DANCEMEDITATION

Home from Summer Movement Monastery, I look back before completely moving  forward. I ate like a horse (raw food and plenty of it), and now fit into all my thin clothes, move painlessly, & dream in vivid, Scriabin-esque, Baudelarian color.

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.

Tags: Movement Monastery, Retreat

Turning away, turning toward.
Whirl clockwise and you’re on your own.
Turn counterclockwise, against time, and you’re with the Sufis.

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

Tags: poetry, Retreat