Category Archives: moving, breathing, feeling

Dec4

Capprichio!

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I’d like you to meet my ride and my friend.  This is Capprichio, the black Andalusian stallion that is the great (equine) love of my life and my favorite dance partner.

He is ridden here not by me but by his former trainer, the brilliant Sabine Schut-Kery.  If you watch the video on her site, he is the one wearing the yellow polos.

We don’t live in Florida.  This is just where he and I got to know each other a bit.  That was six years ago.  He is nearly 20 now.  Sexy as ever.

Our riding these days is shaped by how he is feeling. That means that I have to pay attention, to wake up to the being that is carrying me, and to work within his limitations.  That is another piece of the ongoing dance.

In the burgeoning storm about horses and slaughter, there is this:  horses possess a sensitivity and delicacy that is beyond our comprehension.  They are defenseless.  They are companion animals, like dogs and cats.  They are our work and play partners.  Slaughter is never, never humane.

I am feeling despair and a deep sadness about this issue.  I want us to do better, as humans;  to be more feeling, more loving in our choices.

 

 

 

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Dec3

pony dances

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Escorial from Paula Josa-Jones on Vimeo.

For those of you who have not visited the RIDE site, here is a bit of what we call horse dancing. What I want to call attention to is the attunement, the listening, and the conversation between bodies. That is what has always been important to me about this work.

Escorial (aka Pony, and yes, he has his own page) is the equine performer. He is trained as a liberty horse (no restraint) by the brilliant Sarah Hollis of Tintagel Andalusians.We have worked with Pony and Sarah for nearly five years.  I think of it as the yoga of the herd.  Learning how subtle a signal is required to create a profound shift in Pony’s movement.  Rehearsals are humbling, because despite our  dancerly skills, our ability to communicate in herd-speak is always in need of improvement.  Sarah, being the alpha mare, keeps all of us in line.

Why this might be important to non-horse people: Since 87% of our communication is non-verbal, figuring out what we are communicating with our movement seems like a good idea.

For example, my horse Amadeo is majorly spooky. For a long time, I thought he might be autistic because his reactions seemed so disproportionate to what was happening around him. My godson is autistic, and I have had a similar difficulty in decoding his responses. What I finally understood is that Amadeo’a responses were precisely calibrated to his perception of the situation because he is hyper-aware of movement and the underlying emotional landscape. And in order to be around him, I had to become hyper-aware too, but not tense, not nervous. That is a very nuanced and subtle dance, requiring some deep inner and outer listening. And that is horse dancing.

When and with whom are you horse dancing?

Dec3

finding focus

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I saw this cabbage in Whole Foods.  It was so beautiful that I bought it specifically to photograph.  It was also sweetly delicious.  Since I got my new camera, I have been obsessed with image-making.  I am like a kid in a candy shop of color, light and shape.  Seeing me in my pajamas on the road is becoming a common sight for morning commuters.  Oh well.

I am also a new blogger.  I LOVE that.  I feel as if I am awakening from a long hibernation, and stretching out in the sun like a cat.  Writing has become luscious, unpredictable, my morning improvisation.

It has also pushed me to re-calibrate, to look at my goals.  Life goals, work goals.  To articulate them for myself and for those who are helping me figure out how to attract more people to the site.  More readers, more conversation, more connection, more community.  Practical law of attraction work.  Yesterday I heard Abraham say that if your action is driven by need or worry or lack, it is counterproductive.  That the best way to attract what you want is to get happy.  Simple as that, really.  It is a vibrational universe and we have to be vibrating at the highest, happiest frequency to attract what we are wanting.

I am pretty happy these days.  Actually joyful.  That has not always been something I could say.   I am writing about that this week in The Journal. What it is to be A Dangerous Woman.

Today though, I am writing to you, and that makes me very, very happy.

What is making you happy?

Dec1

to be clear (I hope)

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Yesterday I launched a new offering.  A number of you have expressed interest and confusion.  Obviously that is my lack of clarity.

So here it is:  For some time, I have wanted to offer a class that has a wider reach than my local demographic.  Something that you can do with me if you live in L.A. or Juneau or Paris.  (I will come to Paris to teach, of course).  So this is an online class.

I also wanted to share more of the work that I have been doing privately and in classes and workshops.

For  five weeks you will receive two lessons a week.  This is some but not all of what they will contain:

  • writings and teachings from people that have inspired me in the world of improvisational living
  • specific strategies for opening more doors to creative, full throttle living.
  • suggestions for new ways of discovering “ordinary magic” by using improvisation in your work and your daily life.  This is about learning to be non-habitual; stepping out of the rote.
  • writing prompts to help you open new creative doors.
  • assignments to help you dig into the details of your own goals and practice. These are more of a cafeteria of choices rather than a fixed menu.

You can use what appeals to you.  I won’t be checking your work.  The intention is that this an alive offering, as opposed to archival.  That is why we will engage on Google+ in a private forum.  For those of you not familiar with Google+, I will help you get started there.

My goal for you is that by learning to see and live your life more improvisationally, and by becoming more intentionally embodied, you will find new and delicious ways of experiencing/approaching work and play.  

Finally, yes, some of the exercises are movement-based.  However, they can be done by anyone, regardless of background or fitness.

Let me know if you have any more questions.  The full course description is here.

The link to sign up is here.