Creative expressions which are concerned with manifestations of an idiosyncratic, subjective, and imaginative consciousness have all but become invisible in the value systems of our times. These manifestations, which are largely artform practices such as dance, music, visual arts, sculpture, and the like, have become things that anybody can undertake.
Read MoreThe archetype of the lion is considered an invocation of the heart. Today we experience the lion-heart in tropes of power, kingship, domination, and mastery. However, the ancient invocation of the lion was a multi-dimensional constellation where the Goddess played a central role. This Goddess-centred lion-heart is necessary for us to trust the feminine capability to manifest a different and hitherto unknown Reality.
Read MoreWomb is an archetypal invocation. The ancients experienced womb both a a literal reality as well as in the landscape of Earth. Womb-caves were spaces of ritual invocation in traditional cultures across the world. Womb formations as cave systems, in trees, and as anthills or termite hills are honoured as sacred spaces of emergence and return.
This poem is a word-dance to honour womb-intelligence.
Read MoreHumility is a worthless quality in a competition dominated world. Where life is interpreted as a competition for resources, humility is tantamount to death. Survival of the fittest philosophy celebrates a muscular aspiration to dominate and control. Success is recognition and renown. Today even monks must make themselves known and market their services.
Read MoreHow many times have we seen the metaphorical statement that life is a dance? Or that somebody’s words dance on a page? Or where more directly people will say they danced but mean that in a metaphorical way? Dance is ubiquitous in our evocative experience of Reality. Yet, it never really becomes more than a metaphor or a representation.
Read MoreSince I offer contemplative dance, many of the people in my programs tend to be older. (BTW I am not convinced that a contemplative approach is only for the more mature demographic, but it seems to be the assumption in our times!) And because it is dance, most of the people tend to be women. As a mature woman myself, I have been at the coalface of the implicit assumption that as we age our Body is going to let us down and that we are better off to give up on most of our expectations of Body.
Read MoreFor those of us who are interested in archetypal movements of astrology, the recent shift of the North and South Nodes of the Moon offers an interesting inquiry and reflection. These Nodes are called Rahu and Ketu in Indian Jyotisha astrology and they have an ancient association with dance. Indeed, one of the earliest mentions of the legend of Rahu and Ketu is found in the dance text, the Natya Shastra (circa 500 BCE to 500 CE).
Read MoreThe doorway to archetypal consciousness is Death of the known. A less fearsome option is the Outcast invocation. Here is a poetic mirroring of the dance intelligence of this archetype.
Read MoreIn the discussion forum at the end of my current Lakshmi: Goddess Rising course, someone asked me, “Why does Lakshmi exit? And so suddenly? Without any chance of explanation?” She was referring to the archetypal story of Goddess Lakshmi leaving Her Divine Masculine consort, Vishnu, when She felt humiliated by what She perceived as His indifference to Her pain.
Read MoreIn my view Self-inquiry in analytical or verbal traditions is not possible as Self-inquiry asks that we relinquish the mind and its cosmos of word and thought. It is in non-verbal traditions such as dance that the radical nature of Self-inquiry emerges. Part of its radical nature is its absolute non-instrumentality. By this I mean that unless we approach it free from the lens of “what’s in it for me” it simply does not exist. We may still “learn” the dance and its information, but its seizing of our Body and Consciousness so that we become the dance (or Reality) does not eventuate.
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