Creating softness to do the challenging things

If you’ve been in class with me, you know we end with a “show me.” I observe as you allow your body to express what needs to be expressed. The whole class leads to this moment of deep honesty, and it can be revealing in unexpected ways. Truths can be felt and seen by both the movers and the observer.

Sometimes it’s just a bit of relief in beginning to access some larger truths that will take longer to allow. But sometimes these moments are full of big ideas and revelations that lead all of us to say AH-HA!

These moments can be profoundly impactful. They can be those sorts of “turn on a dime” life changing, mind changing eurekas.

This week during one of my online Peony classes, something of that big sort was revealed.

I was watching Linda Soto move. She started with soft, water like movement that felt soothing even just to observe. The energy was safe and felt healing.

This went on for a few minutes until suddenly she broke into childlike playful movement that was full of joy and strength.

AH-HA! Right?

It struck me how much we want to go right for that latter sort of movement — whether on the dance floor or in our lives — without first taking care of ourselves.

It struck me how childlike wonder, awe, curiosity, playfulness, and joy really need safety in order to emerge. That childlike part of you needs to know it’s okay to come out, that there will be no judgment, that there will be no harshness of any kind.

But often, even when we’re doing these somatic dance practices that are meant to bring us to our own original totality, we go at them so hard. We try so hard. We work so hard.

If we’re not trying and working hard, we might even feel like we’re “lazy” or “not deserving.” Old stories overcome our original loving intentions.

The reality is that we deserve to be safe. We deserve to feel safe. We deserve communities that are safe for this work.

The child in us who might not have gotten enough of that safety deserves it from us now.

So let’s practice — in all things — first creating softness and offering a soothing environment — and then like I always say, breathing and waiting and allowing.

What part of you life can you imagine playing with this idea in? Where will you take it first?

How some Jesuits are helping me deal with the mean and the stupid

Though I still do not believe in any sort of active deity beyond the fact that the universe itself is a creative/destructive engine, oddly, it’s Jesuits who are bringing me the most comfort — or more accurately, keeping me sane in light of the stupidity and meanness that now predominate our government.

Jesuits have long been known as the academics of the Catholic Church, from theology, of course, but also into the hard sciences.

And in light of the ignorance of much of our population right now, a marriage of (true) Christian philosophy and actual science seems like the medicine we need.

Jesuits were some of the earliest astronomers, for one example. I won’t venture any further into this because my knowledge is limited but here’s an article about why Jesuit spirituality gives rise to scientists. (And actually I could come up with more reasons off the top of my head as I sit here but that’s not the point of what I’m writing and well, let’s limit the SQUIRRELS!!, shall we?)

Today I’m thinking about a famous Jesuit geologist you might know, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. How much more “hard science” can you get than rocks and all the actual stuff of this planet? It would seem this would take you far from the higher level air of Catholic mysticism but that’s exactly where rocks took Teilhard.

This morning, as part of my morning, routine, I started to again read this book written by a Franciscan (another of my favorite groups of thinkers who are also profoundly connected to the material world, to the joy and suffering of the human body). And I came upon this about Teilhard:

“(He) described the human species in evolution toward the fullness of unity in love... In his view, neither escapism nor existential despair can further the evolutionary process. Rather, the way forward is a new spirituality by which humans around the globe can unite to become one mind and one heart in love...”

— Compassion, Ilia Delio, OSF

Doesn’t that just pretty much sum it up?

To evolve, humans must evolve toward love. Away from the idea of us and them. Away from the idea of rich and poor. Away from have and have not, which implies a deserve and deserve not, which the philosophy of Christ finds repugnant.

To evolve, we must love more. And love is not just tolerance. Tolerance is just another word for “love the sinner and hate the sin.” Love is bigger than that.

When Christ said to love your enemy, he was not just saying to tolerate people different than you. He was literally saying to love them. But I also believe he was saying something more esoteric — that we should love the enemy within, which is jealousy and hate and judgment. Face and love those parts of ourselves so directly that we no longer have any left to point toward others.

That's love (r)evolution right there.

if you need more from Jesuits, I highly recommend following Fr. James Martin on Facebook. Here. He just posted a loving message to the trans community and their families.

And here’s a great post/short video quoting what many popes have said about immigrants and how very wrong the GOP has this (as they have most things morally wrong).

So yeah… this is a sampling of some things that are bringing me peace of mind. When we’re surrounded by such vitriol and such vile deformation of these teachings it can be easy to just let it all go… let them have it. But no, I won’t.

There are a lot of reasons that I think the core of these teachings are valuable and unique in the world of spirituality and religion and this isn’t the space to go into that. But for a while, I was more than happy to say GOOD BYE to the entire body if that meant I severed my connection to the gangrene limb of what I call evangelical catholicism.

But here I am, in these dark days, returning to some of my roots. To use yet another metaphor: just because part of the bush is dead doesn’t mean it’s all dead and it certainly doesn’t mean the roots are.

Dancing through fascism

I liked that quicker, shorter title, but it could also read, Dancing, writing, painting, sculpting, making music, and generally just art-ing through fascism.

Back in 1991, I was living in Chicago, attending grad school at DuPaul. My area of expertise was shaping up to be American literature that arose out of the Holocaust. And it just so happened that the Art Institute of Chicago, late that summer, was putting on a giant exhibition called Degenerate Art.

With a quick search, you can read more deeply about all of this, but I’ll give you a quick overview.

Nazis, of whatever time, are not fans of any art but classical art that supports their idea of culture. So you know, nothing imaginative and certainly nothing that promotes anything but hetero normative ideals. Oh… and white supremacy ideals, of course.

Modern art, in particular, which was on the rise at the same time as naziism, was extra targeted.

Eventually, the man himself (a frustrated artist and small man… like so many fascists) gathered all the modern art they could get their hands on and put together a show of over 600 works.

In order to, well, make people feel angry about the art, they did a couple of things. First, they crowded the walls with it, creating a sort of sight chaos.

Second, they let in too many people at once, herding them through tight lines. And third, they cranked up the heat.

When the Art Institute decided to put on this show, they found as many pieces as they could from the original. They didn’t overcrowd the people or turn up the heat, of course, but they did display them more like the original show so we could get an idea of what it was really like.

And to this day, there’s rarely a month that goes by that I don’t think of that exhibit. And now especially, there’s rarely a week.

It can feel like the arts need to take a backseat during times like we’re living through.

But if you look at history, it begs to differ.

If art weren’t fundamentally important to the human soul, would H1tler and his crew have gone to all of this trouble to degrade it?

No. Of course not.

All of the arts have the potential to expand our minds and hearts and to, most importantly, expand our empathy toward those not experiencing life like our own. Art teaches us about our humanity. Art teaches us about the beauty of diversity. Art teaches us that complexity is a gift.

And therein lies the danger.

As one of the sickest humans ever to be quoted just recently said (and I won’t name him), don’t get caught by “the sin of empathy.”

I am familiar with the mind gymnastics that people will go through to make that make sense for themselves, but they are wrong, period. It is an immoral sentiment. They are taking all that is good about Christianity and deforming it in the name of their own fears and their own small hearts and minds.

Art challenges us and it calls out parts of us that need to be worked on. It forces us to face our shadows so that we might fully delight in our joys.

So yes, we must dance through fascism.

And dancing, in particular, is extra important in that it keeps us grounded in these bodies and in this world right here and right now, rather than committing the grave error of thinking that we should be focusing on something that (might/maybe) come after we die.

That’s what it comes down to: fascism is death and art is life.

The purpose of anger

I’m still feeling rather mute after yesterday. I didn’t watch the news, but I did stay a bit in touch with what was happening via some trusted (and non-dramatic) sources.

We knew this was coming, and as I’ve written about before somewhere (where???), I realized a couple of weeks ago that I’ve been living in a state of high alert and trauma response since the election itself. And since the holidays ended (a sort of marker in my mind that I was waiting for), I’ve basically been counting down the days until yesterday.

It’s as if I were standing and watching a very large monster coming toward me for many hours and I was under the illusion that because I could see him, that once he got to me, it wouldn’t be quite so bad.

Um… nope. The monster is terrifying.

Yesterday I got to the point of freeze. Utter despair. My heart felt like it was breaking. I told Craig that “I don’t know how to live in this world…”

I got up this morning, knowing I had to start teaching online again. “Had to…” More like “got to.”

I wasn’t sure how I could show up. But as always, the strength of our community held me and allowed me to be human as I did the same for them.

So as the day goes on, I am feeling little cracks appear in that despair.

Then someone in the Circle of Trees shared a video and the creator said something that really stood out for me (and I am paraphrasing):

ANGER IS MEANT TO GET US THROUGH FEAR. (Read that a few times.)

It’s meant to carry us across a seemingly uncrossable river of anxiety and fear and terror and the feeling that we can’t possibly.

But we can.

Feeling that anger, the energy of it, eventually carries us over all of that.

When we get to the other side, we might still feel a bit of fear and lingering rage, but we are on the shores of possibility, imagination, and action.

It is not our singular job to save the world. We can’t.

But with little tiny actions of our own unique sort (we all have a different purpose in this), it’s as if we are filling a well of goodness. A well others can drink from.

And the only way we can consistently and over the long haul continue to take any actions is by taking care of ourselves, by remembering that we’re not only allowed to but must feel and experience and build joy in our lives. We are not just here for the bad stuff. We’re here to be in awe, to be curious, to be playful, to be in healthy relationship, to hold others’ hands, to have our hands held, to be love and compassion for those in pain and for ourselves.

Sitting and watching that monster come toward me… that is not what I’m here for. And it’s not what you’re here for.

I don’t have answers but I’m coming up for air.

Growing our community muscles has to be a priority

From a recent local class.

Let me start by saying that a lot of us have grown, over our lives, complacent about community building. We tend to participate in communities that are convenient and easy.

This has been especially true since the pandemic, from which we learned to isolate more and more. Of course, this was necessary in terms of 3D human encounters to protect us all, but many of us gave up altogether even in the face of tools that could have kept our community muscles a bit more healthy.

So we enter into next week, into a new and potentially damaging paradigm, leaning again into isolation.

This won’t do.

Not if we want the coming years to be at all safe for women and marginalized humans. We can’t just sink into our aloneness and stay at home watching television and judge the world as it burns from our comfortable front windows.

We must commune with likeminded humans. We must build trust and companionship because that’s the foundation of the work that will call to us.

We must build this trust and companionship via shared story (and truth) telling.

We must embody this trust and companionship.

I’m convinced that this cannot only all be done in 3D but also if we are far away from one another via the very tools that many want to use to hurt us.

Tools are only as good as their users… whether this be the maps of religions or tech tools or hammers or communication.

And we must not desert these very powerful tools to those who would use them for evil. (Yes, evil.)

I will be staying, for example, on Facebook because it has a free private group function that no one else offers. I can use that to grow community.

But beyond that, I am staying because I will not let these spaces be taken over by hateful voices. I will be a compassionate voice. I will fight for the space that has given me so much.

And I will, of course, continue to teach online via zoom. The community that has grown in those classes since the start of the pandemic is as beautiful and deep and solid as any community in 3D that I am a part of. To say otherwise is to demean our basic, DNA level need and capacity to connect to one another regardless of circumstances.

So I come to you with two things.

If you’re not in the Circle of Trees on Facebook, ask me to add you.

Here’s a quick take on what goes on in there: It's a space where people feel really safe to share challenges -- and joys. We talk a lot about neurodivergence/neurospicy brains, and mental health, and of course. somatic/healing movement. The support in this space and the kindness and compassion are indescribable.

And as always, I have classes starting. They start next week, the week of the inauguration.

I, like most of you I assume, am grieving that inauguration, but I know, too, that I can’t stay stuck in grief, and being in somatic dance spaces with other humans is how I take care of my emotional and mental health so that I can be strong for myself and everyone around me.

You can register for Peony Somatic Dance classes right now.

Don’t hide. Don’t disappear. We need every single one of our voices out in this world. Now more than ever.

Listening to music from our youth is not just nostalgia

Me, at about 16. And yes, I’m singing as I dance… I always have.

A few weeks ago, I was having an extra rough stretch of days. It might have been soon after the election so it was more like a couple of months ago. I taught my local class and then got in the car to drive home. I put on a random Spotify list from the 1980s and the song that popped up was Notorious by Duran Duran.

You might not know, but likely do, that I was a major Duranie all through high school and beyond. At this point, I’ve seen them four times, including twice in the last two years with Craig.

Their Notorious tour was the first time I saw them. I would have been 17/18 years old and my mother took me to Blossom in Ohio to see them (one of the places I just saw them with Craig, actually… time is funny, isn’t it?).

Anyway, as soon as that song started in the car, I felt a physical change in my body. And over the first bit of the song, my mind shifted and my heart opened. And I realized that I suddenly felt… really powerful.

That is the only word for it… powerful. REALLY powerful. That kind of youthful “I can do anything in this world” powerful.

It felt amazing. So over the next couple of weeks, whenever I got in the car, I put that song on and it kept working. It helped me to recover my sense of myself.

A lot of people see us as stuck if we listen to music from our youth. And you know me… I am constantly learning new music. I know what’s happening in the music world… always.

But there’s more to the music of our youth than just nostalgia.

About 14 years ago, I came across a study from 1979 called Counterclockwise, and I’ve talked about this study a lot over the years. A group of older men were brought to a house that only had things from their 20s. And they only listened to music from that time. Over the week, they regained what they thought was lost-forever mobility and their memories got sharper.

Now there are people working to replicate that study. You can look here. (I haven’t dug into all of the links yet, but I will be and I encourage you to.)

And recently there was a big cover article for National Geographic about how much aging really is just a cultural story. Hmmm… who has been yelling that for the last 15 years!?!? (That article is behind a paywall but I intend to get it. If anyone has access, read it and let me know what you think.)

Here’s the thing: there are big time benefits to tapping into the music of our youth on the regular.

And as you’ve heard me say countless times, there are HUGE benefits to moving to music we don’t know.

It’s a both/and thing. They each have benefits.

So here’s my question for you: what music makes you feel amazing? Or brings back a younger version of you?

Movement play inspiration for your new year

I would like to say happy new year but I’m writing this on January 6th and I’m just not feeling it. I’m assuming most (if not all) of you reading this are on the same page.

I also just taught at the residential recovery center and spent that time talking to someone about their fears about what’s coming. Wherever I go, people are anxious and worried. January feels like we’re collectively holding our breath until the 20th and the few days after. But then I think we’ve all been doing that to some degree since the night of the election.

Here’s hoping that the guardrails hold…

Regardless we need to keep moving forward, and focusing our energy on the things we can actually control becomes more important than ever.

Taking care of ourselves and filling ourselves with joyful energy is crucial if we are ever to build the kind of world that I know we all want — one of inclusivity, compassion, and real love… the kind of love that values every being as worthy.

With that in mind, I come to my main new year’s intention: to get back my sense of passion and playfulness with my own dance/movement practices, rather than only feeling that way when I’m teaching.

I’m starting slowly with about ten minutes at noon every day. I got a fun disco light just for this. I turn that on and put on a list of 80s dance music. I don’t “try” to “do” or experiment or create. Just dance. That’s it. Let it flow.

Next week, I’ll be building more aspects of my practice.

And in preparation for all of this, I’ve created a playlist of inspiration on YouTube that you also can access by hitting the upper right corner where it says 1/16 on the video below or click here. There’s only one of my own videos on this list and then other things that you can skip around in for ideas.

I’ll add to this list whenever I come across anything that fits that bill.

Let me know if you have any videos you think belong on it.

Still struggling and maybe you are too

A quote I keep going back to.

I’ve not been able to get steady bearings since the morning after the election, and I’m guessing that’s true for you who read here.

I’m devastated and heartbroken that such a vile person is once again going to be given the keys to the kingdom. And even though it’s not technically until January 20th that that happens, everywhere you look, it seems to have emboldened more hate.

I won’t go on because I know you know.

I simply do not know how to navigate this world where only about 30% of eligible voters are now able to create this ugly world for the rest of us. I don’t know my role in this kind of world.

I do not want to allow them to take my joy but I am struggling.

One thing that I have recently started to do is read about the idea of the artist under fascist/authoritarian types of governments. I’m digging into an academic piece right now that I’ll eventually share. And I’ll keep sharing because digging into this vein of wisdom gives me some sense of myself — at least while I’m reading.

Here’s the first piece I read, and here’s my favorite quote from it:

““Within this authoritarian context, performance work flourished—as ephemeral works proved difficult to censor and commercial viability wasn’t a concern—and particularly so among women artists. In some of her performance works, poet and artist Katalin Ladik would appear completely naked, barely clothed, or costumed, challenging normative gender roles. “The freedom to use your body in a dictatorial state is the last freedom,” Szántó says.”
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