Dancing for My Life

Since the beginning of this year I have been wrestling with the question of what I do. Who am I and what do I do? Well, to be honest, I have been wrestling with this question for a lot longer than that, but this year, my 45th journey around the sun, the question percolated to the surface and became articulate. I actually openly asked the question: what do I do?

How do I call myself? When asked to fill out an official document what do I write on the line that asks for Occupation?

(Actually, now that I think about it, when a document asks for my employer, for the last decade I have written "Self". That could very well be my occupation as well, couldn't it?)

I have been a Graphic Artist, an Editor and Proofreader. I have been a Handyman and a Carpenter, and I've painted, I've plumbed, I've wired and masoned. I worked my way through college by cooking, and in that role I have grilled and sauteed, I've sauced and souped, I've tossed salads and pizzas, I've gotten up ass-early in the morning to bake bread, muffins, croissants, cookies and cupcakes. For the last ten years I have taught Yogasana, Pranayama, Meditation and Mantra. I am a writer, a poet and a philosopher. I am a painter and illustrator. I am a singer, a percussionist and a dabbler in several other instruments. As a Dancer, trained in the Japanese Post-modern style of Ankoku Butoh, (the Dance of the Dark Soul) I have performed in New York City, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Joshua Tree and throughout the Bay Area.

I am not one of these things more than another. I am not more or less passionate for any one of these activities. On a certain level I feel they are all Yoga. In one way or another all these actions, all these gestures seek to overcome separation. At least that was my intention while doing them. More or less.

But this year, struggling with self-esteem, self-worth it felt necessary to really look at what it is I do, and where I'm going with it. It occurred to me that maybe success eludes me because I lack a clear vision of what it is I am successful at.

I went to this play last week, Crazymaking. A production at the Pomona College in Claremont this play interweaves dramatic narrative, with chanting, sacred sound, and dance. The story of a half-hawaiian woman who struggles with cultural identity and a spiritual connection to ancestry in a material world, the dramatic movements utilized were Hula and Qigung.

I have been studying Qigung, and Gung Fu influenced Hatha Yoga for many years now, but I have only watched Hula. As a dancer I have been moved by the performance of the men's traditional Hula, which is powerful and Yang, full of Warrior Spirit, and although it has called me, I have never had the opportunity to study or practice.

At one point in the middle of the play everyone on stage, including the two young performers who had been practicing Qigung forms at the sides, begins to dance hula. The sweeping, wavelike arm movements of the hula, movements that express wave and wind, echo the movements of qigung. I hear my teacher Zhander Remete, founder of Shadow Yoga, saying "Certain movements of the hands direct the flow of prana through the subtle channels in the body." It suddenly strikes me that Hula and Qigung are the same. Then I remember that the traditional, ceremonial dances of Indonesia, Bali, Java are also believed to be purification practices. They too are Qigung.

At another point in the play the main character is being assailed by demonic spirits that essentially seek to possess her. She is visited by an apparition of Pele, the Hawaiian Volcano Goddess, who is both Destroyer and Creatrix. Pele begins to teach her a very simple Hula form. Casana, the heroine, scoffs at first saying "Really, I don't have time for this. I'm being attacked by demons! Can you help me, please?!"

Without speaking, Pele indicates that Casana is to duplicate her movements, which include a solid but gentle stomping of the feet with a sweeping of the arms. As Casana begins to imitate the movements of the Goddess the demons are swept aside and dispelled. Spirit teaches her a dance that defends. The soft sweeping arm movements, that look like Palm Trees gently swaying in an Island Breeze, are exactly the same as simple blocking movements from Tai Chi and Gong Fu.

Not only do the movements of hands and feet direct the movement of energy inside the Body, inside the energy field, they are also able to affect the movements of energy outside the individuals energy field.
Of course. Duh, I think.

In that moment I think "that's it! I am a DANCER! That's what I am!" I can be a healer, and an artist, a spiritual devotee, and a ritual mover. I am a Dancer. Dancing encapsulates everything: the journey from birth to death, expansion and contraction, bloom and decay, the exchange of energy between to Souls, the heavenly waltz of Planets and Moons and Stars, the oscillation of particles at a microcosmic level, the ridiculous, heart-breaking-open dosey-do of Man and Creator.

Then, immediately I think, "I need to find a Hula teacher", and "I need to study more Qigung"

It took my partner, Jaqueline Marie, who provided the Sacred Sound for Crazymaking, to remind me that the point of that scene where Pele visits Casana is not that Hula is Qigung. The point is that Spirit showed her what to do. It was necessary for Casana to trust Spirit, to trust herself and her intuition enough to receive the message from spirit that saved her life.

"Duh." Again.

I knew that. I saw that. But my distrust of myself caused me to jump forward to seeking someone else, whom I deemed to have authority to teach me how to move my body, teach me how to move my Qi, teach me how to save my life.

I have the tools already. I have the arm, the leg. I have the Qi. I know how to get the Qi moving. What I lack is the discipline just to show up with Self and do it. I have been holding out for a Certified Grandmaster of some kind, with a big stick with which to hit me over the head and make me do my homework.

I keep waiting for a Buddha to show up and show me how to be a Buddha. This is why they say "If you meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill him." As long as the Master is continually perceived else where, outside me, not-I, that idea of the Master becomes the greatest stumbling block to my mastery. The ideas I have of Buddhahood, which tend to be a long list of qualities I don't have, hold me back from Buddhahood.

Please say it with me,
I already know how to Dance, I already know how to Save my Life. I already know everything I need to know to be a master, to be a buddha, to save the world. I already know who I am. I have always known this. Amen


When
No one is looking
I swallow deserts and clouds
and chew on mountains knowing
they are sweet
Bones!
When no one is looking and I want
to kiss
God
I just lift my own hand
to
my
mouth.

-Hafiz

Musical Mystical Pilgrimage

For years now I have entertained this fantasy in the back of my mind, a very soft-focus daydream that someday I would travel around the world visiting the places of reknown mystic tradition and I would learn the sacred music and the ceremonial dance. My intention has always been that I would get right in there and sing the songs and dance the dances, so I would know them. I would know them in my Body, in my Soul. And by coming to know them all so intimately I would begin to find the thread that binds them all together, the common humanity across cultural distinctions, across borders geographic and linguistic. I would document my work, perhaps as a travel diary and publish. But most importantly I would begin to fuse them into something Grand. Something that would not erase the difference of each culture, of each distinct tradition, not to blend them together in the "Great Cultural Melting Pot" America once claimed to be. But something that would somehow celebrate the difference, the distinction even within a common humanity, and in such a way that we still feel, still know in our hearts that essentially we all desire the same things, Union with the Divine, Unconditional Love reflected back to us by the Universe herself.

For far too long humans have been using Religion to control each other; to keep each other down by creating an illusion of separation, a myth of Lack. We argue, and then battle over resources, and over the slightest differences in ideology and semantics. Growing up my Grandparents were proud members of the Missouri Lutheran Synod, and when I went to their church there was this subtle but understood message that any other Christian Church was misguided, and thus wrong, and thus essentially one step away from being Satan Worshippers. To this day I can't tell the difference one Lutheran from another, or a Lutheran from a Baptist for that matter (except, Baptists tend to be better singers, and have more fun at it), or one Christian from another. At an early age, I had a real strong feeling that "Us" was defined as "Thank God we're not Them".

But I was always curious about "them". Until I discovered I was them. It wasn't until the last decade that I really began to understand that I am "Them" and "Us" because there is neither; there is no Other. In true blissful being there is nothing to be Against. I love when Chogyam Trungpa talks about the "Against" state of mind; "Don't be Against anything." And then Pema Chodron after him. You can't even be Against the Against state of mind. Accepting everything. Isn't that at the Heart of the Christ's teachings? Love is acceptance. Unconditional.

And love is at the heart of all these mystic traditions. It's in the songs, it's in the teachings, it's in the stories and the dance. The divine has been taken out of our hands by a Bureaucracy of middle men, installed specifically to keep us feeling like we can't touch god ourselves, or speak to Her, or see Him, or feel It. We have been raised to doubt our own splendidness. Our own miraculous nature. Our own Divine birthright. And we keeping running and running and running on the Hamster Wheel of Life, trying to gain merits, and markers, like prizes hoping; they will make us feel complete, hoping they will prove to us that we are valuable, that we are worthy. That we are Gods.

Everyone of us has been born with the potential to become a Bodhisattva, to realize our true Christ Nature IN THIS LIFETIME. Not later. Not lifetimes away. You have it in you right now.

It is a terrifying realization. And a huge responsibility. To accept the Truth of your Being might mean you have to give up Beer, or Coca-Cola, or Marijuana or Playstation, or TV. Not because they are Bad, or Evil, or Wicked, but because they scramble the energy, the vibration of your True Self. And your True Self wants to come forth.

Your True Self is talking to you right now. Whispering your name.

There is a Tibetan teaching story about a simple man who chanted every minute of every day the Name of Padmasambhava, the Bodhisattva that brought Buddhism to Tibet. For twenty years, he repeated the name inside his own head. While he slept it was still turning like a prayer wheel.

Until finally the man said "Screw this! I've been repeating the name of Padmasambhava for twenty years straight, and am I any closer to Enlightenment? No!"
And he spat on the ground in contempt, immediately ending the mantra that ran effortlessly through his mind.

He began to return to his daily routine relishing the silence in his head. Then he heard someone call his name. He looked up from his work, looked around, but no one was there. He turned back to his work until he heard it again, someone calling him as if from a far. He looked up and looked farther but could see no one. This happened several times, each time hearing his name spoken a little louder, a little closer. Each time he saw no one, each time he turned back to his work curse the mantra that had addled his brain.

Then it came again, so close he froze. And he listened.

It came again. And he realized the voice came from within himself, and in a flash of Self-reflection he discovered the Bodhisattva Padmasambhava dwelling within him, chanting HIS own name.

Right now your own Buddha Nature, your own Perfected Being is calling your name, wanting to come out and shine forth. To answer the call means recognizing that many of the peanuts you've chased after, many of the merits you've won (at what costs? at whose expense?) are really meaningless. It is terrifying. And your ego has invested so much in that stuff; your ego says your value is equal to all that stuff and without it you are worthless. You don't have to take my word for it. You can take a look right now at yourself, ask yourself what you would be without all that stuff. Not the shelter, not the Wellbeing, but all the accessories and the luxuries. What happens if you just consider giving it all way, letting it go. Notice the sneaky ways the mind (tool of the ego) shuts it down, distracts you. Maybe you're finished with this stupid Blog.

Still here?

Then there's still hope. Hope for us all. Even if its just you and I left sitting here.

So just the other day a made a huge commitment. I acknowledged that I have been given a gift: a gift of telling a story, and singing a song. In a powerful way. In away that speaks to people's hearts. So, I made a commitment with my partner to devote my life to developing that gift, to travel the world and learn the sacred song's of the people and to reflect them back in a way that reminds us that despite our uniqueness, despite our difference we all share the essential Buddha Nature, and that deep down that Christ Consciousness wants to Shine forth. In that realization there is no longer any space for war, for murder, for starvation, for separation.



"When no one is watching,
And I want to kiss God
I lift My own hand to my mouth." - Hafiz