first time manually cutting and pasting…  There is another blog upcoming as a direct result of this project, but that’s for later.

This was not where this board was intended to go… but finally, here she is; intuited incarnation.

At the bottom is the sun rising, and the poem says:

Energize

Giving Thanks

Remembrances

movestrong

energize your morning

find your center

Take the Time to Shine

CREATE HAPPINESS EVERYDAY

Study

Uncover

True Self

Seeing is

Believing SEEK

THE TRUTH Live

YouCan’t Fake

Answered Prayers

Other Full Moon Dream Boards:

Jamie Ridler asks, “So under this particular moon, at this particular time, what are you inviting into your life? How will you shine your own light in the world? What are you dreaming of?”

Kate and Shamsi Dancemeditation Photo Credit: Paul B. Goode

I am aggravated today.  I was supposed to hold a 4 hour Dancemeditation session this morning and no one registered.  No one told me they would definitely be there.  I did not go to the studio.  I received a call at 10AM asking whether we were still having the session because there were 3 people there.  I am frustrated.  I will live.  I was looking forward to my own personal “Day of Dancemeditation.”

I putter around my house doing mundane chores instead.  Maybe this is why I’m upset.  Given the choice of Dancemed versus Housework… well, yeah.

Kate and I are meeting at 3 my time today.  This was supposed to coincide with my ending the session that did not happen.  I would finish my session at 2, have time to collect and set up the computer in the dance space and then …  Instead I am stuck in our home-studio room, afternoon sun blazing down through the large windows, white painted walls glaring at me.  I am waiting patiently in front of my computer, arranging the new little camera I’ve purchased just for Skyping.  I do not see Kate come on line.  I wait.  Kate texts around 3:15 and says her internet connection is flakey, can we work remotely.  Sure.

I am in a mood; my day is so not going as I planned and I know the Universe is pushing my buttons.

I have my music, so this is fine.  I plug it into the overhead room monitors and begin.  My mind wanders almost immediately.  I think of a practise my volleyball team began in my sophomore year.  “Don’t bring your day into the gym,” I remember the lecture.  “Leave it at the door.”  As a team we began the simple practise of walking into the gym (each person did this on their own,) changing out for practise and then going to find a spot on the wall.  Each of us would sit in front of the wall until our minds were cleared of the events of the day.  I hadn’t thought of this in years and now I could use this exercise, but I ignore the prompt and continue the opening sequence.  Is this my new “spot on the wall?”  I think so.

We had no pre-set today and I can tell.  My brain moves ahead wondering what I will do next.  I try to return to the movements at hand.  Folding forward, left foot in front, I can feel the familiar ‘wrong-ness’ of my left hip.  I’ve ceased to wonder or ask myself what is there; I simply notice and continue the movement.  I sink gradually into the twist, rolling each vertebra from the base of my spine, onto the floor.  I wait for the tiny popping releases, they do not immediately come.  I slow my movement down and enter each folding twist and subsequent reclining twist with more deliberation.  Eventually I feel my lower back release and give way, the tiny satisfying pops finally making my mood dissipate.  I find myself in the side opening sequence without any real recollection of getting there.  Opening to the side with an inhalation, wide, hips opening, chest and shoulders expanding, my neck feels very stiff.  I never stop the movement.  Closing in on myself as I exhale, drawing my navel so far inward I wonder if I will disappear into myself like scenery into a cartoon hole.  My shoulders love this movement the slow, continual circling, opening, expanding, pulling forward and finally down and around.  I feel I could stay in this movement forever today.  Maybe I will?  No one else is here.  Even though I am alone in my space, my consciousness feels the expansion as it looks for Kate – the room feels larger for this?  Strange.  I wonder where she is in her sequence and where I should be.  Should I be anywhere?  Gradually I come out of the side expansion rolling lazily into pigeon.  On my left I find myself making tiny minute adjustments to deepen the stretch of my left hip.  I check in to ’square my hips’ and feel the stretch reach its terminal point.  Pushing back out of the pose, I eventually move side to side into and out of pigeon in an almost fluid nature, holding the pose only long enough to tweak my posture and then pushing back out of it into the other side.  This fluidity leads into a free movement that is engaging and focused on the opening of my sticky hip sockets.  Eventually I find myself rolling around on the floor.  A simple luxury on a Sunday afternoon.

This is where I wish we had defined our practice.

I find my attention and awareness of my body fading as I become bored with the floor-rolling.  Without preamble I stand up and force myself into a repetition and evolution practice.  My movements are born out of Tai Chi today.  I can feel this, the precise sense of moving low and shifting my weight.  Holding a pose, I vaguely wonder about Butoh and how much longer, slower, deeper I could elongate a movement.  My arms and legs expand and extend from my spine; I feel the energy and the electricity of moving from my dorsal plane.  It is a supportive and energizing place from which to work.  I am enjoying the depth of it, but then I wonder errantly about Kate, where she is in her practise and what she is doing.  I wonder at what time it is.  I feel as though I’ve been in the space forever; although I see it is barely an hour.

I free dance, just because.  I feel I need to round out my practise and finish.  There is a flat feeling as I finish, no grand hoorah, no witnessing, no spark of feedback.  I simply am as I stand in the center of my space, the music still playing.

My friend Kate Russel approached me at our annual Summer Movement Monestary with an interesting proposal; so interesting, I could not decline.  We will meet weekly via on-line video conferencing to practice Dancemeditation together for her Master’s dissertation.  I am intrigued and excited.

This is our first ‘online’ practice.

As we start I felt sticky, tired, sore and in general beat up.  I let my mind fall on the previous days.  Hours spent in my car driving to and from dancing gigs.  Jumping from the vehicle to the restroom, changing, hitting the floor/stage, dancing, sweating all of my make up off and back to the restroom to change, drive home, wash the feet and face, fall into bed.

I agreed to meet Kate at 9AM my time because I have plans this afternoon.  I brazenly stayed up until 3AM… awaking at 8 to prepare my space and resolve any technical issues before our meeting.  I am beyond tired.  I am exhausted and I feel the age of my physical body and the brutality my spirit, emotions and mind have been through this past week.  I have driven myself too hard.  I long for the safety, comfort of and eventual respite given by the practice I am about to engage; for so many reasons.

I realise as I bend forward, in the first instant, the first motion, how much tension is in my hips, always in my hips.  Gradually, through the repeated backward and forward of the opening sequence, I feel this tightness begin to subside.  Kate and I have agreed upon 20 minutes of opening sequence followed by an undetermined amount of time in spinal work (spiraling circles up and down our spines in three prone positions.)  I hear static in the speakers, my mind turns to the technical aspects of our journey this morning.  My first Skyping attempt.  It worked (I’m amazed.)

We talked, we realised neither of us has an appropriate set list by which to do the movement we’re looking for this morning.  I scrambled through, Kate said, “take your time.”  I am not feeling patience this morning.  I want to be…”there” already and to the movies this afternoon, and… never ‘here.’ Dang but I’ve got it bad.  I pull together a set list based on our agreed agenda – Opening sequence, spinal release/circles…who knows what else.  I know I haven’t properly chosen the music in my haste, but I’m ready to get to it.  I’ve plugged my laptop into the external speakers for bigger sound and adjusted the webcam + microphone so that Kate can hear the music…there is static.  I don’t know if she can tell…  There is static from the microphone on her side + the music from my side which is going back into her location (all mixed together.)  I know this will make me crazy if I let it.  I let it go, we’re here for the work, for each other, for Kate’s project… for some unknown (to me) advisor who will read this later and probably laugh.

I hear the static through the speakers and occasionally peel my eyes open to see where Kate is in her flow… we are off, I don’t worry.  Occasionally I see Kate, hovering in a movement, waiting for me to get there… I begin to worry.  I try to let this go.  That’s not what it’s about, us being the same.  Somewhere I know this.  I feel a strange resistance?  Not toward the work…toward the idea that I have to be aware of Kate, other than that we are doing this at the same time.  My mind flits to Dunya, “when it’s just me and Stephanie, we turn on the music, close our eyes and go.”  Stephanie is another Certified Teacher.  My awareness is ‘too outside.’  I bring it back in, I twist back, I feel my lower back stretching into submission.  I go forward to one knee and my left side rebels.  I can’t go too far forward yet in that twist.  Forward to the side, twisting back, my lower back finally gives, a series of satisfying pops in my spine.

I am also consciously aware that Kate has a different sense of what the opening sequence is.  I studied with Dunya earlier.  More recently (since Kate’s been practicing) Dunya has modified the opening.  I let it go.  I move naturally into pigeon after the wide-stance, side-opening sequence.  I peer up to see that Kate has gone into seated spinal twist with gentle up and down.  I go there later in the sequence…I have been away from the group practice too long… I don’t know, somehow I don’t care, I don’t feel that this matters – we are all going to the same place.

I am in a wide legged ‘Chinese’ split (as my Grandfather called them) leaning over one leg, stretching along my side, moving across the front, low to the floor, around to the other side, coming to the center over my hips and reversing the movement.  I love this stretch, fluidly feeling the tension of my ham strings, hip flexors and my torso’s sides gradually give way.  I peer to see Kate following in this …she is unaware that I could continue this exact movement for another hour.  I don’t.

I lay back, cueing Kate that we are entering the spinal twisting sequence.  OMG but I haven’t done this in forever.  I need this desperately.  I feel the largeness and impatient quickness of my movements.  I breathe more deeply and feel the movements slow and become smaller.  I am lying on my left side, right hand tucked near my chin, my right leg carelessly draped over my extended left leg, I feel contained.  As the second set of spirals reaches the base of my skull my eyes roll back into my head.  I’d forgotten the near-ecstasy of feeling this movement as it rolls around the top of my spine, releasing things of which I have no conscious awareness.

We have not set a time for this exercise.  I look over and see that Kate has moved to her back.  In some attempt to stay ‘almost’ in time with her, I move to my back as well.  I do not feel as contained in this position.  My stomach is exposed.  The hiss in the speakers increases and I wonder if Kate can hear it.  I know now if I run the music from my side again, I will use my iPod to run the sound and use the big speakers in the room (speakers that are not attached to the computer or the microphone.)  I vaguely think over the ‘manual’ we will write as we invite other Dancemed’ers into our practice…. remember to set the computer and all programs required to engage in the activity so that they do not “go to sleep/hibernate” in the middle of practice.  Use external sound source (apart from the computer.)  This mental check list runs through my head with a vague awareness of having skipped a vertebrae going up while lying on my right side.  I go back to the base of my spine and try going up again… skipped the vertebrae, again.  What is there?  My brain is only partially here.  I think I should have called Ellen about the movie before I started practice… it’s okay.  I wonder if I’m waking Shelly with the sound… whatever, he’s usually 100 times louder than I am, he can miss some sleep.  I find myself still on the sticky vertebrae… in my lumbar, only two down from the thoracic, what is there?  I roll the spiral around and around just that area and finally wind further up my spine, luxuriating again when I reach the base of my skull.

I vaguely notice the static is gone… sweet….  Then I hear a strange beeping and realise Kate’s gone off-line and is calling back.  I stop the music, answer… ultimately okay with the situation, but a bit stunted.

We talk about the remainder of the practice.  Kate suggests free movement and chanting.  I look at the time and try to shrug it off.  I’m too bound by the clock, I just want my process to unfold in its own time.  I confirm with Kate the free movement and chanting… we decide on free movement for a bit and then lying still to process for a bit.  A bit… I wonder about the length of ‘a bit.’  Free movement feels enjoyable, rolling on the floor, spreading wide, opening, extending, something feels so compressed/compressing lately.  The world?  Weighing down on me?  Stress? Contracting my muscles, making my breath shorter, I feel my arms swing away from my sides and reach out, through my finger tips reaching, grasping, shaking off the confinement.  My body feels that it wants to do things I know it cannot handle, I keep myself in check… we move with elasticity from our center and pull back into ourself.  It feels amazing not to have someone following me in my movement, not having to be aware that someone is following and keep my movements follow-able (I feel this is my hesitation about teaching lately… I feel the weight of teaching.)  Somehow I begin to recognize I have not had enough personal practice, because I am feeling rejuvenated, despite exhaustion.  I look to see Kate seated still.  I follow and we both lie down – to process.  “Susurro” has been the music of the morning…mostly.  It continues and drags my brain into soft, light, lacey places.  I do not think, I just feel my body, things settling, shifting, a lump under my right shoulder letting go…I begin to feel weightless and remember why I love this practice.

I bring my awareness to Kate and find that we are looking for one another.  I move to the camera and we smile.  This feels good.  This feels right… so right I know we will continue with the project and probably grow it, expand it.

We discuss briefly what to chant.  I am in favor of “Ya Hadi” (I always am… I think it is my default.)  Kate confirms the front to back motion, but only after we begin chanting to I realise we didn’t discuss inward or vocal chanting.  It’s too late… I’m being vocal enough for both of us.  Then I hear her, but just the last clipped syllable ‘di.’  I think about the annoying lag time in our over-seas/over internet communication and attempt to let it drop.  I think that I am supposed to hear her and her me in our chanting… I am only slightly frustrated when I feel my shoulders drop.  The muscles along my neck and down into my shoulders release.  A wave of energy floods my body from the top of my spine all the way down and across my body.  This is strange.  Usually I feel energy moving upward.  I feel the chanting coming to an end.  We are both quiet.  I feel amazing.

Brilliant! Whoa. HUGE – right?

“lemme splain. No, dere is too’mush, lemme sum up.” Inigo Montoya

Every Wednesday, Jamie Ridler invites each of us to participate in the wonderfully supported  madness known as “Wishcasting Wednesday.”  To join the fun, click the above link, add your name, then as Jamie so exquisitely says, “Support wishes by visiting other participants, leaving a comment saying “As (insert name) wishes for her/himself, so I wish for her/him also.” It’s that simple. There is great power in wishing together.”

Today we are asked “What door do you wish to open?”

My immediate thought is, “I don’t know.”  I’ve been mulling it over all morning and I’m still not sure.  This is kind of a big question.  I’ve been all about “Me” lately (just got a lot of funk to clear up/out) and the potential for this wish is quite literally huge… as are most weeks, but today I guess I feel my sense of self mingled with all of those around me in cascading ripples that wrap from one end of the Earth to the other.

So, maybe the wish for today is, “I wish to open the door between myself and my fellow humans.”  I’m sure that sounds kitsch, but at this moment, in a somewhat vulnerable state, it feels what I need/desire most. 

"Turn the Key, Door Opens" ~Mercan Dede

I wish to open the door between us so that I am able to do as I am constantly saying and “help people walk between worlds.”

This is what I do.  I do actually own the title “Dervish.”

Dervish comes from the root word in Persian is “Dar” meaning “door” or “to open.”  A Dervish is one who opens the door and assists others in passing through, or between.

I wish to open the door to the people of the world who wish to see me, and me to see them.

Each Wednesday, Jamie Ridler prompts us with a question for our wishes in an event called “Wishcasting Wednesday.”  Last week was Jamie’s grand unveiling of her new website and she asked us to share our wishes for her website!  It’s a truly spectacular site, with all sorts of goodies and good stuff for the in-depth creative types or even if you don’t think you’re creative and just like to doodle on the edge of your page during meetings or class   It’s all in there.

I was splendiferously honored to win a *door* prize of a podcast series called “Your Creative Spark” which was something I’d been eyeballing already!  I couldn’t believe my fortune, but I sure am grateful.  I haven’t gotten but an hour into it but I can’t wait to get into the rest.  This place really has been so much more than inspiration for my soul, more like the FAO Schwartz of my creative world  one gigantic playground with lots of support and supportive people.  It’s awesome.

So today, Jamie asks us, what do wish to Invite In?  No holds barred, I wish to invite in *ME*.  I wish to invite into my life my true self, not the good girl who always went along with what was needed, or what would get me praise or attention, but me.  I wish to invite in the clarity and peace of mind that comes from knowing exactly who I am when I put my feet on the floor every morning.  I don’t know how many times in my life I’ve done this…or will do this again, the re-inventing of me, but I wish to invite in Me, My Shadow & I.

I wish to invite in the knowledge of all the nooks and crannies of my psyche, the knowledge of what truly makes me sing, the knowledge of my heart’s true desire…every day.  I wish to invite in the knowledge of just exactly what it is that I want…and the knowledge to understand when that changes.

I wish to invite in *me.*

This morning, again, it was cold in the house.  I’ve never been so grateful for the opening sequence as in my last few personal practices.  5:15AM is harsh on my body and it doesn’t want to *DO* anything.  Breathing in, exhaling-folding forward, inhaling-pulling up, exhaling-rocking backward and sinking down.  Somewhere in the middle of that the sequence changed itself.  I did not then statically twist and bend as would be typical for me, but proceeded to bend forward and then circled around: left knee, left back, across the back, right back, right knee.  This continued and then into the opposite direction.  There was no thought about this; my spine simply told me that this was necessary.  The spine wanted my focus this morning to begin; its insistence that it needed gentle circular movement gave way to everything else.  The opening continued to morph…into what my body needed in the cold, early morning.

Later, standing, I felt “Ya Hadi” and there it was, consistently chanting in my head.  “Ya Hadi,” three syllables – it felt good to do three beat movements that allowed my body to feel the same on each side as we walked forward Right, left, right – stepping back, Left, right, left.  Symmetry.

The personal practice in contrast to the group practice:

Yesterday we made our way back to the group practice after a month’s sabbatical.  We ended the session yesterday with group witness dancing.  There were only four of us, so we worked with the two-on-two dynamic.

This is just an observation about witnessing and how changed my movements feel versus being witnessed by myself or by The One.  Yesterday felt like an explosion that needed to be seen.  I did headstands that fell gracefully (surprisingly) into splits that then rotated around me, my hips sliding effortlessly in their sockets.  I bounced off of the wall (literally) and rolled against it in the need for vertical feedback.  I careened toward the floor and pulled myself short in a lunge that defied gravity.  I needed for someone to see this, my soul needed it…my body just went along.

This morning, the gentleness of my movements, the consistent repetition and evolution gave way to peaceful thoughts that mirrored my body’s need for respect, attention to detail and fluidity.

Allowing myself to be my own witness, I saw myself with compassion and allowed the thought, “how must I see myself through other’s eyes?”

It’s the beginning of a new year already and thinking back on all of the things I’ve done in the last year, I’m not unhappy with my progress…just decidedly distracted. I’d christened 2008 as my “Year of Chrysalis” and boy was it. I felt at the beginning of 2008 a total desire – scratch that – need for isolation and a chance to be re-born. Last year was the first year I did not attend a full Winter Monastery Movement in four years, and I felt it. As much as I always questioned why I went to retreat in the first place, I never denied the physical, mental, emotional, structural impact it made on my life once I returned to the World.

This year, this is my year of Renewal, Reclaiming, Redefining, RE-RE-RE-Re…I feel like Aretha Franklin…. But seriously, as I type, I am well aware I have given my body over to my circumstances and now it is time to change that. In the fall of 2007 I began a new ‘desk’ job and I let the situation drag my morale down. I shouldn’t have. The people in my office are friendly, aware, intelligent, and few. But I must now speak to the sluggish nature of my body, it is time for ‘change’ – as it has now become fashionable.

So, I begin 20-09, my mind completely wired with what is, what is not, what is to come, what has failed and what has succeeded. And now to compliment my wired mind, I approach my own personal movement and meditative practices with a different kind of vigor than in years past. I approach my personal practices now with gratitude – deep and undeniable, gratitude for just having a body that will do much of what I ask it and a mind that can absorb and comprehend most of what I am curious about in the world.