Activity # 2 A quote and a Prayer.

A quote from, The Places that Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Diffcult Times.
Pema Chodron.

" Confess you hidden faults
Approach what you find repulsive.
Help those you think you cannot help.
Anything you are attached to, let it go.
Go to places that scare you."


My Prayer...

My I go to the Places that scare me

My I lead the life of a warrior.

New World Border and Guillermo Gomez-Pena - Activity # 2

I have recently completed reading the book, The New World Border: Prophecies, Poems and Logueras for the End of the Century. written by Performance Artist: Guillermo Gomez-Pena.

It has been a very long time that I have read a book that has made such an indelible impact on me as an Artist. I look forward to reading more of his books. He has also been a regular commentator on NPR and this is a link to one of his interviews: This is his Website http://www.pochanostra.com/#Scene_1

When I was writing the Poem: The Gift that I put in the last entry. I played around with concepts that i enjoyed Mythology, imagery but this time played with and inter-mixed Mexican, American Indian and Welsh and Celtic Imagery.

I am moving into new territory.
So this is a quote from the book that I am reading currently.
The Places that Scare you by Buddhist Nun, Pema Chodron

Activity # 2 The Gift.

Once upon a fairy tale-
a new lover transformed himself

into a jumping Celtic Salmon / spawning up fresh cold
Spring Alaskan rivers to catch a mate.
later/as Kokapeli, travelor / trickster
who changed himself into Cayote
whose wide brown eyes: mirrored back a dark Jesus preparing for nuptials and in whose armpits lingeried the faint forrest scent of Green Man's leaf

Mayan
Apache

Sparrow and Raven
Chicano/Mexicano/Americanisto
Diego Rivera out hunting with his dog HuckleBerryFinn

Changlings/ Shamans/ Shapeshifters
Los Lonely ones.

Aztec Son of the

Serpent of the Persian Garden
The Antlered Deer King

Shape/ Form
Form from no-form
born from the wild horse goddess
on the nights of las posadas

Salmon/Water Baby
Breathe
Breath now
she said to him

Speak Memory

Think,
Yes.

to the Hiraeth , while not longing for ones's country but

the longing for the home within one's self

Bydd wych!

adieu

adios!

shhh......shhh

The Vedic Rivers call you home.

c. 12/07 chadwick

Activity # 2 Body Wisdom ( Dance, Movement) & Sexuality

I was listening to the Interview below on FORA.TV of Anna Halprin up until about 12am last night & taking notes.

Sexual healing for me began with integrating my body- and that was about movement
and safe touch.

I've always had some kind of connection to Dance at various parts of my life. In high school my friends were mostly the Arts Crowd students. I remember the name that we had for our selves was the " Zoo-Crew" in other words we were adolescent misfits of various sorts. A good friend of that time, Was spotted as having a gift for dance and was accepted at North Carolina School for the Arts in Dance. After graduating from
N.C.S.A he had gone up to NewYork and luckily landed had a job with the Alwin Nikolais Dance Theatre and that he had gone to Europe and had joined " Daniel Ezralow &. . ." Company.
Any way here is his website:http://www.timothyharling.com/.. its incredible to look at the artist and remember when I knew him as a 15 yr old gifted boy . His love of Dance and intense view of the world thru movement had an indelible effect upon me perhaps it was the passion of creation. I don't know what it was, but I was very lucky to have known him.

Interview with Dance Innovator: Anna Halprin ( Very Good)
I decided to post notes from the interview as some of it did relate to the writing topic
Body Wisdome & Sexuality, but also with finding/discovering ones Personal and Artistic Language.
She briefly mentioned the " shedding of all of her old patterns and starting anew. That ability to create this break was how began her new approach to movement"

&
To her " Movement" was a language" and finding the forces of nature within her own body and translating that information into an artistic experssion.
Dance as medium to speak to the spirit world , bring forth change, enhance life and not always be a a decorative spectacle.

Okay. so what does this have to do with my writings on the topic. Aha...
Sexuality must be a language. Isn't it? Expression is Communication.. Right? Well in terms of Body Data, I would say that from the get-go, I never had an opportunity to learn, discover safe and healthy sexuality. Like some Sexual abuse survivors and specically those who were ritualistically abused my cognative connections to sexuality were paired with extreme physical pain and I was living without a necessary language and was missing out on important developmental experiences . It is as if some had asked me to speak, but instead I could only Bark because my tounge had been ripped out.

How was i able to re-build my connection / build my language(bridge) across to sexuality? Where does the instinct to survive come from? It's all part of the great mystery. Those moments beyond desciption are not because I can't find the words but that words simply steal away the holiness of it.
...................................................... ................................ .....................




Healing Hearts thru the Arts.



I began with Movement and Touch , Education, Moving thru Non-feeling of sensation & Personal denial of Sensuality thru The Sexual Ice Ages to Rage and a painful/ depressive Acceptance of the splits created by Damage. of the damage.




After 2 Hosptalizations in teh Nashville , Tn area in Mental Health In-patient programs that were not set up to work specifically with survivors I left with only a a Band aid on festering wounds so it was not until I left the state of Tennessee and attended a specialist Holistic in-patient program for R.A survivors in Alburqerque, New Mexico that I recieved the help that I needed.


--
The Great Mystery--


Connectedness is relationship. Connectedness is respect. Connectedness is understanding. Connectedness is giving.

Connectedness is knowing you are a vital part of something bigger than yourself. Connectedness is listening. Connectedness is realizing that Creation is so beautiful that the Creator must also be beautiful.

Connectedness is having the courage to face one’s greatest enemy — one’s own self. Connectedness is acknowledging and accepting that each life form, each spirit, has value. Connectedness is the ability to seek the good in every situation.

Connectedness is knowing that you are a part of something greater than yourself and that what you do really does make a difference.

Connectedness is the courage to stand up for what’s right and speak out against oppression. Connectedness is fighting injustice, even when you yourself are the one doing the injustice. Connectedness is combating the prejudice in your own heart.
Connectedness is being at peace with yourself, with others, with the world around you, and with the Great Mystery.

Connectedness gives the power to rise above the mundane and to soar with the stars, thus to see the world from a new perspective which few people ever glimpse.

Connectedness gave our shamans the power to make the tents tremble or to know when the earthquake would come or to stand tall when the oppressors bullets struck down without mercy everything they loved.

Connectedness is learned over time and over a difficult trail, but it is worth the learning. We all can be connected once again. Connectedness is available to anyone willing to pay the price of being connected.

published in The Red Heart Warrior, Fall 2003

Activity 2 Coming to your Neighborhood now : Bodies Broken Here

-The Dissconnected Ones-

I liked this particular Piece as the bodies of this group children's photo are more or less realistic but the faces are completley blurred.

it resonates with the portrayal of surrealistically and anatomically disfigured faces even though With the exception of one they all sit with McDonald T-shirts on.

Shells and Masks.

Upon the readings on the last chapter and different types of body " Data" i was thinking how a child's survival amidst abuse depends upon thier ability to create a mind/body split. Children suffering from sensory deprivation( ie put in isolative situations for long periods of time) and/ or enduring long term physical pain will teach themselves to split off from thier bodies.

==================================

Below is a picture of Syrian Street Children.

at 10 yrs old, Disconnection wears her cheap bell bottom jeans / smokes her camel cigarettes & breathes in the icey Christmas air around her. Swallows it whole.

her head now separate from her body

travels to the redwood forrest

To take tea with Hunka-Munka ,Ms.TiggyWinkle

and Alice.

c.dc2007

Notes. The Wisdom of the Body Pgs 39- Activity 2

'> Episode One: Inside the Tinman Misnomer Unpacked.

experimental Dance

Kinesthetic sense-

the way our bodies perceive and receive our own movement and the physicality of other bodies.

I am a Body" : Activity # 2

I am A BoDY .. I am A BoDY.... I am a BoDY.... I am a BoDY... I am a BoDY