Dancing archetypes

Hallow'een is approaching and our dance collective has been invited to wear a costume to dance in. Part of the invitation shared a text from Jonathan of 5Rhythms, an approach created by Gabrielle Roth, his now deceased mother. When I read the text, I was so disturbed I felt compelled to get back to my abandonned blog and share some thoughts about dancing archetypes.

In the intro to his upcoming God, Sex, and the Body workshop, Jonathan shares the "archetypal energies that Gabrielle mapped" for use in 5Rhythms workshops:

WHAT ARE THE ARCHETYPES?

The Mother is  our nurturer. 

She makes everyone feel good to be themselves and reminds us to take care of ourselves and those around us.

The Mistress is the part of us that flirts with the world

and when she is truly empowered that becomes an art form.

The Madonna is the Tarot reader. 

She is the manifestation of our intuition and our most mysterious gifts that god gives all of us.

The Father is a worker.

He builds the structures that enable everyone to feel safe.

The Wild Son takes everything to the edge. 

He loves risk and adventure.

The Holy Spirit lives and dresses as the seeker. 

He dances in his spirituality, he chants mantras and he sings medicine songs.

Now there are many archetypes in the human unconscious, and mother and father are definitely among them, but also child, wise woman and wise man, trickster, and hero. Jung considered them to be ancient, innate, and universal, but a lot of the time people use the term "archetype" to represent powerful images that are specific to their own culture, like the Madonna.

I'm not suggesting that Gabrielle considered these six to be the only archetypes, or even the most important, but it is very interesting to me that she chose these ones, given her lifetime commitment to freeing the Western mind from the grip of its rational, anti-body culture. These archetypes are so rooted in patriarchal, Christian mythology and ideas about gender that I would have a great deal of difficulty dancing them if I was in one of their workshops.

I'm critiquing this not because I don't want people to do 5Rhythms workshops - I've done one myself and enjoyed it completely. I do want people to be free though and I was bothered to think people might feel these six archetypes were somehow the most central figures they should work with. I have no idea why Gabrielle chose the Mistress (she only exists in relationship to a married man, so she doesn't have her own essential identity) or the Madonna (a weakened Christian version of the ancient Goddess who could procreate without a celestial partner). And of course the Holy Spirit is male here,  even though some Jewish scholars will tell you the most ancient version of the Spirit who breathed on the face of the Earth at creation was Sophia. I don't think the spirit world is gendered the way we order the world, but Gabrielle seems to present it that way.

As a woman of British descent, I prefer the triple goddess archetypes when I dance: Maiden, Mother and Crone. I also use Warrior, Priestess, Hunter, Teacher, Lover, and more. They have come to me through my dreams, my dances, writing and meditation. It is very powerful when you connect with an archetype that really resonates within you. It can tell you about the energy that is moving in you. I have found it gives me strength and clarity when I dance them.

David Knezz, maskmaker

Another option is to choose an element; fire, earth, air, or water. I can remember doing Neutral Mask work in theatre school in my 20's to find the elements that were most natural to our bodies/natures. We wore masks that had no expression (neutral), beautifully Italian handcrafted leather masks, and moved until we found the element in our bodies, which in turn would help us find the characters that we would most powerfully portray. Amazing experience!

I hope members of the Dance Your Bones collective do take up the invitation to dance an archetype this October 31st, but I hope you choose one that comes from your own inner world.

I will be there, dressed and in archetype, maybe even more than one :-)

And I will send Jonathan a link to my blog to see what he has to say about it too.

Uncovering meaning in gestures

This evening I had 3 really strong sets of gestures that appeared in my dance. I observe the gestures, or movements, that my body produces while dancing to see if there is an emotion or desire that is expressing itself outside my consciousness. The first recognizable one this evening was sweeping, wiping away old debris, cleaning the path, making way for the new. The second set is one that often appears for me - cutting. And finally the 3rd set was expressing, speaking truth, letting out what is held inside, seen in movements with my hands and limbs, taking something from inside and pushing it out into the world to be shared.

Each of these gestures is a symbol for me and if I "stay with them" (here I mean to keep repeating the gesture until it really settles in the body), my consciousness will usually find some meaning in them, some inner voice that wants expression.

Take note of your gestures. They are the body's language.

Community of dancers

Each week at Dance Your Bones, our dance collective finishes the session with a closing circle where members are free to stay and share anything they'd like, whether it is an experience they had dancing, something happening in their lives, or an upcoming event. This week there was an undeniably common enthusiasm for the evening. People were joyful, laughing with one another, and everyone was very talkative. It had been a high energy wave and the presence of a few more younger members recently has definitely contributed to that.

I noticed how much people were dancing with one another, in small groups of 3 to 5, playing and having fun. A mother and pregnant daughter danced a moving image of support and love. There have been some children joining us regularly too, and they are always delightful to watch as they naturally respond to a room full of moving, happy adults.

The shared community we have is very important to most dancers. We need one another in order to practice this form of meditation. Yes, we could dance alone, and I sometimes do; however it is always completely different when you dance in a group. The increased energy of bodies around you helps you to release and move past the barriers of the rational mind I have been commenting about.

So I am not only working within myself to find freedom from rational mind, but I am also spurring others on to do the same. When I move my energy higher, other bodies will also vibrate more quickly. When I engage another dancer in a dialogue, I am influenced by what they are bringing to our duet. We are co-creators of the dance each night, having a shared experience even while we are each having our own private inner experience too.

I first learned about the importance of community as a child in my family church. It is interesting to see how community expresses itself in this secular (but still spiritual) practice of moving meditation.

Disembodied rationalism

Happy New Year to all my dancing friends. I celebrated the new year at Winter Solstice but I am enjoying the time today to relax and do some blogging.

I am answering the DYB friend who asked about "disembodied rationalism" or "rationality". This is not my term, rather one used in philosophy, particularly phenomenology, and of course in feminist philosophy. It refers to the Western/Cartesian concept of the mind-body split which is not present in many other cultures. You will find it referred to in discussions about religion, law, and a wide range of areas exploring the role of the human body in cognition. You can google the term and find a huge amount of literature, scholarly and popular, blogs, and books.

Embodiment is the opposite of course, integrating mind and body (and emotions), or going even further, as some suggest that the dividing lines between body and mind might even be misunderstood, based on centuries of dualistic thinking in our culture. Listen to this US neurobiologist Antonio Damasio on Big Think talk about current research into the way brain and body are involved in emotion.

http://bigthink.com/ideas/23022

So when I am journalling here about experiences "in" my body, I am not talking about mindlessness -
Watch Lil Jon's "Get Outta Your Mind" (warning, not a clean version) about mindlessness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=041h-1_5yfo
Sometimes you have to be mindless to break the stronghold that rational thinking keeps us locked in
(by the way, I love that song!).

I am talking about not letting "rational" mind control the experience. I am training it to take a side seat when asked to, for the purposes of my own freedom and wellbeing. So that it can play a role as an important ally in my expanding consciousness, but not dominate the process. Rationalism is not God ruling over the temple of my body.

I will bring a copy of Spretnak's chapter on embodied/goddess religion to dance this week for anyone who'd like to read a sample of feminist thought on embodiment.

Healing Dance Network

Thanks to 'libramoon' at Healing Dance Network for putting me in touch with their group (see her comment last post).

Here is a quote from one of the network postings, where they mention the "embodied mind".  Some friends at Dance Your Bones have been asking about the "disembodied rationalism" I mentioned in a previous post and I will speak more to that in tomorrow's post, but here is an interesting quote and link to research on choreography and neuroscience by UK researcher Glenna Batson.

"Particularly relevant are the ways dancers physicalize thought. Dance is a prime example that cognition is for action."

"The processes of dance making are a unique form of embodied thinking and offer a unique window into our capacity for creativity and design. Today cognitive neuroscience has chosen dance as its muse. Over the last decade a rich dialogue has developed between neuroscientists and dancers. The dialogue addresses many issues around "embodied cognitiona" TM, in a movement-based art form that impact(s) widely on intelligentsia and society at large."

http://seadnetwork.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/batson_final.pdf

Doesn't this speak to what we are expeiencing at Dance Your Bones? We may not be choreographing dance for observers, but we are spontaneously composing dances each week, and then letting them go like prayers. "Sweat your prayers". http://www.danceyourbones.com/

Interesting to note that the world is reflecting on this as well. It makes me feel more commited to pressing forward with my own "meditation in movement" exploration. I hope it compels you too.

The longest night

Solstice has passed now, the longest night of the year. I like the darkness of these long nights. A solstice ceremony at friends last night has reminded me of the needed rest that happens in the winter. Dark, cold nights draw me into my home, into myself, away from the busy world.

I wish I could go visit old Methusaleh in California. He holds the secret to long life, conserving his energy deep inside. I think I will dance a dance of stillness in his honour when the session resumes next week, and to remember the long night.

Methusaleh is said to be nearly 5,000 years old

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/photos/the-worlds-10-oldest-living-trees/methuselah

Restoring balance

Tonight as I was dancing, I was observing myself as I was healing myself.  By this, I mean I was actively noting how my mood was changing and the trigger thoughts that were connected to the changes. I had been feeling depressed, my thoughts caught up in old past defeats that were really draining my energy.

Sometimes when I practice ecstatic dance, I simply move and I don't worry about consciousness. But most of the time I try to watch what is happening in my inner world while I am moving. And tonight I observed my body shedding anger and hurt.

Daily pressures of Western ways of work take away my balance.  I had been feeling my strengths were not respected at my workplace, and the pressures of producing a large volume of work for an employer.

Towards the end of the session, I was simply standing rooted to one spot, waving like seaweed in the ocean current, feeling my knees, hips, and spine become supple, dropping my anger like scales falling off as I undulated. I must have stood like that for 5 to 10 minutes.

By the time I was done, I felt completely restored, the bad day behind me, and at peace.