And So It Begins

Tags

art, athens, Ballet, Believing, bliss, body, body knowledge, conscious body, Conscious Living, contemporary ballet, Creative Flow, creative process, Creativity, Dance, development, dreams, EBAS, Energy, faith, modern dance, Paris, research, travel, VCU Dance

As I finish up my last day here in RIC for a while, I am profoundly grateful for the opportunities that are opening up before me. Thankful for the freedom to move about the world and share my work and passions with people from all over the globe. I marvel at what dance has done for my life and for how it has carried me to places that I could have never dreamed of as a young man.

As a matter of fact, I had no clue I was a dancer. No clue that I would end up where I am creating three dimensional visceral landscapes, teaching how to create internal space and design external realities or bringing consciousness to the energetic pathways of our technique. I often wonder how I turned down this road.

Yet, I am on this journey. Happily and gratefully on this journey.

This trip to Athens is to present my perspective on teaching by sharing my  research, Training a Conscious Body: Redefining Pedagogy Practices in Contemporary Dance Technique for Increased Architectural Support and Physical Integrity. I am excited to share these examinations and talk about learning through sensation rather than imitation and the reexamining of time within the classroom.

The travel that follows will be to teach and to collaborate on the Paris Semester Abroad program for our students at VCU to take part in Spring 2016. I am excited to meet up with Michael Foley as well as Colleen Thomas-Young to share and organize all of this goodness. What amazing people to walk that journey with. Very grateful to Michael for his brilliance.

In addition, I will be meeting up with my dear friends Keith Bell and Josh Sessions to have a writing retreat. Both myself and Keith are working on books and we are going to spend our time writing in the cafes for even greater inspiration. A little fantasy come true I guess.

And one of the most synchronistic events will be having breakfast with Linda Kohanov. I have long admired her research and work with horses and had the luxury of participating in one of her leadership workshops this spring. She is an inspiration to me and I am tickled to be able to meet with her and hear her stories of the wonderful sharing she is doing with her work and the release of her book Power of the Herd in French.

I am truly grateful!!

And so, this begins the journey.

Allowing Time for Space

Tags

allowing, forgiving yourself, giving over to life, letting go, letting go of noise, opening, paying attention, present, present moment, relinquishing, space, time

This is the moment. This one. This one right here that we must pay attention to. Face this moment with a focus and attention giving yourself to exactly what is happening in your present. Nothing else matters. Really, nothing else matters.

I find myself able to create and exist in a much more congruent space when I simply allow myself the time to be with time. When I give myself in these ways I not only open up this moment, pressing back the walls of time, suspending its passage;but I also am able to push open the space internally as well as in my proximal and distal experience. This is the space where one becomes larger than they believed themselves to be with even greater awareness of potential and possibility.

There is really no reason to be frantically falling through time bombarded by the noise of voices other than your own internal spirit. There is no need to stand in front of a world courageously accepting the barrage of negativity and fear. No point in allowing hate to be something that you simply try to ignore with the justification that “that’s just the way it is”.  I assure you, it is not.

Challenge yourself to experience moments more fully using back time to create the space that your soul needs. Give yourself a chance to be who you need to be in this moment, at this time, in this space. Try to spend more energy focusing on what is in your immediate present. Give yourself to seeing others around you. Stop racing and start living. Where are you going anyway, your grave?

On the Other Side of Summer

Tags

Balance, becoming, beleif, choice, Conscious Living, Courageous Vulnerability, love, Love Between Men, loving

Satisfied to see the very quietest part.

To move. To walk.

Emptiness and tranquility commonplace followed by nothing.

August.

September.

Without distinction or consolation.

Occupied of every body.

The world without temptation.

Healers Light

Tags

affirmation, artist, beleif, creative spirit, Energy, great design, healer, health, light, love, vibrations, well being

Seeing with feeling is the weapon of the healer. Sensing the vibrations of the body’s language and story allowing for the opening and flow of energy by rebuilding the bridges of well being.

In this moment of reconnection and reintegration, the guide whispers an affirmation of what one deserves as the law of well being dictates. A law and a right given by the creative spirit through the manifestation of the great design.

The convergence of like mind of the healer and receiver is the very moment of miraculous acceptance. It is the moment when we realize we are a perfect being destroying  the idea of imperfection with the light of truth. It is this moment we absorb our magnificence and reclaim health.

Believing in well being allows for well being. Affirming our well being allows for the energetic potential of great being. Demonstrating the congruency of well being allows the self to embrace the healing power of love.

Seeing in all Directions/Walking Along the Center Line

Tags

Balance, becoming, beleif, Believing, body, body knowledge, change, choice, compassion, Conscious Living, dreams, EBAS, Energy, humanity

We live our lives moving forward. in motion in one direction seeing only what is in front of us and desiring what is so far beyond ourselves. Would it not be more dimensional if we started living in all directions forcing us to anchor ourselves and our energies by the center line of our beings?  Our spines and the very core of our being, and ways of being, would be engaged in a sense of ascending and descending reaching in order to stabilize this new sense of seeing and being.

In doing so, we might find a surge of energy and creativity focusing and reconnecting damaged pathways that have occurred by living a life focused on a future. We might find a sense of internal opening and awakening as we find the balance of our internal and external selves as we allow and acknowledge ourselves as the center of our humanity and the inspiration of our dreams. The radiant body becomes the very thing that grounds our existence. Simply by seeing in all directions, we find our electric selves charged by a new sense of existing and enter a life long journey of walking along the center line.

Seeing One Another in this Place and Finding Humanity in our Space

Tags

allowing, art, Balance, beleif, Believing, bliss, choice, compassion, Conscious Living, courage, Courageous Vulnerability, faith, humanity

Human lives are statements about our galaxies. Full of magical stories, mystical memories and a history rich in ritual; our inexplainable moments at the micro level reflect the wonderful magnificence at the macro level. Logic and reason never able to outshine the simple power of faith.

Humanity is our being in this world. Not our overthinking in it. It is imperative that we connect with our consciousness by not limiting ourselves to the mere hallow experience of information. Mindless motion void of understanding from the heart limits the very voice of our being. We must be careful of giving information more favor or value than conscious feeling.

Our fullest emotional selves integrating imagination, intuition, feeling and sensation is the way in which we embrace who it is we are, our humanity, with courage and humility. It is in this space of allowing ourselves to be fully human and experientially navigating our world with a heightened awareness of being and feeling, that we accept all that is being offered with gratitude and grace.

As we stand in this space of our truest selves, staring out and seeing one another for who we are, finding the authenticity of spirit in one another; we see beyond the facade   and directly into the reflection of ourselves and the magnificence of our universe.

Just Go!

Tags

allowing, beleif, Believing, bliss, Conscious Living, Dance, learning, living, loving, opportunity, possibility, potential, trust

The Frontier of opportunities are so vast and open. Each person stands at the edge of their very own expanse of space. Every individual peering into the potential for a journey of their very own.

Enter and expand the internal being that you are. Explore and experience all that is possible for you as you venture the magical realm of occasion.

Never once was there the expectation of perfection. Never once the request for a specific way of experiencing something. Never once the thought you should be more than you are, or know more than you do at this moment.

Right here and now is the time for the beginners heart and the beginners mind. See yourself attending to the passion of the moment rather than the perfection. Satisfy the soul and not a perceived expectation.

Go!

Go then into your world and your world alone. Take no friend. Carry no burden. Worlds will converge when they are ready; when your heart is ready. Be patient and revel in these moments with great anticipation of joy. Revel in those moments. And most importantly, live. Simply, live.

Go!

Reframe the Lens

Tags

acceptance, allowing, becoming, beleif, bliss, Conscious Living, expectation, infintate, manifest, possiblity

Expect the best

Trust the most unexpected

Use then let go

Expect everything to come

Content and happy with infinite

Open up to possibility

Speak so you know

Words and actions are linked

Whisper and let the divine in

Making of Matter; Everything Does

Tags

art, Balance, becoming, beleif, bliss, body knowledge, change, EBAS, elemental, sacred

Heaven and Earth

Spirit or Matter

Man exists between

His arm span equal to height

The moon resting on his head

33 years for a perfect solar journey

12 moons to celebrate

Numbers in space

Numbers in time

Tone existing between 4th and 5th

Intervals as shape

Two patterns near perfect

Two triangles

Four squares

Everything made of light, matter and sound

Windows allow the light to see into the dark

Balance kept by line and curve

Evolving By Way of Now

Tags

allowing, Balance, becoming, Believing, change, choice, development, Now, this moment

Our histories and actions create the universe that is this moment.

In our biosphere lives a subsystem seamlessly existing with our physical and emotional energies negotiating  balance.

We navigate the present as we simultaneously seek the evolution into the future; acceptance at odds with the desire of what’s to come.

Is it not understandable why so many have difficulty quieting the mind and the heart?

Is it possible to accept this moment and relinquish the fears of tomorrow in order to fulfill our forward mystery?

Perhaps learning to understand our immediacy while allowing ourselves to be, we will find much greater happiness now rather than searching for it tomorrow.