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
Showing posts with label Butoh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Butoh. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Leaving The Desert
The sun is just now creeping up over the edge of the horizon, lighting stark relief on another cold brisk Joshua Tree morning. This is the last morning I will wake up here as a resident. I am loading up the back hatch of my little old honda (her liscence plate reads "Be Grace" )and heading to my new home in Topanga, a wee little guest house up on the ridge overlooking the Canyon. I am anxiously moving forward towards a life of teaching Yoga and Making Sacred Music in LA and Santa Monica.
I have been here for ten years now. I helped build the Harrison House, the first Permitted Straw Bale Vaulted Structure in California (check it out at http://bit.ly/6hlEpa ) For two years I hosted a High Desert Butoh Festival. I opened my own Yoga Studio, Medicine Rock Yoga, which did fairly well for awhile. Frankly, my struggle with marijuana led to its demise, and contributed to the seperation and divorce of my ex-wife and I. I struggled to know myself. And struggled with confidence. Self-doubt plagued me, and cast a shadow over my yoga teaching. 2 years ago it all began to unravel. But I am leaving all of that behind, the addiction, the lack of confidence, the fear of Success.
I've stuck around, and stuck it out. Trying desperately to stay in the area with my kids. I realized recently I was telling myself the story that I was staying here so my kids would not feel abandoned, like I felt abandoned by my Dad after my parents divorced. When I woke up to the fact that it was myself, my inner child I was staying for, trying hard to heal that feeling of abandonment, things rapidly began to shift; opportunities began to open up in LA, and the Universe began to offer me a reflection I did not recogninze. The reflection of a man, gifted and talented, compassionate and caring and capable.
A friend told me last Sunday was what is called Kings Day. It is also known as Epiphany. Kings Day is the beginning of Carnival season, but represents in its most exoteric, Christ's realization that he was the Son of God, and the adoration of the Magi. Its esoteric meaning represents a reevaluation of Masculinity, which may make itself known as a crisis in the Masculine. I was already going through this crisis, so it was only with mild surprise that I learned this event was taking place at a Universal level.
I have been at odds with my Masculinity. I have always doubted my Manliness. I've never felt Macho the way it is represented in our culture, and have doubted my ability, doubted my strength, my power. I feel the weight of collective cultural guilt over centuries of oppression, repression and imperialism represented by the Patriarchy. I have felt guilt and shame over my own sensitivity, both emotional and energetic/intuitive. I have identified with the Feminine, with the Matrilineal tradition of Healing, of taking care, but I realize, at the expense of my Masculinity. I suspect I am not the only man that has lived with this for the last ten twenty thirty years.
I have had my own Epiphany. I have reawakened to the knowledge that I, and every man, am the Son of God. I have remembered I am a Good Dad, and a Good Man, and as I assimilate my sensitivity and intuition with my confidence, my talent and my strength, I begin to embody the New Man, the Radical reeevaluation of the Masculine.
The Mayans have predicted that 2010 is the end of an era, and the beginning of a new cycle, which they call the era of Big Woman Power. This does not mean as fearmongers might suggest that we are moving into a period when men will be enslaved to women. This is a negative fantasy of the Patriarchy that clings to old definitions of Power. The energetic shift into the Feminine will radically change the way we, Humans, perceive power. Our values will radically shift, we will no longer judge value in material terms. The predominant myths will not be tales of the Dynamic Individual. Organized Religions will break down as system of social and political control. Community will reign supreme, and every individual will remember he or she has always had direct access to the divine.
You will hear me often speak of Big Woman Power as I raise a challenge to my Brothers to step up and rise up to the new Masculinity. This is my Yoga. This IS Yoga: unifying the Masculine and Feminine, bringing them into Balance. This IS Tantra. Yoga, by its very nature as a path of Self-Realization, Self-Understanding, Self-Discovery is Political. The end result being a rejection of all external systems of control that keep us down through the Mythologies of Lack and Seperation.
There is No Seperation: you are One with Everything Right Now. You are Divinity Itself caught in a dream of Difference and Distinction. You are the Universe. There is NO Lack: you are the Energy of Abundance, Self-Creating, Self-Generating. But in that dream of Seperation is a Nightmare of Limits, of Not Enough. Wake Up.
"You have been asleep now for a thousand years.
Why not wake up on THIS morning." -Kabir
I have been here for ten years now. I helped build the Harrison House, the first Permitted Straw Bale Vaulted Structure in California (check it out at http://bit.ly/6hlEpa ) For two years I hosted a High Desert Butoh Festival. I opened my own Yoga Studio, Medicine Rock Yoga, which did fairly well for awhile. Frankly, my struggle with marijuana led to its demise, and contributed to the seperation and divorce of my ex-wife and I. I struggled to know myself. And struggled with confidence. Self-doubt plagued me, and cast a shadow over my yoga teaching. 2 years ago it all began to unravel. But I am leaving all of that behind, the addiction, the lack of confidence, the fear of Success.
I've stuck around, and stuck it out. Trying desperately to stay in the area with my kids. I realized recently I was telling myself the story that I was staying here so my kids would not feel abandoned, like I felt abandoned by my Dad after my parents divorced. When I woke up to the fact that it was myself, my inner child I was staying for, trying hard to heal that feeling of abandonment, things rapidly began to shift; opportunities began to open up in LA, and the Universe began to offer me a reflection I did not recogninze. The reflection of a man, gifted and talented, compassionate and caring and capable.
A friend told me last Sunday was what is called Kings Day. It is also known as Epiphany. Kings Day is the beginning of Carnival season, but represents in its most exoteric, Christ's realization that he was the Son of God, and the adoration of the Magi. Its esoteric meaning represents a reevaluation of Masculinity, which may make itself known as a crisis in the Masculine. I was already going through this crisis, so it was only with mild surprise that I learned this event was taking place at a Universal level.
I have been at odds with my Masculinity. I have always doubted my Manliness. I've never felt Macho the way it is represented in our culture, and have doubted my ability, doubted my strength, my power. I feel the weight of collective cultural guilt over centuries of oppression, repression and imperialism represented by the Patriarchy. I have felt guilt and shame over my own sensitivity, both emotional and energetic/intuitive. I have identified with the Feminine, with the Matrilineal tradition of Healing, of taking care, but I realize, at the expense of my Masculinity. I suspect I am not the only man that has lived with this for the last ten twenty thirty years.
I have had my own Epiphany. I have reawakened to the knowledge that I, and every man, am the Son of God. I have remembered I am a Good Dad, and a Good Man, and as I assimilate my sensitivity and intuition with my confidence, my talent and my strength, I begin to embody the New Man, the Radical reeevaluation of the Masculine.
The Mayans have predicted that 2010 is the end of an era, and the beginning of a new cycle, which they call the era of Big Woman Power. This does not mean as fearmongers might suggest that we are moving into a period when men will be enslaved to women. This is a negative fantasy of the Patriarchy that clings to old definitions of Power. The energetic shift into the Feminine will radically change the way we, Humans, perceive power. Our values will radically shift, we will no longer judge value in material terms. The predominant myths will not be tales of the Dynamic Individual. Organized Religions will break down as system of social and political control. Community will reign supreme, and every individual will remember he or she has always had direct access to the divine.
You will hear me often speak of Big Woman Power as I raise a challenge to my Brothers to step up and rise up to the new Masculinity. This is my Yoga. This IS Yoga: unifying the Masculine and Feminine, bringing them into Balance. This IS Tantra. Yoga, by its very nature as a path of Self-Realization, Self-Understanding, Self-Discovery is Political. The end result being a rejection of all external systems of control that keep us down through the Mythologies of Lack and Seperation.
There is No Seperation: you are One with Everything Right Now. You are Divinity Itself caught in a dream of Difference and Distinction. You are the Universe. There is NO Lack: you are the Energy of Abundance, Self-Creating, Self-Generating. But in that dream of Seperation is a Nightmare of Limits, of Not Enough. Wake Up.
"You have been asleep now for a thousand years.
Why not wake up on THIS morning." -Kabir
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