Dancing can be healing in profound ways

Dancing . . . One’s Inner Being Speaks Out

Everything matters

Dancing is an integral part of my healing process. I’ve been doing ecstatic dance in my community for almost 2 years now. (off and on as my body/mind/spirit allows and prefers…healing is non-linear and practices need and in fact most often should not be practiced in a dogmatic fashion).

Ecstatic dance is awesome in the literal sense of the word and I consider it a body oriented mindfulness practice as well. I’ve also referred to it as self-directed body-work in conversations with friends. Sometimes my “dance” is about moving and stretching my body in some really odd ways to get at something that is tightly held in the body and needs release. Dancing can sometimes be me not moving at all (on the surface) while the music courses through my body and my cells and neurons DANCE.

I want to point out that dancing is our human inheritance and one can do…

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I Think Therefore I Don’t Get It

Tags

Basquiat, dysfunctional family, military family

Dear Maggie,

I remember the chaos on Wabash –

Kally threw Clackers at the door mirror. I remember the glass that fell left a shape that resembled the United States.

When playing “Rescue 8” we tied sheets to our bunk bed and hung them out the window. Dave climbed down the ivy covered wall like a monkey.  As soon as I let go of the sill and grabbed the sheets, there was a big wooooshhh as I crashed through the ivy and landed flat on my back. The air was thrust out of my lungs and for about 20 seconds I could neither inhale nor exhale.

I remember somebody throwing a handful of silverware at someone as they raced out the front of the house.

Dave nailed me with a hard green apple, right in the face from about twenty feet away.

Jeb whipped me with a jump rope in front of the others because I had swung on the plumbing pipes in the basement.

I remember standing in a rubber boot full of my blood as I tried to reach mom on the phone after gashing my knee. The snow storm had caused a mess. I finally got a ride to the hospital in a cop car. 36 stitches.

I remember the most popular girl at school got hit by a car and died. It’s one of the three funerals I have attended; Jane’s Mom Rosie, and one of my students who also died in a car crash.

Mike pretty much beat the shit out of me on a rather regular basis. I cried a lot.

I remember hearing “Goddamnit Barbara!!” a lot.

I remember Jeb giving all three boys a military style lesson in wiping our ass. He was sick and tired of the soiled tighty whities. Two sheets to wipe, Two damp sheets to wash, Two sheets to dry. Don’t you just love the precision?

Ahhhh, those were the days….

J