Tales from the Dance Jam, Volume..Something.
Dancing is the bomb. Dancing eradicates the bomb. Dancing is music. Dancing is joy. Dancing is a channel for ecstacy to pour through and in you, open to it; otherwise the force of it, the very fabric of the universe, will blow you down and you won't stand up again. Dance to the wind, dance to the sun, dance to the hot boys, dance to the delicious girls, dance with a friend, dance all alone, dance with the whole world, dance like the world is watching, move like no one cares, make your moves heal the planet, move into the black heart of bliss.
No one told me I would be teleported to a couple of alternate realms, and in the first hour it didn't seem probable. But I've had that experience before.. that question.. "What the hell am I doing here?" So I go sit down, do self-Breema, dig on everyone getting down and sweaty, and if I don't feel right still, I don't leave. I walk around. Drink water. Drink in the ethereal orgasm of other people dancing and finding their bliss.
I still haven't taken notes on last week. Should I? Yes, it was magick, yet it existed in its own moment, and now I am awash in the present. For a synopsis, I dragged my friend Julia kicking and screaming (ha) out of the house, which was good healing for both of us, and we danced marvelously together and in our own rites. My friend had just moved here the day before from the northeast, and expressed interest in going, so that's all that was needed to pull him into the fold. He admittedly curbed the usual boy-dynamic by being, well, the hottest boy there :) And what's interesting, it was the first time we had met in person, which warmed my heart.. usually people don't risk their boundaries and comfort zones like that; he, of course, is not that kind of person!
So we relived the power outage event that I wrote about some months ago, two maybe.. the night varied between the dj and a group of drummers. For most if not all, I was involved in the drumming somehow, and later I kind of led things out on Mika's lovely djembe. We strapped our gear on and paraded around the room, chanting and yelping and jumping and drumming and getting everyone worked up into a frenzy. While we still had power, the lights were taken almost completely out and back to the candlelit motif. It was intense, beautiful, ecstatic, and reconnected us with roots older than civilization.
(A side note, a difficult moment was trying to keep a beat when this blond braided longhaired boy was rolling on the floor right in front of me, arching up on his back, his member outlining itself through his sweatpants.. my friend rightly points out his androgyny, as he really doesn't express preference for either, probably both, based on past experiences of watching him contact-jam very intimately with both men and women. He must have known it would drive me up the wall and divert from the drumming. Opportunities from the goddess herself. What's a boy to do?)
Moving forward one week...
So many things rushed through me tonight that I don't even know why I'm foolishly trying to recapitulate in writing. What _happened_? Hell I don't remember. Usually I sit out and do self-Breema, stretches, and breathing. Tonight I was moved to go immediately and dance my ass off, find it again, and dance it off again. I set up my own ritual space, pouring my energy into swirls of colour around me, drawing them back in, and creating an ethereal space into which I invited the deities of the dance, the goddess of music, the guardians of above and below, to pour themselves into that space and share in my dancing and mirth. They answered right readily, and I found myself overtaken with what I imagine to be Sufi dance (although I've only ever seen dirvishes whirl, and even that through a middle medium) which brought me not so much to the crux between heaven and earth, but earth and what _I_ might perceive as heaven, a taste of true nature, of the unity of Being.. with me at the center, the eye of the needle.
To throw on the brakes was quite interesting.. over the past few months I've discovered a method of "slowing down" without getting dizzy, so I can spin for hours and be just dandy. It involves letting the feet slow, moving from the hara so that the hips continue the circle. The eyes close so the world disappears. The arms go limber and get situated, but the moment they are, they come overhead together opposite the hips but in the same direction... think of an old-fashioned egg beater or drill. The arms fall, the hip circles become smaller, and the body is centered again, and moves into dance as the eyes open.
What I've noticed lately is that this method allows me to retain my center, and my breath and weight help me register the present moment, more and more I have a taste of this, and in being this open the ecstacy pours through like waves of orgasm. Tonight I was pleased to hear "Mustt Mustt" by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, so had an almost belly- dance-influenced whirl around... it was as though the wisdom of the ancients was with me (I usually ask my guides to be present, though tonight I didn't have that sense). I whirled for quite awhile, and when stopping I didn't have a good pivotal axis, and began to stammer. Rather than fall, or even sit down hard, I was determined to come to the body and to center, and begin the braking. Earlier I had gotten a little dizzy and off because I tried to begin the process with my head - not from the hara. Now, moving from the hara, the whole universe was still spinning around and inside me, and I lost touch of what my body was doing, and instead felt as though I had in fact left my body. Perhaps I did, but perceptually didn't gather anything that might have happened. I do remember the whole field being white. The whole process was not dizzying, but I certainly had to disappear to the back room and lay down, drink water, and thank the gods.
I had found that my contact partner Zahara had returned, and there were a few instances where we saw each other but did not speak.. it was a kind of strange vibe.. so I made a point of connecting later to see how her world was.. her energy had colours moving in strange, slow directions. Part of it was her housing search, which was wearing her down I believe. She wants holistic community. Don't we all. Problem is that the real estate owners and homeowners don't want that, they want their rent money. I want a big ole house full of really fucking great amazing artistic and spiritually minded people, right smack in the middle of Berkeley. Fuck rich yuppies and psycho lesbian slumlords (no offense, I'm still bitter about a previous living situation of the same sort).
But that's not about our meeting.. a brief chat, then an arm dance begins. I realize that my contact improv skills leave a lot to be desired, so maybe this moves me in the direction of taking some classes. Yeah! I spent time watching others jam tonight, and SHIT are they good! What an amazing tool for surrender and tapping into the universal consciousness. I see all the Breema principles come alive in a contact jam. So our jam was fun and afforded the same opportunity for surrender, and I watched as my mind tried to judge and pull and tell me what to do. No thanks, I think I'll pass. So we end up rather tired on the floor, moving limb to limb, rolling, sounding, humming, OMing... she lies prone and doesn't move, so I practice the Breema treatment I learned last week in class, part of it anyway. Her body becomes a drum, and with light tapping and singing, her sounding notes, we made music for the goddesses. I tried something new and very interesting.. moving around her body with my feet, stopping sometimes to hold, other times to vibrate, sometimes constantly moving around, foot to foot, heel to shoulder... I departed the contact and bowed to thank (as we always do in Breema), and another lady came in to do her own recipe of bodywork on Zahara. As there were children scuffling about her trying with other adults to learn various dances, and people whirling and moving quickly, I held the space by dancing up a basket of flower petals, scattering them on the floor around and in the four directions, then "watering" them from my solar plexus, seeing the flowers be nourished and then the energy returning. As the flowers grew, a natural border formed, and I knew she would not be disturbed where she lay.
At various points in the evening beautiful men came and went, passing by, staying, playing, but always with the ambiguous edge. The boy with the long dark hair, giving glances and dancing playfully, yet later intwined with his girlfriend/partner... the Indian boy with long, black, beautiful hair whom I've seen very intimate with women in a contact jam, then same-so with men... we playfully sent energy back and forth to each other, yet I never could ascertain a good moment to brush over him with the suggestion of a contact dance of bliss. Maybe we will again.
Another regular arrived, and for what seemed like the first time noticed the sanctuary I had built about me and the play being both created and sent in from the gods. So I smiled back and warmly said "hi." Later he passed by, so I did not pass up opportunity to lean in, on, and around him to suggest that the music was a mutual dance and there was no difference between any of us. It never became a full-on jam, but it was teasingly playful, as was so much of my evening, and it was certainly all good.
(This is the moment where my cat comes in and demands attention, jumps underneath my hand making typing difficult, and curls up on the wrist guard looking so sweet and gentle that I don't have the heart to tell her to move! And typing is the same as ignoring, so she's stretching up to nuzzle the stubble on my face... this is getting difficult..)
Then there were the two near-eastern HOT boys that came.. with their girlfriends, but that's okay, it didn't stop them from watching me! :)
Dance. Move to music. Move to your body. Move to silence. Dance for each quarter of the day. It's good therapy, the planet thanks you, the gods smile, and the Buddha laughs.
(posted by Shaggy, 10/2/99)