Hey, I never said this was quality entertainment. I am aware that I keep saying the same thing over and over.
Recently on a blog I like to read, Bellydance Paladin she started talking about the emotive, creative, soul aspect of being a dancer, and then she said something about Suhalia's training involving "intense emotional exercises" and I was like, Wha? Hold the phone! *whining* but I wanna do intense emotional exercises, and journaling, and all that creative shit that doesn't involve learning an old crusty choreography that I don't like anyway. whaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
So of course I started thinking once again about FEELING the dance and not just robotic movement re-barfing. ( I am a classy broad, I'll tell ya). Then ( and this one time when I was at band camp...) Synchronicity stepped in. Know what synchronicity is? Here, I'll let Wiki define it...
"Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated occurring together in a meaningful manner. To count as synchronicity, the events should be unlikely to occur together by chance. The concept of synchronicity was first described by Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung in the 1920s."
Yeah, you know when you start thinking about Elvis, and all of the sudden he pops up everywhere, your cheap aunt gives you an Elvis clock, or the person next to you in line is humming "Hound dog", etc.
To me it usually means that I am on the right path. That I am "tuned-in".
SOOOOOO ( and this one time, when I was at band camp), really powerful references to the exact thing I was trying to put into words suddenly came flying at me. I am reading a Tarot book and there was a line that said " care about the art, not the outcome". Whoa. I am a serious outcome girl. I think about what I am going to do next while I am doing anything. I'm a multitasking MASTER. This quote put the whole thing so simply into words. I wrote it in big letters and put it on my fridge. I say it out loud to myself if I find that I am getting frantic. Must dance for one hour, then practice zils for 30 minutes then at exactly 2 :25 I will switch to veil.....That quote is like a stun gun to snap me out of super OCD mode.
Flash to the next day at my MIL's, killing time. I grabbed her Woman's Day magazine neatly stacked on top of her Bible, and began to read. I opened to a story about a woman who wrote novels and tried to get published for 20 years! At this point I started sweating and feeling ill ( I am in the process of trying to get published). She went through this problem, and that crisis, yadda yadda yadda, until one day she sort of gave up, and enjoyed the process of writing. She decided not to care about the outcome but to just enjoy the process. I was so blown away that I might have said aloud something to the effect of " O.k. Universe, I get it". ( my in-laws are as weird as I am so they didn't mind).
THEN, ( and this one time at band...o.k. I know it is not funny anymore), I am looking at the feed on Facebook from The Bellydance Dictionary, and there is a comment that was made by a bellydancer named Barbara " Its all about the joy. When I quit worrying about where I was I started dancing instead of doing the moves". damn.
So THEN, ( this is my last "then" I promise) the Bellydance Dictionary made the quote into a post on Facebook and started this whole discussion where I got this quote by someone who says their teacher used to say to them " I am seeing you dance , but I am not seeing YOU dance". Double damn.
Moral of the story....
1.pay attention if the Universe is telling you something,
2.only post crack fueled-sounding posts every once and a while.
The End.
4 comments:
The universe really does know how to get through sometimes! I go through similar repeating patterns. The movie "The Wizard of Oz" pops up every so often to remind me to not be so serious about, well, everything and anything. You know it's following you where in the space of one week, someone uses a line from the movie, you get given a yellow brick and someone else comments that your socks are "just like the wicked witches socks!", right before accusing someone of needing to go find a heart.
To keep my Oz world going - sometimes it's the things you experience along the route to a destination which is more important than where you're going.
Oh and there's no place like home. :)
Huh. A friend/co-worker was invited to go to a test belly dance class last week and invited ME to tag along. Now mind you, I haven't gone to a class in over 6 years. I quit belly dancing a long time ago. The (only) woman who gave classes in my hometown is a reluctant belly dancer. Her real joy is ballet, and that just really didn't pan out for her. She gives belly dance classes to pay the bills. There is no joy, no zest, no spark, no nothing in her teaching techniques. She'd roll her eyes when you didn't do a move properly. Her style was “Watch my resentful belly dance and copy”. Not delightful, not inspiring, it was balls. I think I learned more from watching Shakira videos on MTV than my crabby teacher in Michigan.
I went to this class last week and the teacher asked us to just listen and close our eyes and dance WITHOUT LOOKING AT THE MIRROR (GASP! No!) and we did that at least 10 minutes. I thought that was awesome. She said, as we listened to the music “Tap into it, you are just an extension of the beat. The best ballerina is listening to the music and manifesting it with her body.”
HOLY WHAT THE EFFFF!?!?
I loved the fact that she made it damn clear that we can learn technique but we are the ones that DANCE, our souls are what give the dance shape once we know the motions. It was such a breath of fresh air. She said a lot of things, and it was just so amazing for someone to remind me that there is soul in everything we touch, that touches us-well, it was much needed.
I'm in the process of going to the US for vacation, but as soon as I return, I am investing in classes with this woman because she reminded me what I needed to be reminded of-this is an extension of my soul, of my ability to create art and not just learning how to properly isolate parts of my body to move independently of each other.
As always, love your posts!
YAY! It is so wonderful when the Universe sends you what you need!
Have a safe trip!
Great Post!!! I love Synchronicity!!! Thanks for stopping by my blog `;~) I love bellydancing blogs that is about more than just technical dance `;~)
I agree whole heartedly, bellydancing changed my life and my soul just opens up when I am dancing. Sometimes, it seems like the Earth really does move under my feet as I dance `;~)
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