Dance Ritual

A bell sounds

Embodied stillness,
consciousness entering every cell,
a dropping anchor.

Willingness to open then,
To release the usual sense of ‘self’
& enter fully an unknown sea of possible realities.

Receptive waiting.

Movement arrives at the meeting of the waters.
Those of this individual’s inner world
And the larger flows of systems of which she is a part.

The resonances and conflicts creating tensions to which a
Human being can only respond.

In this turbulence stillness is no longer possible
The little ‘I’ is tossed about in larger identities.

A body is moved,
Senses respond
And the job of the ‘I’ becomes to watch.

Gratitude for the anchor that prevents death against the rocks.

I am yet no longer am.
‘I’ am becoming so many other I’s.
Consciousness rapidly expanding to include more and more

I am you, I am archetype, I am animal, I am goddess,
I am, I am not, I am all and I am nothing.
In me all binary oppositions are and are no longer are
At last there is space for truth.

What must happen for us to evolve – happens.
An arm moves, a voice cries,
a vibration, gyration, sensation, transformation…

The little ‘I’ never really understands yet all is understood.

A bell sounds and we go on pretending to be separate.
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Self has no fixed nature

Self is like the present. Moment by moment, as present dissolves into past and future becomes present, there is no fixed entity that can be identified as ‘present’. We can understand the ‘self’ in the same way. Self is not a constant thing. It arises in the limiting activity of the absolute. To attach to the self is actually impossible because the self has no fixed nature. (Roshi)

There is no such thing as ‘Self-as-Individual’ – there are only the ever evolving and changing temporary identities embedded in unfolding socio-political & cultural networks.

In the later half of the twentieth century theorists from a wide range disciplines began to formulate an inter-connected understanding of the world, which has become known as systems theory. This approach allows us an interesting understanding of self or personhood. ‘The ‘person’ not as a bounded entity separated off from the world in which he or she exists, but an interaction of body/mind with world.

Living systems according to Parent are ““open self-organizing systems that have the special characteristics of life and interact with their environment. This takes place by means of information and material-energy exchanges”. Living systems can be a single cell, an organ, organism, group, organization, community, society, and supranational system.

It is impossible to say where the boundaries of human identity lie. Self can never be separated from the systems of which it is a part. To do so would mean the obliteration of self; an entering into an empty space of both wholeness and nothingness.

The vast majority of exchanges that take place within each system generating our ‘reality’ and our ‘selves’ go on way under the radar; Well below our usual levels of awareness.

We are formed and re-formed by the systems of which we are a part – by the dynamics, power-relations and unconscious contracting that takes place. Gregory Bateson gave us a new definition of ‘mind’ as the intelligence organizing the system – holding the network together and holding the whole web of networks together. We play a part in this mind that forms the self and others, the boundaries and relationships, we even contribute our part in the life of the systems themselves – this little mind as part of a larger mind– but by and large we do this unconsciously.

This ‘Self’ is continually presented with the need to pretend that it is ‘independent’ and to behave as if it is so, but at the same time to submit itself as an obedient component in the network within which it is given its existence as some one.

I propose a space – a Deleuzian plateau if you will – where we can drop the illusion of separateness and allow this unconscious creativity opportunity to come into presence and awareness. A suspension of usual day to day reality – an opening to alternative states of consciousness where what is unknown has a chance to be known.

This as a political act allowing us to break out of socially sanctioned ways of being and becoming.

It is a choice to enter consciously into the place of nothingness and emptiness. It is a contract that for a certain length of time consensus reality can be suspended as an alternative consensus is at play. The participants delve into the depths of their cellular being and expand to connection with all minds and the ultimate mind – the overarching organising intelligence. They wait until there until they are moved.

There is a sense of evolution at play. What needs to happen for us to evolve happens as each person unfolds the self in an endless stream of becomings. A becoming other, and other, and other again.

It is not a matter of wanting to become ‘like’ the other. The desire is actually to enter into a molecular engagement with the other, to be ‘copresent’ with the other in a zone of closeness (Deleuze & Guttari). This proximity yields a shared transformation. Our organs are uprooted from their specificity in order to become ‘with’ the organs of the other. “It is a question of composing a body with the other, a body without organs, defined by zones of intensity or proximity.

The process of becoming alters both parties right down to the molecular level and the boundary that usually exists between A and B is rendered indiscernible by their mutual becoming.

Rosi Bradotti sees the desire for becoming as recognition that the old ways of doing things are no longer satisfactory… desire for change must be strong – we must want it… in the flesh

Ultimately we move through the stream of otherness until we reach a becoming what we truly are – as Jung puts it “splinters of an infinite deity” – nothing and everything.
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