Boethius

When I am trying to do new choreography, it happens sometimes that NOTHING is coming to me.  Even if I relax and allow myself to be led, every so often in my mind is -- nothing.  Crickets. Tumbleweeds. The sound of a lonely wind.  

  

I kept getting ideas about what I would write this week, all incomplete. 

But here is something I was thinking about that maybe you’ll find interesting.  

There was a philosopher named Boethius who wrote in the years around 500 AD.  He was a wealthy Roman consul who believed in goodness and charity.  He also believed that the Universe (or God or All That Is) is based on goodness.  He said that it is through love that the natural and human forces of the universe are guided.  Boethius also believed what quantum physics tells us is true, that time does not move through us—time just is.  We move through time.  All That Is is the tree and man is an ant that moves up the trunk and out to the branches.  Every possibility (each branch and leaf) is already there, but we choose which path or branch to take as the outcome we experience. 

It makes me think about how truth is always the truth.   

I used to wonder what it meant when I read in spiritual books that our relationships really never end, despite separation, divorce, death and apparently even intense dislike.   I still don’t know whether it’s a reference to the nature of time (everything happens at once, therefore the past is still happening) or whether love is not destructible. 

I think maybe it’s both of those.

Love is the truth and never dies. 

So what is deep within us is our truth.  Our truth really never changes. The innocence we were born with is still within us.  

We dance because we have to.  We create because there’s no choice.  And we continue to love whether we want to or not.  

The truth knows no time, and neither does the deepest part of you.

Pushed or Led?

When I am choreographing a song, I have a number of goals: 1) I want the movement to express the music. 2) I want it to be fun.  3) I want it to be easy enough so that anyone can do it without too much of a learning curve, yet be challenging enough for my regulars.  And 4) I also want the movement to cause a really good sweat.  

Sometimes I’ll put pressure on myself to make the dance combinations more complex because I’m afraid that my class is losing steam.  So instead of allowing the music to lead me, I feel “pushed” by my fear to create something that is different than what would come naturally to me.  I actually ignore what feels right because I’ve convinced myself that it’s not good enough.  When this happens, I am reaching for movement that does not make sense with the music or with my goals.

On the other hand, if I relax and trust, the music will take me on a ride that allows me to accomplish my goals.  I will be led to choreography that makes sense and fulfills my objectives.

That feeling of pushing is very real.  It feels like I am out of synch with myself.  It is actually quite stress-inducing.  And generally it doesn’t end well.

Being led feels to me like quiet, calm, and loving direction.

In my life, I realize that I can do the same sort of thing when I am having a fit of feeling incompetent.  In that state, I think a particular situation should look a certain way, so I’ll structure a path to get where I think I ought to be.  I feel pushed by my anxiety.  And the path is constructed by fear, which is not any path I really want to be on.

Being led is like having the path appear one step at a time.  I don’t know what’s going to be at the end of that path, but I tell myself that it could be something I’ve never dreamed of. 

I had a painful experience with a loved one, when I had to follow my instincts and just let go.  I was “forced” to do this because I had done everything that I could imagine and nothing changed the situation.  I had hit the wall.  I simply had to stop scaring myself about what could happen if I truly released this person.  So I took the path one step at a time, trusting each individual step and not knowing how it was going to look at the end of it all.  It was hard, but the outcome turned out to be more than I could have hoped for.

Now if only I could trust, every day, without having to hit the wall first.  (I’m working on it.)

When you trust the little steps, the big leaps take care of themselves.

And every really good leap uses momentum from the smaller steps before it.

Trust the music.  

One step at a time.

Oxygen Mask

When you are dancing, your intention can be many things—you may want to express the music through your body, you may want to be in the moment so you forget everything that you are anxious about, you may want to burn calories.  Whatever your intention is, one of these things or all of these things or something completely different, the underlying truth of your intention to dance is the fact that in some way you are taking care of yourself.  

And when you take care of yourself, it is an act of self-love. 

Many times when I would go to dance class as a student, I would run into criticism—“Don’t you have other things to do that are more important right now?” “You seem tired, are you sure this is the best thing for you to do?” (Surely everyone else knows what’s best for me) “I could really use your help right now!”  Sometimes, in the past, I would succumb to the shame (since, obviously, there were no other times – other than during my dance class -- that I could help someone); other times I would slink away to guiltily get my dance fix.  

And try to not look so happy when I got home. 

Over the years I have heard from some clients that their partners were a little jealous of their taking time to go to dance class.  Others have told me that when they get a little bitchy at home, their partners will say, gently, “Gee honey, maybe it’s time for you to go to dance class?  Can I drive you…?”  These partners understand that joy begets joy and refueling in dance class means that the whole family can breathe a sigh of relief.

When we love ourselves, it is not selfish.  It is not a form of conceit or of not caring about anyone else.  Loving ourselves is the reason we can love others.  Selfishness is an attribute of self-loathing.  Loving ourselves makes us more generous, not less generous with our time.  

When you are on an airplane and the oxygen mask unfurls, you need to put it on yourself first.  Even the airlines know you have to take care of yourself before you can help anyone else. 

For me, dance is my oxygen mask.

What’s yours?

Heaven

When we dance we can choose to worry about doing it “right,” expressing ourselves, being in the moment or setting any intention that we wish.  We always have a choice about what to believe about ourselves (and everyone and everything else, too).   We have a choice of what to take away or give in any situation. 

These choices color our lives, moment to moment.

I want to share an extraordinary experience I had.  I also want to say that both of my parents were good people. I loved them both.   I believe they did the best they could; if they had known better they would have done better…just like all of us…and I was fortunate to be able to make peace with both of them before they passed.

My parents separated when I was six.  There was a lot of drinking and yelling in our house.  My dad left, but no one told me anything, and I knew better than to ask.   So, since I lived with my mom, I saw my dad very infrequently until I was a teenager.  I never felt that I was (at all) important to him.  I felt easily forgettable.  I loved my dad, but we were never close. He was a conservative Republican WASP, so it is surprising that he loved to read Edgar Cayce (a psychic healer and author who believed in reincarnation).  My dad told one of my sisters that if he could, after he died, he’d come back and try to make contact.

After my dad passed away, I was asleep one night, and he came to me.  When I saw him, he didn’t look the same as I remembered, but still, I knew it was him.  I felt a feeling of perfect bliss running through me.  I said, “Dad, what are you doing here?  I thought you were dead!”  He said, “I’m not dead” and he showed me a piece of paper in his hand.  I thought it was going to be his driver’s license with a picture since he didn’t look the same.  But it was his death certificate.   He said, again, “I’m not dead!”  Still feeling that incredible joy, I said, “I love you, dad,” and hugged him.  He said, “I love you.  I loved you before.  And I love you still.”

I could have chosen to believe that this was my subconscious giving me a dream of something that I longed for that was unresolved in my life.  Or I can think of it the way I do think of it.  I believe that this was “real,” especially because the feeling of it was different than any “dream” I have ever experienced.

I’ve read in many books that “heaven” is not a place, but a state of being.  In the Gospel of Thomas, from The Gnostic Gospels, by Elaine Pagels, “Jesus said…[heaven]… is a state of self-discovery:  ‘Rather the Kingdom is inside of you…What you look forward to has already come, but you do not recognize it…The Kingdom is spread out upon the Earth, but men do not see it.’  That Kingdom then, symbolizes a state of transformed consciousness.”

I love this quote, too:

“‘Tell me one last thing,’ said Harry. ‘Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?’

Dumbledore beamed at him...’Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?’”(J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.)

 So what is real?  It depends on each of us. 

We can choose to find our own heaven and dance there -- every day of our lives.

It is within our power.

A NOTE:

I set the goal of writing this blog for 52 weeks.  As I said last week, I will start again in September, but not on a weekly basis.  I want to thank you for taking the time to read what I have written.  I am honored that you did! 

May you be at peace

May your heart remain open

May you awaken to the beauty of your own true nature and your oneness with All That Is

May you be healed

May you find heaven on Earth

Love,

Sue

Three Quantum Leaps

I wrote a small book recently that talks about dance as a metaphor for life, quantum physics, and spiritual ideas.  I started writing it as a kind of summary of all the spiritual books I’ve read, personal experiences of myself and my clients over the years, along with how quantum physics supports spiritual thought.

It was called, Choreograph Your Best Life in Three Quantum Leaps.

But, I think I got the three leaps wrong. 

The three leaps I used were:

1)     Understand we are all one, living in the only moment there is.

2)     Choose your perception

3)     Believe, Then See (believing is seeing)

I think these leaps in thinking and perceiving are sound.  But I believe these are transcended by information in the book by Anita Moorjani, Dying to Be Me.

If I was going to rewrite my book, the three leaps would be:

1)     Love yourself

2)     Trust

3)     Allow

Loving ourselves is the only way we can truly love others.  Since we are all One, loving yourself equals loving everyone else, too. 

Trusting our hearts acknowledges that love.  Trusting is knowing that our answers lie within.

Since time just is (and quantum physics supports this) the tapestry of life is already woven.  Instead of chasing what we want, we need only trust that it already exists and allow it to come into our experience.  What comes into our experience will be colored by our feelings for ourselves and our level of trust in life.

I can compare these three leaps to my own journey with dance.  I had to love myself enough to do what I love to do.  I had to trust that my own heart was speaking the truth and that I should follow it.  And I had to allow life to happen and flow with it. 

Okay, this is my journey with dance—the other parts of my life were not so easily put into this formula. 

But I know that whenever I act from a place of fear or chase what I think I want or try to “fix” other people, life doesn’t really go so well.  I am also aware that the hugest mistakes I’ve made in my life have stemmed from my lack of self-esteem, my inability to love myself.  For this I feel shame, but then I’m ashamed of my shame, so I’m just going to stop.

This process works for me, if I allow it, when doing choreography.  I have to love myself enough to believe I can (still) do it, I have to trust the song, and I have to allow the movement to just come in.  When it doesn’t come in, I have to trust that too and not push the river—knowing that doesn’t work.

I am working on allowing.  I want to leave myself open to not dismissing any experience or perception out-of-hand.  I want to open up to seeing what I haven’t seen.  I no longer want to dismiss miracles as everyday events that would have happened anyway.  I want to appreciate them every day.  And by appreciating them, I can accept more into my life. 

 

I also don’t want to be weird, but maybe that ship has sailed…….

This is the second-to-last weekly blog.  Next week will be my last one.  I will continue to write, but not weekly.  I will begin again in September. 

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading this!  You teach what you need to learn and everything I’ve written is what I need to learn.  I hope it may have helped you, too.