Ecstatic dance: pleasure in movement

Ecstatic dance:

pleasure

delight

moving this living body, in all those ways where shame has lingered

moving out anger

expressing joy

feeling frustration

feeling hunger

feeling empowerment

all within, the physical body.

This dance is about what feels good, what feels good within, within the body. This is a primal, animalistic movement at it’s simplest. This is movement without judgement, where compassion, love, joy, pain, fear, anything and everything goes and where it surfaces, to be let out, to be seen, to be heard, to be felt. Through ecstatic dance, we own it, face it, become it, noticing when we’re pushing, forcing, seeing the pain that we’ve experienced or are causing. We can choose another way, another movement, another action. This dance: an opportunity to celebrate mistakes, learn from them, change direction, try again, with no judgement but our own. We can move our hips to the left, circling, dropping down, twerking, or not, to do nothing….. Maybe it’s a stomp of the feet, over and over and over and over again!!! Maybe it’s a slap of the thigh or the wall, or a caress of the cheek, a slow touch along the waist….. The ecstatic dance floor forces nothing. Ecstatic dance is all choice. It’s ecstasy. It’s pain. It’s real. It’s raw. It’s sexy. It’s ugly. It’s a lot of movement and no movement. It’s slow. It’s fast. Ecstatic dance is easy, it’s hard. It’s an animalistic groan or a loud shout. It’s a burst of energy and a slow grind. This dance could be said it’s not even a dance at all, it’s somatic: our subconscious/consciousness inhabiting this living body, and finally we’ve found a place, a safe place, to show it, reveal it, let it out, to let it be known.

We become with ecstatic dance. We un-become. This is a moving meditation where you can watch yourself becoming a woman or a man who enjoys this body, movement, play, expressing who you are through your own, unique, movement.

I do this dance at home, by myself, and with a group where the energy of others encourages me that I can go further, face fears, and that I’m normal, I’m just like everyone else. In a group I feel the connection of humankind, we are one, we all have these same struggles and joys, and so, with the group we go further than we could alone.

Join me anytime (click here for my group offerings) and let me know how it goes.

Namaste my loves.

xoxo