"Druid Dawn Woman" -by Geordie Holmes... FOR MORE IMAGES
2. piece-de-tails(next) ............or main page
something to read while you listen.....
EXCERPTS FROM AN ARTICLE BY JAMIE MCHUGH FOR THE SPRING 2000 SEMA QUARTERLY
"...Certainly, we all need a refuge, a personal shelter to restore ourselves. We all need comfort.
But how can we incorporate mindfullness of the larger circle? How can we challenge
the boundaries of our experience to seek a greater vision for our lives that
includes other beings?
Everyone talks about being stressed out these days. Are we stressed, or just
blessed, with an over-abundance of energy that is seeking soul fulfillment?
When I look at the vital energy of youth, especially teens who are not
invited into the larger discourse of life, I realize that we are teaching
them indirectly to sequester their energy, to adopt the somatic formation of
resignation and despair. The lack of meaningful opportunities for engagement
and participation reflects our trivialization of their great life-force, and,
by extension, our own collusion with the myth of personal impotence.
A free body cannot be controlled by political orthodoxy. A free body derives
its pleasure and sustenance from Nature, God and other human beings. A free
body is not bound to the materialist, consumer-driven illusion of
satisfaction. A free body has consciously re-formed itself to be engaged with
life now rather than replicate its conditioning and continue to live in the
past. A free body is informed by the fluid movement of love. But a free body
is only one step in the larger liberation of our human spirit.
No matter how much we "work on our stuff", or get grounded and centered and
free in our bodies, it all becomes a moot point if we forget our larger body,
the planet Earth, which sustains all life. If we are not consistently acting
on behalf of our Earth body in the same way that we are acting on our own
behalf, we are not really acknowledging the source of our power. It becomes
difficult to think of ourselves as "spiritual people" if we, through our
daily actions, contribute to the desecration of the sacred, our planetary
home. Sometimes, we need to question the complacency of being enmeshed in a
comfortable corporate, consumerist web that begins to define our values
unbeknownst to us through our inaction. Or, more precisely, through our
unconscious action.
Each day we are challenged to be a wise body in a body-phobic culture, to
breathe, move, wiggle and hum. Each day we are called upon to manage our
energy with mindfullness and treat our bodies compassionately as a way of
giving thanks to the Creator for this miracle of life.
Each day we are challenged to be a wise consumer of natural resources in an
increasingly nature-phobic culture, to make choices about our use of water,
autos, paper and plastics. Each day we are called upon to manage our
consumptive desires and treat the Earth responsibly as a way to give thanks
to the Creator.
When we take our bodies for granted and ignore their signals, we invite
disease. When we take the planet for granted and ignore its signals, we
invite catastrophe.
As Brother David Stendal-Rast has written,"All religious experience is
inherently ineffable and unmediated. In light of that experience we ask,
'What does it mean?' and that is theology. We ask, 'How can I extend this in
time?' and that is liturgy. We ask, 'What difference does this make for the
way I live?' and that is ethics." Somatic and ecological awareness and action
are inextricabley linked in the shared body of life, and must be forged
together to formulate a new ethics. We can also begin to re-discover the old
liturgies of sacred dance in a contemporary fashion as a way to embody
connectedness and experience community somatically..."* * * * *
This formal activation of the collective body can remind us of our basic
biological reality, the essentially cellular dance of coming together and
moving apart, merging and individuating, in patterns of relationship. It is
important to remember the power of the larger body moving together. Movement
doesn't just begin and end in the individual body...in our alignment, finding
center, moving forward and up, etc. The movement of the individual self is in
dynamic interaction with its social and natural environments and is
constantly affected by these exchanges.In these days of increasing physical isolation and withdrawal, we need to restore the rituals of belonging and worship, the dance of community, which can evoke the memory of organismic
unity for the individual body. Somatic psychology and human growth
experiences that become enmeshed in the industrialized, commodity
marketplace and cater to the individualistic values of contemporary culture
are missing an essential element. Our individual somatic support,
psychological articulation and spiritual potential are informed by
relationship and through a primary inter-connectedness with the earth body.
"In Africa gods are thought to be themselves dancers, frequency waves and
rhythms that are closer to the great rhythms and patterns than our local
selves. To dance, then, is to pray, to meditate, to enter in communion with
the larger dance, which is the universe. And because the universe dances, as
the Ghanian Yoruba priest explains, 'he who does not dance does not know'."
(Jean Houston)
So, I end this reflection with the questions, how can I nurture the
life-force within my body as well as protect the life-force of the planet as
a daily practice? And how are these daily practices informed and strengthened
by prayer, in any form, individually and in groups?
I am interested in your answers to these questions and any other feedback you
have on these thoughts. -- Jamie-- EMAIL: JamieRMT@aol.com