Prana Dance

Prana means “life force” in Sanskrit and is used in Yoga.  I've discovered something for myself that is very effective in healing quite holistically and I’m calling it Prana Dance.  I’ll describe it to you.

It is very free form movement.  In fact, from time to time it isn't very pretty at all.  You would probably want to close and lock your door so that you are completely uninhibited.  You might want to be naked.  The purpose is to check in with your body, all of its parts regarding energy flow, lack of energy flow, strengths, weaknesses, etc.   You turn off your thinking brain and move in to a primitive child-like playful state.  Smile, breathe, and move to the music.  Use any kind of music that inspires you, but something without words.  You want to be in a very free flowing non-verbal state.

The only rules are to not hurt yourself.  You are celebrating and healing in your body and letting life force move through it.  I find that I like to do this in the mornings and my days are much healthier with more vitality.  Any movement that feels good is good.  It could be small, large, standing, sitting, lying, fast, slow, moderate.  This is not choreography, not pre-defined, not prescribed, not formulaic movement.  You might find yourself stretching parts that are tight, shaking parts that need loosening and warmth, massaging parts that need relaxation and releasing aches and pains you didn't even know you had.  In this way it is truly beautiful.

This is total body awareness and body feeling and with self-compassion and self-insight you might even find yourself moving in ways that heal past wounds and abuses that were locked in body memory or in ways that you held your body to brace against future potential wounds and abuses.  In so many ways, although to watch this dance may seem strange; it is a beautiful practice and I've come to look forward to it every day. 

This is not exercise in the typical sense.  Some days may be slow going and might require simple rotations of the ankles before getting in to it deeper.  Some days may be full of joy and bounding out of bed with arms outstretched.  The dance may involve getting up, lying down again, sitting and moving the limbs, rocking, swaying, patting, massage, stretching fingertips… anything!  It’s what suits you and what your body needs.

If you find that you simply get a bit too “heady” to feel spontaneous, close your eyes and swing your arms or just rock to the music to get yourself back in to your body and in to that sacred non-critical state of creativity.  Watching and partaking in various forms of dance and movement such as Yoga, Tai Chi, Belly Dance are all good to get yourself in touch with what your body can and cannot do and where it is stronger than not.  This time, however, is for free and non-prescribed movement.

At times, you actually might produce beautiful moves and aesthetically pleasing postures.  This is also good.  It’s all good.  No matter – it is what your body needs you to do for it. 

You may find some tension to release.  You may find pain to breathe out.  You may find tightness to stretch free.  You may find weakness to energize.  It’s all good. 

To health!  Blessed Be.

Photo of Catherine Jones at the top of this post is by permission.  Photograph taken by Jade Beall.

Dancing in Light

From 1981:

[…] I know that when I dance I feel the life-giving force.  The beat of my heart joins with the pulse of the music, and I breathe with each melodic sigh.  I can experience any emotion and express it dramatically while I draw the reflection of my soul through my body.  I feel.  I breathe.  I move.  I am alive.

[…] I want to communicate and I speak with my hands.  With my wrists slowly turning and my fingers gently following, I pull my hands to my forehead.  […] I lean back and lift my arms to the heavens; the cool melody tickles my face and arms dropping specks of light to be quickly absorbed into my flesh.  The joy of life unites me with freedom and I respond with long spins and skirts swirling wildly about me.  The compelling throb of the drum continues and I stretch my abdominal muscles in slow and hypnotic undulations.  […]  I stop abruptly [to capture the built up flow and relish the space that the temporary cessation of movement has provided with the audience.  This creates a suspended “what next” tension that beckons one in to anticipate and engage with the next movement.]   I resume the movement as I stoop into turns and curves of my hips [with my eyes downcast].

I celebrate life and all that is in it.  I want to express every emotion conceivable.  […]

From 2014 last week:

My heart rate keeps slowing to as little as 33 beats per minute as the techs and nurses in the hospital tell me.  I am short-winded and having a hard time saying a long sentence without taking a shallow breath that is afforded me.  I am scared.  For some time I’d been battling bouts of depression again and trying to get my body to cooperate with feeling vital, but had finally slowed to a grade that seemed like it needed a fully conscious choice to continue.  I needed to hear my beloved tell me that he would be better off with me in his life than without me in his life.  He told me loved me and wanted me in his life.  I needed this in order to feel a strong fight – reason to send positive messages to my vital organs.

I’ve learned to love and to feel love.  I’d been getting over some dharma blues and recognizing that everyone has and is having to continue with strange life events that we cannot understand.  Why there is fortune, why there is misfortune, why some babies live just a few short months crawling forward and dying in starvation, why clueless pedestalized stars get the luxury of eccentricities to the degree of killing themselves through drugs and alcohol and endless partying.  Our stories all have such bizarre twists and turns, and yet I find that I love my friends and family more through it.  We've schlepped along the best we can sometimes and it hasn't always been that easy.  We need to forgive ourselves and we need to forgive others.  I want to go on and be happy, so I bring the words “I just wanna celebrate – another day of living” in to my mind and soul.  I tell my heart I love it. 

I get up from the bed, IV pump tagging alongside, and place a folded towel down to the side.  I’d been training with work friends for a 5k and just a couple of days previous had successfully done one of my training honor runs quite well.  My heart had helped me move forward and breathe rhythmically although I was conscious of my extra weight and how much better I’ll do without the heaviness.

So now I jogged in place to get my heart rate up – to pump vital oxygen and life force through my body – to resume health and get back to the business of living and getting out of the depression.  I was dizzy.  My heart rate would not budge.  I felt no increase in pulse.  The drug they had given me on Friday for high blood pressure which was the wrong drug for me was keeping my heart rate down and I was not experiencing the simple and forgotten joy of what it feels like to have ones heart rate pick up with physical activity to deliver breath, energy – prana.  It was not happening at this time.  I had to rest.  I had to have patience.

Today:

I recalled listening to a TED talk about depression from Andrew Solomon.  In it he says that the opposite of depression is vitality.  I recommend listening to this lecture.  The depression scale inventories ask about if we are finding less joy in the things that used to give us joy.  I’d found in my dharma battles that this had become so.  I’d done so many things, had so many adventures, but wasn't finding the same ecstasy I used to when it came to living life in physical form.  The only ecstasy I was finding was in deep meditative states.  Staying in Samadhi is not conducive to actually moving about and living in the real world.  So what was that secret ingredient that used to give me so much joy to experience life?  --The VITAL ingredient?  The answer required deep pondering that only being taken out of work and being put in the hospital to be confronted with life/death questions would provide.

I went back in time and remembered when I was just out of high school and was experiencing all that I could do and wanted to do.  It was exhilarating.  There was so much to do and I felt a deep sense of infinite human potential.  It seemed that the universe as infinite also provided potential that was infinite.  I could feel this on a visceral level.  Remembering that helped me re-experience it.

I also had to come to terms with the chemistry of our physical bodies.  It is important for me to take drugs that hadn't been important to take before.  I had to realize that my soul incarnate needs the added chemistry just as much as it needs water, nutrients, and exercise.  My body doesn't need to weigh this much and taking the weight off will hopefully make me require less of the human-made chemistry.  For now, I need to feel alive, vital, engaged with my loved ones and be able to re-recall that our souls dance in ecstatic joy in a universe of infinite potential and that love is the most powerful force of all.

As I close this, I’ll turn the music up, and

(from 1981:)  [feel the…] jolt of energy thrust through my being as I turn down into a half-stoop.  [finding brassy rhythmic patterns] I stretch and flow. [spinning and swaying, shaking and raising arms to heaven until I tire and lie down on the floor] my body becoming one with the earth, [imagining my pulse and the earth pulse melding, imagining health and new beginnings for all.]

Let’s DANCE!