I'll be presenting a dance session at the Wild Roots Herbal Gathering in a few weeks. I'd love to see you there!
The second annual Wild Roots Herbal Gathering ~ July 2 - 4 ~ Produced for women, by women. A retreat weekend with outdoor classes about herbal plant medicines and their practical applications, the wisdom of plants, healing our bodies with natural remedies, and reconnecting with the earth in sustainable ways. Held at de Uelenspieghel in Uffelte. Workshops will be offered in English and Dutch. All levels of plant lovers are welcome. More information about registration, weekend schedule, teachers and details on the event page. Link to the event page:
Water is life
“Fluid movement holds the power to dissolve the familiar and dilute social conditioning. No dismantling required: we simply allow fluid waves to spread through tissue and soften our old thought forms and outmoded patterns of behavior. By utilizing embryological and biomorphic motifs, the power inherent in water can be received as a pulse of renewal.”
- Liz Koch, Stalking Wild Psoas
The freshest, most vital and clear waters flow with ease and freedom.
Stagnant waters quickly turn cloudy and putrid.
“Stuckness” is painful. It prevents communication, allows sludge to accumulate, and inhibits healing. It dampens joy and confidence. Putrid accumulation, cloudiness, dullness, and dis-ease will result.
Our dance is like the impetus of a bubbling spring; the “Qi,” or life force energy, that ebulliently motivates the sinuous fluidity of crystal clear waters gracefully, purposefully, through the forest, over and between stones, twigs, and plant life, without hesitation. The entire forest benefits from its aliveness.
The rhythm of our breath, our presence, and meditative movement are amazing tools for getting profoundly honest with ourselves, and for shifting from “stuckness” into a realm where renewal is inevitable. A divine practice of gently coaxing, motivating, and invigorating vital fluids to penetrate our tissues, infusing our entire being with “aliveness;” keeping warm and bright the glow from within that feeds beauty and nourishment back to the world…
Water is life.
Dance is the motive force of our bubbling spring.
The best medicine is innate medicine – it is alive within us.
Join me for a sacred dance practice Friday evenings at 7 p.m.
Registration: Email redtent@heartwombandsoul.com
Location: Dansstudio Laetana, Hoogstraat 105A Unit 7 5615 PB Eindhoven
View details and share on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/427389718222627/
Cost: 15 Euro per session
Payment: Cash or bank transfer
Make payments here: NL50 ABNA 0467 4196 71
Account name: BD MOILES CJ
*Email me to inquire about scholarships, sliding-scale pricing and barters for goods or services - no one will be turned away for concerns about payment.
In the Spirit of the Red Tent, Let's Dance
Heart, Womb and Soul Dance - Free Trial Sessions
Friday, August 21, 7-9 p.m
Wednesday, August 26, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Location: Studio Laetana, Hoogstraat 105A, Unit 7, 5615 PB Eindhoven, Netherlands“All that is important is this one moment in movement. Make the moment important, vital, and worth living. Do not let it slip away unnoticed and unused.”
- Martha Graham
“The wind? I am the wind. The sea and the moon? I am the sea and the moon. Tears, pain, love, bird-flights? I am all of them. I dance what I am. Sin, prayer, flight, the light that never was on land or sea? I dance what I am.”
- Isadora Duncan
Heart, Womb, and Soul Dance sessions will be designed in the spirit of the Red Tent; an embodied devotion to earth, spirit, and our beautiful feminine bodies. Through healing movement, meditation, and dance, and based on the healing and performance arts of Odissi dance, Yoga, and Qi Gong, we will explore, breathe and dance to enliven our cells, organs, tissues, overall vitality, and spirit.
What to bring: A water bottle
What to wear: Something that makes you feel beautiful, easy to move in, with no loose edges near the feet and ankles. A bindi, if it pleases you to do so.
Registration: Email redtent@heartwombandsoul.com.
Read more about Odissi and Heart, Womb and Soul dance here: http://www.heartwombandsoul.com/news/2020/7/25/heart-womb-and-soul-dance-starting-this-fall
View the event on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/231758048033862
Watch videos by my teacher, Revital Carroll, that introduce foundational principles of Odissi Dance:
https://youtu.be/IdAnLklusfc
https://youtu.be/PW10ycvUnIg
It will be my absolute joy and pleasure to share this dance and this time with you!With love and admiration for your infinite beauty,
Jennifer
Reflections: Shakti Bhakti Odissi Dance Voyage to Orissa, India, January 2018
Photo by Debiprasad Sahoo Photography at Brameshwar Temple, Bhubaneswar, India
It is not lost on me, what a privilege it is to dance; to travel, to study and explore cities, festivals, temples, arts and cultures that have shaped and inspired the world. It is a blessing that I appreciate profoundly.
It’s hard to express with words and photos how special it is to immerse in the culture of the birthplace of our sacred dance. For all of the challenges; confusing and harsh circumstances, sensory overstimulation, bellyaches, communication mishaps and (and, and) other relative discomforts we encounter to visit this special place, at the heart of the experience for me is momentary glimpses of pure love and connection; a recognition of ourselves in the Sacred.
A temple dancer carved in stone at Ratnagiri, Orissa, India
Odissi dance is life-giving and life-affirming; and it is simply and innocently joyful. The spiraling vibration we awaken when we stomp our feet upon the Earth sends revitalizing impulses throughout our bodies, ultimately expressed through our hands and our eyes. We generate and recognize and connect with the healing vibration that lives at the core of our being, the upward- and outward-reaching resonance of creation.
On the stage we expose ourselves as unapologetically sensual, tender, vulnerable and emotional. Pure essence – that which is Sacred in me - is awakened. It whirls through me to reach out and meet and recognize and affirm what is most Sacred in you, my audience. For me this is hopeful and comforting and deeply inspiring – an expression of beauty that emerges from the infinitely vital seed of creation. It is a compelling reason to dance.
These words by my beloved teacher and friend Revital Carroll, founder and director of Shakti Bhakti school of dance and performance group, come as close as I can get to capturing, in practical terms, the essence of this dance:
"Odissi is sensual but not sexy, beautiful but not glamorous, intense but not violent, unique but not shocking. It is timeless but not fashionable.In a world that favors sex, war, glam, shock, and fashion - It is for those who are willing to get a bit bruised in order to blossom, for those who are passionate about touching their depth in order to emit their most delicate scent, for those who are seeking peace in the midst of celebration - for those who are willing to sweat in their silk"
Dance practice at Rajarani Temple, Bhubaneswar
Handloom saari's
A street view in Cuttack, Orissa
A view of Jagannath Temple, Puri
Shakti Bhakti Ensemble
The Godipuas held the tradition when it was determined inappropriate for women to dance Odissi. These young dancers are absolutely incredible, and much more acrobatic than the Odissi style we practice. Modern day Odissi has only been revived recently, circa 1940.
A street view of Puri, Orissa
Dancing Love
Photo by Lone Morch
This poem was published by Rebelle Society.
Dance is like floss, sweeping between and through my joint spaces and bones; creating space where there was accumulation and sorrow.
The aches become less urgent, spaciousness is a welcome sensation.
Continuity, fluidity, rhythm. Extension.
How moving in a slightly different direction can capture my attention; move a proverbial mountain that would otherwise remain for lifetimes.
I dance for me.
It moves my aching back; clears cobwebs, opens the portals.
To move in a way I’ve never moved before is a revolution! A direction other than forward, linear; walk, walk, reach, bend, hold the steering wheel.
Angles and arches reveal infinite shapes. Stomping generates sound and vibration. I lengthen, become taller, more hollow; s p a c i o u s. There is an opportunity there.
Density is stuffy.
I dance to express something with my entire body – my whole being; to express Love; to shake off some pain; to reveal a smile. Create momentum. Stretch beyond what I think I can. To share what I can’t find words for.
When I dance I can see myself in my mind’s eye being graceful, in command, bathed in evening sun; aligned with the universe and confident in my intention to share Light, Joy, Love of Dance, Nature, Humanity.
I am extraordinary. I can imagine that. I can be that. An extraordinary vessel that can inspire.
I stretch myself and still feel confident; know that the unknown is an opportunity not to be feared. If I can move in this interesting and unchartered way, perhaps I can reach into the world in unexpected ways without fear.
Perhaps the ache in my hips and my back, rather than holding me back, can transform. And that ache in my heart that haunts me since I was small. I can stretch, jiggle, and slide.
Those aches and doubts and tragedies, small and large, can be transformed into watery spirals, and soar in a new rhythmical symphony of possibility – informing but not imposing. Memories stuck but then set free become inspiration; reasons to change.
What a gift to be able to see myself as a collaborative cellular community imbued with infinite divine possibility, rather than a finite and unfortunate structure, like a box. A closed space.
What does it mean to see myself as a closed space? In a closed space? Finite? To identify with my pain? To perceive confinement?
How movement transforms my cellular structure, and my thinking, is curious to me.
Is dance necessarily a state of being out of control? Like a spectacular tantrum. Fleshy and sweaty. Beams of essential light bursting through pores and eyeballs.
Or flawless syncopation; a cellular symphony of atomic vibrations that conveys the sincerest and sweetest expression of humanness? Is control a necessary part of that? May dance be an opportunity to transcend control? To touch my greatest, most ethereal potential – the most sensual and spectacular; like WOW! Is this even real? Is this even possible?
Expansion. Compassion. Connection. Love. Human synergy.
I think I just saw God, if even from a distance, a brief glimpse.
That God is me.
That Goddess is my dance.
God and Goddess dance in me and gave me dance in order that I may excel and express the best aspects of me beyond measure.
What does that mean, to see beyond myself? Beyond my limited worldview? I can expand myself with rhythmical feet, long arms that explore possible trajectories in infinite pathways. I can expand in expression, emit compassion. Embody Love. Self Confidence. Self Knowledge.
Those tiny little stubborn bits within me that adhere for dear life – “leave me alone,” “let me be,” “let me hide here forever. “
That is what dance can liberate. And this is the beginning of transformation.
Dancing every day is good. I will do it until I die.
Dance every day. Dance every day. Dance every day.
(I’m forgetful)
Dance on the train. Dance when I’m sitting in a chair. Dance when I am in conversation. Dance when I am alone. Dance when I am snuggling with my dog. Dance when I am feeling sexual – allow sexuality to live in me; to move me; to sparkle and grow and animate my dance.
To dance without shame.
That dance that happens in every minute of every day, if I let it. Dance even in my dreams. Sensing, surrendering, being moved. This is dancing. This I will do every day.