The Most Amazing Thing ...

The Most Amazing Thing Is That - You Already Know This!

It happened during the second-to-last class of autumn. I was giving a "preview of coming attractions" - going over the "hot topics" for the winter quarter to come.

 

I took a deep breath, and launched into what I thought would be the most oddball, obscure, and yet most fundamental part of our next studies. I felt pretty scared with this topic. It's one of those that makes "esoteric belly dance" - well - esoteric.

 

Mentally, I braced myself for resistance. You (that is, the new group of students - and also those of you reading this) have borne up cheerfully - and even enthusiastically - as I've introduced a range of topics that you (students and readers collectively) often refer to as the "woo-woo stuff."

 

That's right. Esoteric, by many other standards, means the "woo-woo stuff." And you've been cheerful and enthusiastic in not only trying this out, but in using that term.

 

This time, I thought, I'd lose you forever.

 

But as I launched into my description, my jaw dropped. I saw you nodding your heads in agreement. (This time, "you" being the students who were actually in the class that day - and perhaps even you as a reader.)

 

Over half of you were saying, essentially, "Oh yes, we know this already."

 

What?

 

One of the weirdest, most unusual, most "woo-woo" parts of the curriculum, and it's already common knowledge?

 

I just couldn't believe.

 

But it made sense.

 

In the class, we had a massage therapist whose interests and background included energy work. We had a Reiki practitioner. We had a few whose interests in yoga, meditation, and related areas were almost life-long. In short, at least half of you had more than a passing acquaintance with one of the most powerful principles for pathworking, or for bringing your energy work into your physical practice.

 

Jedi for Women

 

Over the years, as our curriculum shifted from classical, mainstream Oriental dance to ... well, Oriental dance plus something ... I've tried to express who and what we were in different ways. One that made the most sense was, simply, Jedi for women.

 

Imagine that you are Obi-Wan Kenobi, but a young Obi-wan. You're not yet the Jedi Master. In fact, you're not yet even a Jedi knight. You're a young man who hopes to one day become a Jedi knight.

 

Or imagine that you're Hermione, and more than anything, you want to go off to a school that teaches you to use the powers that you know that you have - but simply haven't ever been able to bring together.

 

Or that you're an young woman in pre-Arthurien times, stepping into the boat that will take you through the mists to Avalon, where you hope to learn the fabled priestess arts.

 

You've Already Been There, and You Already Know This

 

Now, let's take this one step deeper.

 

Imagine that not only you are some fictional character, setting out to learn and master some arcane arts that will require years of complete devotion and dedication - but that at one point, in one of your many lifetimes, you were such a person.

 

Imagine that at one time, you not only knew these things, but had mastered them.

 

You were, at one point, a Jedi Master. You were a grown-up, fully powerful Hermione. You were a Priestess of Avalon.

 

And now, in this lifetime, you're simply trying to bring it all together.

 

And thus, you gravitate towards energy practices, such as yoga. Or perhaps you've already studied energetic healing arts, such as Reiki. Or you've followed a tradition of ritual, and opened up your sensitivities in that area.

 

Somehow or other, in your various wanderings, you've already picked up enough so that when the new information is presented to you, it's not new anymore.

 

It's already part of your known and familiar.

 

Make sense?

 

Of course. And for a very good reason.

 

An "Integration Lifetime" - Or Why It Seems So Tough and Complicated

 

Many of us are experiencing an integration lifetime. We're pulling together all that we've learned before, and we're making the breakthroughs that we were reaching towards earlier, but possibly didn't make in our previous lives.

 

That's why this lifetime, for so many of us, is so complex, demanding, and challenging. We're "wrapping up" a lot of things all at once, while reviewing all that we've learned before, and making major breakthroughs that we almost - but didn't quite - complete in our earlier lives.

 

Sound exhausting?

 

It's kind of like taking organic chemistry during the summer. (Difficult under the best of circumstances.) And then, while doing that, taking a "survey course" covering a few thousand years of humanities. And then doing an extra-credit project under the direction of a Nobel Laureate researcher.

 

Which would explain why our lives are so full, so complex, and so challenging.

 

We're not just making headway in one area, we're doing a lot of things, all at once.

 

And the Answer Is ...

 

But what is this one thing - one of the three "cornerstones" of esoteric dance - that many of you know already?

 

Read the details in the next blog. (Yes, I promise to be forthcoming. And I'll put the link here as soon as I publish the next blog.)

 

Or, if you simply can't wait, pick up your copy of Unveiling: The Inner Journey, and read the paragraph at the bottom of page 410. (Yes, this is smack in the middle of Chapter 29, "Pragmatic Esoterics," or - as we now call it, the "woo-woo stuff.")

 

 

	Paper		Kindle

 

Here's to your health and well-being - and to your overflowing personal energy and abundance in 2013 and beyond!

 

Much love - Alay'nya

 

P.S. Do you have a desire to be a "Jedi Master" in your own life? Do you desire bringing all of who you are - energetically as well as physically, and emotionally as well as intellectually - into one art? Do you desire your own pathworking?

 

Join me. Click here, scroll to the lower left on the page, and join the Unveiling community for quarterly (and sometimes more frequent) communications. This is reserved for people like you - people who want to infuse their practice with the energetic aspects, and use their dance art as a pathway for healing, wholeness, integration, and mastery.

 

Energy Dancing with a "Water Feeling": Flowing and Swirling Motions

Playing with Water Energy in Dance: Flowing and Swirling and "Fluid" Motions

The Autumn Equinox marks the transition from the fire energy of summer to the water energy of fall. The notion of having different "elements" (air, earth, water, and fire) comes from our classic Western European esoteric tradition, which teaches that each quarter is governed by a "suite" (swords, pentacles, cups, and rods), and that each of these "suites" is respectively associated with an "element."

This is important for us not just because of our Western European cultural heritage, but because these various "suites" also connect us to growth stages identified in the Kabbalah, which is the earliest known "roadmap" for personal growth (leading, potentially, to God-realization). In a much more immediate and practical vein, these various "elements" connect us to a feeling of what is going on in our environments, and to how our bodies react to the changing seasons.

The "Ace of Cups" - the ultimate symbol for water energy.

It makes sense for us to invoke water energy into our lives after the fire energy of summer. This often correlates with what is going on in our weather, as well. After a late summer drought, we get rains once again. September is, in fact, a prime time for hurricanes!

And whether or not we've quenched the fire energy of our summer by going to the beach (getting a water energy infusion), by the end of summer, we're often "burned out." We desire not only the coolness, but the "swirliness" of water.

Practically speaking, how do we take this into our dance?

There are certain kinds of movements that almost shout water energy to us:

• "Rounded" movements such as hip circles, rib cage circles, and figure-eights,
  
• "Snakey" movements such as snake arms,
  
• "Flowing" movements such as many veil patterns - whether done around our bodies while we are in one place, or as we move across the floor.
  

There are also certain rhythms - or musical sections - that speak a "watery" language to us:

• Chifti tellis,
  
• Taxims, and
  
• "Lyrical" beledis.
  

This autumn, we'll be studying and building choreographies with each of these different "watery" feelings.

"Pathworking" Involves Cleaning - At All Levels

Pathworking - Starting the New Year, Cleaning Out Our Lives

The "new year," effectively, begins right about now. Really, it started last week - February 2nd. This was the Feast of Candlemas (the Festival of Lights). It was Imholc (in the older traditions), and Groundhog Day (in the newer ones). In Druidic times, this was the true start of the "new year." Other cultures, notably the Chinese, start their new year with a celebration around this time of year. Truly, our juices don't begin to flow - we don't begin to shake off some of winter's hibernation - until we start to get more light in the sky, beginning in early February.

Now on a simple girlfriend-to-girlfriend level, I'll let you know: January was hard. I didn't get out, and didn't party. Instead, I focused down and worked my way through that month. And the results are in; they're good, and I'm really pleased to have put in all that effort.

There's another thing that I started - right after Christmas (right during the "Twelve Days of Solstice," in fact). I got started on paperwork clean-ups. And as you probably know, this is a long chore. There's probably not a one of us who can burn through our entire paperwork stack in just one evening, or even a weekend.

For me, it's been multiple rounds of wrestling with the "Paper Tiger"; the piles, bags, and boxes of papers that have accrued over the months (and even prior years). Frankly, I feel that basement and garage clean-outs are easier.

Which brings me to: Basement and garage clean-outs. Specifically (because our garages are still pretty cold right now) to basement clean-outs. And I've been cleaning out mine (with the help of a sturdy and dedicated housemate). We've put in three "sessions," and have made a dent. Not done, but a good strong dent. We feel encouraged. We feel that progress has been made, and that if we stay with this, we'll even be done. (Some day.)

The point is: Basement cleaning - and paperwork cleaning - and life-cleaning of all sorts - is the kind of thing that we start right around now. And it's part of our Unveiling process. It's an integral part of pathworking.

In Chapter 19 of Unveiling, "A Sacred Time, A Sacred Space," I write:

After we find and designate our sacred space, we cleanse. We cleanse thoroughly. This is important.

This is the actual physical cleaning of any aspect of our lives; our basements, our closets, our stacks of paperwork or sets of unanswered emails. It can be physical; if we are into body "cleanses," this is often the time that we take on a little bit of a juice fast or introduce some tonics into our lives. (Even without that degree of rigor, we show more interest in fresh salads, and less of a need for chocolate cream-cheese brownies. Well, that depends on the weather.)

At the same time, whenever we take on some cleansing process in our physical worlds, or even in our bodies, we are allowing the same process to take place inside our minds. We begin our "inner house-cleaning" - as I described in Chapter 28, "Going Deeper." During one of my own Inanna-descents, I found that cleaning out my "inner basement" led to cleaning out deeper and deeper levels - none of which were pretty! (In fact, it felt like excavating sub-basements filled with swamp-mold and muck!)

Yet this is one of the most important things we can do. In fact, we have an archetype whose purpose is to help us with just this! This is our inner Hestia. Hestia was the ancient Greek goddess of "hearth and home." She was not into the relational aspects; she was not so much about the great love. Instead, she was more one for keeping the garden tended, pickling the vegetables, and cleaning the kitchen afterwards.

Hestia doesn't get a lot of attention. Yet our Hestia mode is one of the most useful things that we have going for us. She keeps the underpinnings of our lives together - the day-to-day things that lets our Amazon conquer new worlds, our Isis/Empress have her nurturing time with children and friends, our High Priestess to have contemplation, and our Hathor to have time for sensuality and for play.

Did I mention that our Hestia doesn't get a lot of respect? More to the point, she doesn't get a whole lot of recognition. I didn't even mention her in Unveiling!

That's because I didn't understand her until after the book was nearly done. In the ensueing months, though, I've had a better understanding. And I wrote about her recently as a core archetype in the Unveiling blog; see Hestia and also - for a birds-eye view of our complete archetype set, The Unveiling Archetypes and the Jungian Dimensions. (Look for Hestia in the top right quadrant of the figure; she's in between the High Priestess and Empress/Isis.)

Cultivating our inner Hestia is an important part of our pathworking; our day-to-day journey. When we do the practical things on the outer, our minds free up to do the inner work. "Wax on, wax off," Mr. Miyagi advised young Dan in the original Karate Kid movie.

And a special point: The deeper our "internal cleaning," the deeper we go into the back corners and stored piles of "stuff" in our everyday, practical lives. The inner and the outer aspects reflect each other. Before we are fully empowered to glow in our newly-polished Hathor mode, or before we reach the true nuggets of wisdom that we gain from our High Priestess, we spend hours cleaning and scrubbing the pantry, digging out the basement, and taking carloads of things to Goodwill. The path to beauty, peace, freedom, and joy begins with cleaning up stacks of old bills and emails!

One final word: The time to do this is now. I hate it for you, dear one, and I hate it for me as well. But the best time to get this "housecleaning" done - inside and out - is before the robins arrive, before the trees are green, and before we are so in love with the love that's going on around us!

To your joyous unfolding and the sturdy progress of your own pathworking -

With much love - Alay'nya