Our studio was gargantuan, with a lofty sky view over the lyric Columbia County surroundings. Birds stopped to sing or chant in rhythm with us and the old wood floor was bouncy and soft as suede underfoot.

The Dancemeditation work was deep and steady. So many beautiful, precious dances floated around the room. Dancers with fans, veils, silky pants and skirts, lycra tights, loose hair, shaved heads, castanets, zils. Breathing, looking quietly out and in.

A few things that happened:
~ We started up a zil choir!
~ Kate Temple-West took us on a brilliant weed-walk introducing delicious, healing wild greens growing everywhere.
~ Kate Russel opened up the gorgeous vista of veil-painting with her quiet mystic energy and deft suggestions.
~ Karleen Koen read spiritual poetry for us in her smoky tones.
~ Laurienne Singer, faculty at LACC, brought us a new quiet, way to listen to our partner’s body.
~ The Store in the Mansion’s front parlor was a continuous hot-spot.
~ Nathalie Molina helped produce an evening presentation about Dancemeditation’s past & future.
~ Nisaa Christie  & Liz Abbene made an amazing final feast the followed a dyamic performance evening that included  Kryss Statho, Carol Henning, Alia Thabit and Core Alembic (Dunya, Nisaa & Kate Russel.)
~ We closed with a Ceremony of completions for several Teacher Certifications, and  initiation of  those entering the TT Cert program as well as those entering into Advanced levels of our work and into our practicing community.

Thank you to everyone for making it such a remarkable journey.

I look forward now to our next 2011 Movement Monastery in New Mexico, as well as the exciting purchase of a property to be a dedicated home for Dancemeditation.

This is an exciting and happy time.

Sufis melt fragments into the sky sea,
rain them on a desert garden,
bloom them in the shape of every Other flower, forgetting the birthright fragrance.
Foreheads rest on a warm iron planetary hub
and toes wander near the nearing moon.

Upside down, you think.
Inside out. She said this time and time again.
The wet smoke and dry blood,
sprouts dancing backward into the seed.

When the Earth is oiled with her own feathers
and the sky tumbles here and there,
we can still write still poems
and watch them drift off in our bottle minds.

To the monastery!
To where cleaner lies think themselves,
& where, thinking gone walking,
we get at least one trustworthy breath.
And another.

– D. D. McPherson

We’ll aim to have the diet be 75% living food so those of you who aren’t familiar with this way of eating will feel comfortable. We’ll have cooked grains every day as well as marvelous salads and sprouted nut pates. For those who are ready for the 100% live food, this is your dream cuisine. In preparation, now is a good time to taper off junk food and reduce caffeine. Give the body a rest from all that stress.

Here is a letter from Liz Abbene, our fabulous Retreat Manager who is also, along with Nisaa Christie, developing recipes, menus, and cooking strategies for the new Simple Sufi Cooking with Live Food Book.

Greetings to All;
Hope this finds you all well and in good spirits. In less than 3 weeks we will be immersed in our Dancemedition practice together and there are some thoughts we wanted to share.
This year we will be introducing more living food at retreat. The possibilities and promise that it holds, as a deeply delightful addition to the Dancemeditation work, is huge. Living cuisine will be approached experientially with an emphasis on making every meal simple, basic, nourishing, and delicious. Also, the preparation of these meals, as has been our practice in the past, will be a shared experience, approached with grace and a clear understanding of the role food plays during the retreat experience, enhancing physical and spiritual regeneration.
Live foods will be offered as part of every meal as opposed to making it a “fasting” option. There will be a presentation Friday evening showcasing the joy and benefits of living cuisine. A booklet to guide the kitchen staff will be available and also, some practical pointers to ensure enjoyment will be offered. Sprouting is a critical part of a live foods diet While it is fairly simple to do, we will be offering some education and demonstration surrounding it. Finally, there will be “sprout people” called upon to oversee this component of the meal preparation. If you have experience in that arena, we look forward to having you share your experience and expertise with the group. As in past years, everyone will have an opportunity to contribute their positive energy to the nurturing of the community by signing-up for Kitchen service.

To change anything takes practice. Addictions — they’re bad habits. Very bad. Beyond our reach, we say to ourselves. Beyond our will power. Breaking them takes more than wishful thinking, more than a few days of intentionality. If you’re hooked on addictive substances, you’re dug in deep; you need a 12-step or more. But if you’re in a self-destructive rut, retreat works.

One part of Summer Movement Monastery is training out of self-destructive habits.  The body needs time and repetition — more than once or twice. Two weeks of preparing and eating cleansing food isn’t only a yearly retreat clean-out; it’s a springboard to taking care of oneself by preparing and eating good food daily throughout the year. Two weeks gives our bodies enough time to retain the new experience, to develop a comfort with it, and a preference for it.

Amazing to think that many of us live on crap, dead food, predominantly cooked by slave labor of others, but we’re so busy, etc., blah-blah-blah. At Summer Movement Monastery, we get rid of blah-blah-blah for two weeks. We prepare and eat good food, envision how we will implement this at home, then prioritize this action.

We also practice Dancemeditation. Why didn’t I say this first? Because its more obvious. We know we are in session 7 hours a day, and we can imagine, or know from experience in other retreats, that we retain a craving, at least for a while, to do practice at home.

The most important thing about the 7 hours of Dancemeditation daily in retreat  is what I call the Operation. Our time in retreat makes a permanent spiritual change. After, we return to our world in a changed condition. Yes, it’s possible to forget that this happened, possible to bury the change under dark choices, but why? A Path has called us. All we have to do is open to it, spend time with the Guide and group, and then not forget. Retreat is a spiritual rip in time. We enter Timeless Time concerned with our spiritual evolution. Permanent change — the Operation — happens because our Deepest Being needs Communion with the Deep, All-Pervasive Subtle. We need what is beyond the daily world of cars and screens and din.

There is plenty of discourse about whether or not a Path should be socially useful. Should spirituality be politically active to be relevant? Are our choices to make a better world a result of how evolved we are? Is positive change possible, and can we even effect positive change without changing our condition? Or is the world a mirage and all that matters is the internal spiritual struggle? Does activism distract from spiritual path?

No matter how you consider your own role in the world, or the role of spiritual path in your life,  retreat is where the most accelerated growth happens. Looking at retreat from the most mundane perspective regardless of your philosophical stance, cultivating positive habits is, at the very least, good for you and  the world.

I had strong dreams which I can’t remember — part of their charm, but it was a relief to sleep deeply, to dream fully, to be in a world not nailed down. A world of odd intuition, paradox, pockets of clarity and pockets of dark fragments that weren’t frantic but simply unordered. Chaos. The word ‘chaos’ implies pandemonium but it can be quiet, floating, peculiar. Chaos may contain both potential and unraveling without knowing which is which. Chaos is the Is Not for a mind that favors categorization and definition; for a bodymind that lives in a cognitive netherworld, this Is Not is a balm, a boon, a peace, an Is Not Is-ness.

Not exactly Wujud, but clasping its edge. Wajad.

When I taste Is Not Is-ness — the pure place that has no white light, no angels — insanity departs, fear departs, bone-deep exhaustion departs. I drink happiness.
Without it, my life is slow death.