Monthly Archives: June 2014

Jun28

the heart is in every part

Posted on by

Circulatory-System-by-Daniel-Marsden-1

In class today with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen at the Body-Mind Centering Association conference, Bonnie said, “the heart is in every part.”  She was showing us how to move from a sense of the heart being carried by the vessels and the cells into every part of our bodies. Earlier that morning we had been moving from each lobe of each lung, and then exploring the cradling relationship between the lungs and the heart.

Moving this way was surprisingly emotional.  Carrying the quality of heartfulness out to the periphery of the body, allowing the movement to be shaped and supported by heartfulness was a mix of sorrow and exhilaraton.  I had to keep pausing to absorb, to listen, to recuperate.  Bringing awareness to the differentiation of the lungs laid the groundwork for the heart work.  Bonnie says, “Awareness is the motor act.”  Most people feel that it is the motor act that creates learning, but Bonnie has learned that awareness can create the same profound change and learning.

The heart is in every part also means that we can bring heartfulness to every moment, every action, every word.

SHARE & EMAIL
Jun25

you are invited

Posted on by

2V0A4569(1)

You are invited to a free dance performance, open to the public.  I am performing SPEAK on a shared program with some other wonderful choreographers.  Here are the details:

  • Saturday, June 28
  • 8 pm
  • Skidmore College Dance Center
  • 815 North Broadway
    Saratoga Springs, NY 12866

Once you come onto the campus, follow signs for the dance center.  I hope that you can come!

Jun13

this girl

Posted on by

 

Chandra-1-1

“As this life is not a gate, but the horse plunging through it.”  Jane Hirshfield― Come, Thief: Poems

This is a picture of Chandra Kala.  She is a blood sister of my daughter Chandrika – one of five.  I met them both fifteen years ago at an orphanage in Kathmandu.  This girl has more courage and resiliance than anyone I know.  Tomorrow she will be married to Ivan, a wonderful young man from the Bolzano region of Italy where Chandra lives with her adoptive family.  They are also the most courageous, loving and resiliant people I know.

Chandra has overcome some extraordinarily difficult life events and challenges.  I do not want to list them.  They are more than most of us encounter or even can imagine.

Pam and I are in Italy to celebrate her wedding.  Her mother has asked us to say some words at her wedding.  I share them here.

Dear Chandra Kala,

 I have loved you from the first moment that I met you at Bal Mandir.  It was fifteen years ago and I was in the midst of adopting your sister Chandrika. I met you and you touched my heart.  These things cannot be explained.  I love you the way a plant reaches for the sun.  It is my nature. 

 From that first meeting, I could not dream the story that would follow.  That these two great-hearted people, Yosy and Werner, would become your parents and that you would join their family with your sister Gita. That all of you would become our Italian Nepali family.  That we would become your American Nepali family. 

 Now here we are to celebrate you and Ivan on the day of your wedding.  Ivan, it is easy to see why Chandra loves you.  You are all heart and spirit (and humor!).  I am bursting with happiness for both of you, and am full of hope and faith for your future together. 

 The poet Mary Oliver tells us that love is not just loving each other.  That love is rooted in the world, in finding joy in each moment, in discovering and relishing the simplest details of the world around you.

  I wish for you the greatest blessings and joy as you move into this beautiful marriage. 

 Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for–
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world.

Mary Oliver