John O’Donohue says, “in each individual the earth breaks its silence” (Eternal Echoes). How are you breaking earth’s silence? How are you receptive to your own voice, your calling, and how does this take shape, form, structure? You are already here as a unique being, you are all ready here.
Charise’s Turn:
It took four years of teaching belly dance at the World Bank to understand that this is not a separate endeavor from my outreach to expatriate women as the co-author of A Portable Identity: A Woman’s Guide to Maintaining a Sense of Self While Moving Overseas. The participants of the World Bank belly dance class are primarily foreign women living in the U.S., from diverse places such as Morocco, Tunisia, China, Venezuela, Australia. My clientele as a social work counselor at the Community Services of Bangkok in the early 1990’s were foreign women living in Bangkok, from diverse places such as Australia, Sweden, U.K., India, Japan and a few Western educated Thai women. Why hadn’t I seen the parallel – had the dance gotten in the way? The focus for that hour a week was dancing, but what was happening?
What was happening in the belly dance class is this: we were building a common language amongst women of diverse nationalities, and this offered a sense of community, belonging, and acceptance. With the rhythms of Middle Eastern music, I led improvisation to show how you build phrasing and artistry from technique, like stringing words into sentences that tell a story. They responded with diligence, with enthusiasm and delight, spontaneously applauding at the close of a track of music. This joy transported them right out of their workday, took them somewhere far away from Washington, DC, while giving them comfort in their bodies, confidence in who they are as women and how they express their individuality outside of their home culture.
Get Fired Up:
What are you ready to receive or understand about your creative nature?
Ask yourself this question (maybe more than once, maybe each day for a week) and wait in silence for an opening for your muse to respond.
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