keys for the (beautifully, joyously) rowdy soul within us
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Keys for the (Beautifully, Joyously) Rowdy Soul Within Us By Parashakti and Rabbi Miriyam GlazerTRANSCRIPT
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Keys for the (Beautifully, Joyously) Rowdy Soul Within UsBy Parashakti and Rabbi Miriyam Glazer
Tonight we went to an amazing concert: 29
yearold Venezuelan conductor Gustavo
Dudamel conducting Mahler's Symphony
Number 1, an aweinspiring magical interplay of
flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns,
trumpets, trombones, tuba, cymbals, gong,
triangle, timpani, harp not to mention the whole
panoply of strings!
As the music moved from a gentle awakening to an
earthy dance movem ent, to a transformative
finale that truly seemed like a wild storm
dissolving in incandescently brilliant light,
Dudamel's body moved with it. He bent, he
swirled, he jumped high in the air: every gesture of
the music reverberated in his whole body. It was
just like what happens in the Dance of Liberation™
where dancers are guided to hear the awakening of
a new song through their instrument: their
glorious body, which has no limitations, once you
can deeply hear the inner symphony of your own
soul.
And tears rolled down our cheeks at the sheer
beauty, intensity, genius of it all.
The poet T.S. Eliot described such an experience
as "music heard so deeply, it is not heard at all: but
you are the music while the music lasts." When we
respond to music "so deeply" it is because we're not hearing with our ears or mind alone. All of our senses,
all of our being, is engaged. We are the music; it reverberates within us; it speaks to the circulation of our
blood, the beating of our heart, the stomping of our feet, the arc of our arms, the alltoooften stifled voice
that is great within us.
That is us.
For all those reasons, we believe so profoundly in the power of dance. Not, at least for us, the dance that
follows rigid rules (step left, step right, move forward, move back), but the dance, like the Dance of
Liberation™, that awakens in our bodysouls when we allow ourselves to respond, freely, wholly, without
embarrassment or selfconsciousness or fear of judgment, to evocative music. It is that kind of dance, for
example, that the Hebrew psalmist is imagining when he calls for cymbals, harps, drums, horns, to shout
"Hallelujah!" to the Spirit of the Universe, and when the legendary King David himself dances without
restraint as the car carrying the Ark of the Covenant makes its way up the hills of Jerusalem.
That kind of liberating dance speaks to our inchoate souls the souls within us that have no words for what
they are longing to express. The way our hips, arms, legs, neck, belly, even our fingertips!, move to the
music connects us with the seabirds soaring through the sky, zebras rushing across the savanna, dolphins
frolicking on the waves, galaxies whirling through the heavens, infants awakening. Life is movement;
movement is life.
That is why liberating dance has the power to awaken aspects of our being that otherwise are left silent,
forlorn the aspects, for example, that Native American tradition identifies as our "power animals."
Just this last week, through the journey of dance, we ourselves experienced new and vivid connections to
our own power animals: the great eagle wings soaring ever more intensely for Parashakti, the magnificent
white horse awaiting Rabbi Miriyam in a meadow of fragrant wildflowers.
It's out of our experience that we urge all our readers to dance, celebrate, journey discover your own
power animals!
The awakening and intensifying of an intimate relationship with one's power animals opens up otherwise
unfathomable pathways of selfdiscovery, of emotion, intuition, knowledge, wisdom.
Opens up veins of joy.
Arteries of ecstasy.
Frees you to dance to the drummer you hear, not the drummer others have needed you to hear, insisted
that you hear, demanded that you hear.
Your dance.
Through dance, through the discovery of our power animals, we release more and more of the notself,
and embrace more and more of the authentic, profound, mindbogglingly alive inner self, the self that is
truly ours, different from what we may have imagined, different from who we have been, different from
what others have demanded we be, expected we'd be, wished we'd be, needed us to be.
We don't mean to imply that this is an easy process. Change never is. There's a good reason that many of
us choose to remain drowsy, if not entirely asleep; to go through life living in cages that others have
created for us out of their needs, their fears. Or, of course, in cages that we have constructed for
ourselves.
Our friend Michael MolinSkelton, whose Spiritweaves™ dance classes we love to take in Los Angeles,
shared important words of the medieval Persian poet Hafiz with us:
The small man
Builds cages for everyone
He
Knows.
While the sage,
Who has to duck his head
When the moon is low,
Keeps dropping keys all night long
For the
Beautiful
Rowdy
Prisoners.
The "small men," the cages, are all around us: created through fear of human freedom, distrust of the
human spirit, a miserliness of feeling, a stinginess of heart. We ourselves can erect our own cages, out of
our own fears, our own distrust, our anxiety.
What we've learned, though, is through the journeying we ourselves engage in, and we have been blessed
to lead others in, the keys to the cage "for the Beautiful Rowdy Prisoners" are there, ready to release them
to soar through the sky like an eagle, prance through the meadows like a white horse, transform with the
grace of a butterly, find the curative powers of the buffalo or the magical shapeshifting energy of raven.
Dance, journey, discover new avenues of consciousness, new avenues of your own being.
Discover your own power animals, your symbolic sources of strength, your gifts, the keys to the
rowdiness of your own being.
Join us. In the words of Hafiz, "stay close to any sounds that make you glad you are alive."
And especially now, in the glory of the summer, DANCE FREE!
Join us for a special Dance of Liberation with Parashakti: Dancing your Power Animal:
Liberation info line: 646 415 7553
PARASHAKTI is the founder of Dance of Liberation, and creator of Liberation detox
and cleansing programs. Through the integration of dance yoga, ritual, hands on
healing, spiritual nutrition , live drumming, global music, sweat lodges, her programs
heal and free physical, mental, emotional and spiritual blockages. www.parashakti.org
RABBI MIRIYAM GLAZER Professor of Literature Chair, Depar™ent of Literature,
Communication & Media American Jewish Universityis and the author of PSALMS OF
THE JEWISH LITURGY: A GUIDE TO THEIR BEAUTY, POWER, AND MEANING
(a new translation and commentary).
ISSUE 159
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Thinking of subscribing?For only $20.00 per year or $4.00 per issue, the Spirit will travel... right into your mailbox! Contact us to start your subscription today!
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READING RESOURCES ADVERTISING ABOUT US
TRANSFORMATION
Keys for the (Beautifully, Joyously) Rowdy Soul Within UsBy Parashakti and Rabbi Miriyam Glazer
Tonight we went to an amazing concert: 29
yearold Venezuelan conductor Gustavo
Dudamel conducting Mahler's Symphony
Number 1, an aweinspiring magical interplay of
flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns,
trumpets, trombones, tuba, cymbals, gong,
triangle, timpani, harp not to mention the whole
panoply of strings!
As the music moved from a gentle awakening to an
earthy dance movem ent, to a transformative
finale that truly seemed like a wild storm
dissolving in incandescently brilliant light,
Dudamel's body moved with it. He bent, he
swirled, he jumped high in the air: every gesture of
the music reverberated in his whole body. It was
just like what happens in the Dance of Liberation™
where dancers are guided to hear the awakening of
a new song through their instrument: their
glorious body, which has no limitations, once you
can deeply hear the inner symphony of your own
soul.
And tears rolled down our cheeks at the sheer
beauty, intensity, genius of it all.
The poet T.S. Eliot described such an experience
as "music heard so deeply, it is not heard at all: but
you are the music while the music lasts." When we
respond to music "so deeply" it is because we're not hearing with our ears or mind alone. All of our senses,
all of our being, is engaged. We are the music; it reverberates within us; it speaks to the circulation of our
blood, the beating of our heart, the stomping of our feet, the arc of our arms, the alltoooften stifled voice
that is great within us.
That is us.
For all those reasons, we believe so profoundly in the power of dance. Not, at least for us, the dance that
follows rigid rules (step left, step right, move forward, move back), but the dance, like the Dance of
Liberation™, that awakens in our bodysouls when we allow ourselves to respond, freely, wholly, without
embarrassment or selfconsciousness or fear of judgment, to evocative music. It is that kind of dance, for
example, that the Hebrew psalmist is imagining when he calls for cymbals, harps, drums, horns, to shout
"Hallelujah!" to the Spirit of the Universe, and when the legendary King David himself dances without
restraint as the car carrying the Ark of the Covenant makes its way up the hills of Jerusalem.
That kind of liberating dance speaks to our inchoate souls the souls within us that have no words for what
they are longing to express. The way our hips, arms, legs, neck, belly, even our fingertips!, move to the
music connects us with the seabirds soaring through the sky, zebras rushing across the savanna, dolphins
frolicking on the waves, galaxies whirling through the heavens, infants awakening. Life is movement;
movement is life.
That is why liberating dance has the power to awaken aspects of our being that otherwise are left silent,
forlorn the aspects, for example, that Native American tradition identifies as our "power animals."
Just this last week, through the journey of dance, we ourselves experienced new and vivid connections to
our own power animals: the great eagle wings soaring ever more intensely for Parashakti, the magnificent
white horse awaiting Rabbi Miriyam in a meadow of fragrant wildflowers.
It's out of our experience that we urge all our readers to dance, celebrate, journey discover your own
power animals!
The awakening and intensifying of an intimate relationship with one's power animals opens up otherwise
unfathomable pathways of selfdiscovery, of emotion, intuition, knowledge, wisdom.
Opens up veins of joy.
Arteries of ecstasy.
Frees you to dance to the drummer you hear, not the drummer others have needed you to hear, insisted
that you hear, demanded that you hear.
Your dance.
Through dance, through the discovery of our power animals, we release more and more of the notself,
and embrace more and more of the authentic, profound, mindbogglingly alive inner self, the self that is
truly ours, different from what we may have imagined, different from who we have been, different from
what others have demanded we be, expected we'd be, wished we'd be, needed us to be.
We don't mean to imply that this is an easy process. Change never is. There's a good reason that many of
us choose to remain drowsy, if not entirely asleep; to go through life living in cages that others have
created for us out of their needs, their fears. Or, of course, in cages that we have constructed for
ourselves.
Our friend Michael MolinSkelton, whose Spiritweaves™ dance classes we love to take in Los Angeles,
shared important words of the medieval Persian poet Hafiz with us:
The small man
Builds cages for everyone
He
Knows.
While the sage,
Who has to duck his head
When the moon is low,
Keeps dropping keys all night long
For the
Beautiful
Rowdy
Prisoners.
The "small men," the cages, are all around us: created through fear of human freedom, distrust of the
human spirit, a miserliness of feeling, a stinginess of heart. We ourselves can erect our own cages, out of
our own fears, our own distrust, our anxiety.
What we've learned, though, is through the journeying we ourselves engage in, and we have been blessed
to lead others in, the keys to the cage "for the Beautiful Rowdy Prisoners" are there, ready to release them
to soar through the sky like an eagle, prance through the meadows like a white horse, transform with the
grace of a butterly, find the curative powers of the buffalo or the magical shapeshifting energy of raven.
Dance, journey, discover new avenues of consciousness, new avenues of your own being.
Discover your own power animals, your symbolic sources of strength, your gifts, the keys to the
rowdiness of your own being.
Join us. In the words of Hafiz, "stay close to any sounds that make you glad you are alive."
And especially now, in the glory of the summer, DANCE FREE!
Join us for a special Dance of Liberation with Parashakti: Dancing your Power Animal:
Liberation info line: 646 415 7553
PARASHAKTI is the founder of Dance of Liberation, and creator of Liberation detox
and cleansing programs. Through the integration of dance yoga, ritual, hands on
healing, spiritual nutrition , live drumming, global music, sweat lodges, her programs
heal and free physical, mental, emotional and spiritual blockages. www.parashakti.org
RABBI MIRIYAM GLAZER Professor of Literature Chair, Depar™ent of Literature,
Communication & Media American Jewish Universityis and the author of PSALMS OF
THE JEWISH LITURGY: A GUIDE TO THEIR BEAUTY, POWER, AND MEANING
(a new translation and commentary).
ISSUE 159
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Thinking of subscribing?For only $20.00 per year or $4.00 per issue, the Spirit will travel... right into your mailbox! Contact us to start your subscription today!
reading | resources | advertising | about us
READING RESOURCES ADVERTISING ABOUT US
TRANSFORMATION
Keys for the (Beautifully, Joyously) Rowdy Soul Within UsBy Parashakti and Rabbi Miriyam Glazer
Tonight we went to an amazing concert: 29
yearold Venezuelan conductor Gustavo
Dudamel conducting Mahler's Symphony
Number 1, an aweinspiring magical interplay of
flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns,
trumpets, trombones, tuba, cymbals, gong,
triangle, timpani, harp not to mention the whole
panoply of strings!
As the music moved from a gentle awakening to an
earthy dance movem ent, to a transformative
finale that truly seemed like a wild storm
dissolving in incandescently brilliant light,
Dudamel's body moved with it. He bent, he
swirled, he jumped high in the air: every gesture of
the music reverberated in his whole body. It was
just like what happens in the Dance of Liberation™
where dancers are guided to hear the awakening of
a new song through their instrument: their
glorious body, which has no limitations, once you
can deeply hear the inner symphony of your own
soul.
And tears rolled down our cheeks at the sheer
beauty, intensity, genius of it all.
The poet T.S. Eliot described such an experience
as "music heard so deeply, it is not heard at all: but
you are the music while the music lasts." When we
respond to music "so deeply" it is because we're not hearing with our ears or mind alone. All of our senses,
all of our being, is engaged. We are the music; it reverberates within us; it speaks to the circulation of our
blood, the beating of our heart, the stomping of our feet, the arc of our arms, the alltoooften stifled voice
that is great within us.
That is us.
For all those reasons, we believe so profoundly in the power of dance. Not, at least for us, the dance that
follows rigid rules (step left, step right, move forward, move back), but the dance, like the Dance of
Liberation™, that awakens in our bodysouls when we allow ourselves to respond, freely, wholly, without
embarrassment or selfconsciousness or fear of judgment, to evocative music. It is that kind of dance, for
example, that the Hebrew psalmist is imagining when he calls for cymbals, harps, drums, horns, to shout
"Hallelujah!" to the Spirit of the Universe, and when the legendary King David himself dances without
restraint as the car carrying the Ark of the Covenant makes its way up the hills of Jerusalem.
That kind of liberating dance speaks to our inchoate souls the souls within us that have no words for what
they are longing to express. The way our hips, arms, legs, neck, belly, even our fingertips!, move to the
music connects us with the seabirds soaring through the sky, zebras rushing across the savanna, dolphins
frolicking on the waves, galaxies whirling through the heavens, infants awakening. Life is movement;
movement is life.
That is why liberating dance has the power to awaken aspects of our being that otherwise are left silent,
forlorn the aspects, for example, that Native American tradition identifies as our "power animals."
Just this last week, through the journey of dance, we ourselves experienced new and vivid connections to
our own power animals: the great eagle wings soaring ever more intensely for Parashakti, the magnificent
white horse awaiting Rabbi Miriyam in a meadow of fragrant wildflowers.
It's out of our experience that we urge all our readers to dance, celebrate, journey discover your own
power animals!
The awakening and intensifying of an intimate relationship with one's power animals opens up otherwise
unfathomable pathways of selfdiscovery, of emotion, intuition, knowledge, wisdom.
Opens up veins of joy.
Arteries of ecstasy.
Frees you to dance to the drummer you hear, not the drummer others have needed you to hear, insisted
that you hear, demanded that you hear.
Your dance.
Through dance, through the discovery of our power animals, we release more and more of the notself,
and embrace more and more of the authentic, profound, mindbogglingly alive inner self, the self that is
truly ours, different from what we may have imagined, different from who we have been, different from
what others have demanded we be, expected we'd be, wished we'd be, needed us to be.
We don't mean to imply that this is an easy process. Change never is. There's a good reason that many of
us choose to remain drowsy, if not entirely asleep; to go through life living in cages that others have
created for us out of their needs, their fears. Or, of course, in cages that we have constructed for
ourselves.
Our friend Michael MolinSkelton, whose Spiritweaves™ dance classes we love to take in Los Angeles,
shared important words of the medieval Persian poet Hafiz with us:
The small man
Builds cages for everyone
He
Knows.
While the sage,
Who has to duck his head
When the moon is low,
Keeps dropping keys all night long
For the
Beautiful
Rowdy
Prisoners.
The "small men," the cages, are all around us: created through fear of human freedom, distrust of the
human spirit, a miserliness of feeling, a stinginess of heart. We ourselves can erect our own cages, out of
our own fears, our own distrust, our anxiety.
What we've learned, though, is through the journeying we ourselves engage in, and we have been blessed
to lead others in, the keys to the cage "for the Beautiful Rowdy Prisoners" are there, ready to release them
to soar through the sky like an eagle, prance through the meadows like a white horse, transform with the
grace of a butterly, find the curative powers of the buffalo or the magical shapeshifting energy of raven.
Dance, journey, discover new avenues of consciousness, new avenues of your own being.
Discover your own power animals, your symbolic sources of strength, your gifts, the keys to the
rowdiness of your own being.
Join us. In the words of Hafiz, "stay close to any sounds that make you glad you are alive."
And especially now, in the glory of the summer, DANCE FREE!
Join us for a special Dance of Liberation with Parashakti: Dancing your Power Animal:
Liberation info line: 646 415 7553
PARASHAKTI is the founder of Dance of Liberation, and creator of Liberation detox
and cleansing programs. Through the integration of dance yoga, ritual, hands on
healing, spiritual nutrition , live drumming, global music, sweat lodges, her programs
heal and free physical, mental, emotional and spiritual blockages. www.parashakti.org
RABBI MIRIYAM GLAZER Professor of Literature Chair, Depar™ent of Literature,
Communication & Media American Jewish Universityis and the author of PSALMS OF
THE JEWISH LITURGY: A GUIDE TO THEIR BEAUTY, POWER, AND MEANING
(a new translation and commentary).
ISSUE 159
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
Thinking of subscribing?For only $20.00 per year or $4.00 per issue, the Spirit will travel... right into your mailbox! Contact us to start your subscription today!
reading | resources | advertising | about us
READING RESOURCES ADVERTISING ABOUT US