Thursday, August 26, 2004

Neighborly entry

I consider my neighborhood to be Twin Oaks Community in Louisa Virginia. It’s a rural intentional community of 100 or so that has its own businesses and shares the collective income equally. It has a labor quota system and the quota is 40 or so hours a week. It’s been around since the 60’s.You can check it out on the web at twinoaks.org. My coming here a couple of years ago was a Life-Dance step and an experiment in Integral Science. I came here with the intention to coordinate my own healing with that of Twin Oaks and the World at large. I was trying to find better tender than the place I was before for the fire that I wanted, and still want, to get started in the world. I can’t remember my exact expectations now, if I was really naïve or exactly how naïve I was, but what I wanted in general was a chance to shift the paradigm of the community from that of surviving to that of Living as I define it, to help bring the community to Life in a way that would make it a trigger for a collective shift of consciousness.

One of the first things I did shortly after coming here—I wasn’t even a full member of the community at the time--was to post a paper about how this greater life could come about. It was called Life-Dance Union and was about how we could legitimize the work of Living, of coming together inwardly and outwardly as family-members, neighbors, citizens-of-the-world, souls and Individuals, by giving labor credit for this kind of enlivening work in addition to the normal work of survival (in the business and around the farm). I’ll probably post that paper and its sequel on the other web-log some time.

The other thing I started to do—and am still doing—is throwing Life-Dance Parties. A longer explanation of the Life-Dance Party should be up soon on the other web log. But to explain briefly, A Life-Dance Party basically amounts to an intentional and slightly ritualized way of “hanging out”. Its based on the Idea of Mutuality, which for me is the coming together of inner and outer consensus. Inner Consensus means consensus between ones own mind, heart, body, and intuition (Jungian concepts) as the cardinal points of ones wholeness as an Individual. In the Life-Dance Party the Idea is to create a context that is enabling of the conscious process of facilitating and acting on, Inner Consensus. It is also about the dance between inner and outer consensus. But I don’t want to do so much explaining here, that is for the other web log, so I would like to just describe my last life-dance party instead of being so general.

This last week was the week that Thea made a Beautiful poster advertisement for the Life-Dance Party. It had a sort of light green motif as I recall. It described the Life-Party as “A Celebration of Wholeness”; “Express your Inner Child! Listen to your Inner Elder! Play with your Inner Animal!” I can’t remember what you were supposed to do with your Inner Adult. That way of talking about heart, intuition, body and mind works great in that context. Still, the poster was probably posted too soon to work whatever subtle magic it was going to work and on life-dance day it was just Thea and I as usual. I went up to the little room in upstairs Oneida with my life-dance party-favors for the day and began strumming on the guitar that’s kept in there until Thea showed up.

Thea is usually late because of stuff with her kids but it never bothers me. Technically, you really can’t be late for a Life-Dance Party. Its best to come when you have inner consensus to come and only stay for as long as you have inner consensus to be there. I have done Life-Dance Parties all by myself and enjoyed it immensely, but to understand that fully I will have to describe it more.

Thea Came in and sat down and I asked if there were any Hot Topics (this means any pressing issues that cant wait until after the opening ritual) and, there being none, we began our usual ritual of Welcoming. This ritual is meant to begin the process of coming together for inner consensus that is at the heart of the Life-Dance. During it we consciously accept and acknowledge the role of facilitator of the inner consensus of our own minds, hearts, bodies and intuitions as Individuals. We welcome unconditionally, through as series of gestures and changes of direction, our own and each others body, heart, mind, and intuition in turn, inviting them each in sequence to express themselves just as they are, inclusive of inner and outer conflict between them. Then finally we welcome all of these aspects of our wholeness as individuals inclusively with a gesture accompanied by a long exhalation. The Five Gestures of Welcome are an adaptation for of a Breema self-massage treatment called “return to mountain” and they are very relaxing. Finally there is an embrace in a spirit of mutuality in which we simultaneously welcome all of ourselves as much as all of the other. Have done this we sat down and began the Dance Party itself.

The formal structure of the party itself, such as it is, is that at this point we could choose what Kind of dance to dance first. There is the mind-dance, which is almost always some kind of conversation, intellectual, political or other wise, the topic of which is agreed to by consensus. Or it can be a Heart-Dance, which is an occasion to share an aesthetic expression of the heart through song or dance or telling jokes or in any other way that we mutually consense to. There is also the Body Dance which is usually yoga or chi gung of massage or sometimes a long or short walk out side, but which again can be any kind of physical thing that feels appropriate to all partygoers. And Finally, at least so far as outer consensus goes, there is the Soul-Dance which is a time for talking about or other wise expressing ones fears, limitations, problems, and faith. I say finally, but this is not necessarily so since, as I have already implied the dances can be begun in any order, and consensing to which dance to dance first is often the first order of business.

But these four dances are only the dances relating to outer consensus between dancers, The Life-Dance proper is the dance between the outer consensus and behavior of the Dancers and each dancers own Inner Consensus of mind, heart, body and soul. In fact, in some sense it can be said that the four outer dances simply provide the context in which inner consensus can be best generated. In the life-Dance Party it is understood that Inner Consensus trumps everything else. By this I mean that any thing I consense to outwardly has the implied and understood condition that it can be over-ridden by any act which is a manifestation of the common agreement of the inner quorum of mind, heart, body and intuition in that moment. A mind-dance about politics, for example is at any moment subject to being discontinued by any one present should it feel more authentic to that person to pick up a guitar and just start strumming, or for that matter to lie down and take a nap, or even leave the situation all together. Nobody at the Life-Dance looks askance at this. On the contrary, the whole Idea is to generate the level of inner and outer comfort and authenticity in which people feel encouraged to be true to themselves—to all of themselves—by doing whatever feels most deeply appropriate at any time. The energy of such actions—or inactions-- doesn’t feel disruptive or uncooperative if it is clear, as it usually is, that the authenticity of inner consensus is what informs them rather than, for example arbitrary willfulness.

In fact, emphasis on authenticity and spontaneity is so much the point that often, after the welcoming, the group makes no formal decision to start with any particular kind of dance at all, and every one just starts doing what ever feeling, intuition, sensation and thinking lead them to. Sooner or later things usually coalesce enough to be described in retrospect as “mostly a bodydance for example” and someone might then suggest a minddance, or just begin one with the tacit or explicit consent of all or most of those present, the others being perfectly supported in joining in this dance or not. Although it almost never happens, conflict and disagreement about what is or should be happening at a party is engaged and even encouraged to the extent that the objection is prompted by real inner consensus on the part of both parties.

Anyway, in this case I had brought, as a Life-Dance Party Favor, a Tarot Deck and the idea of a soul dance involving a special spread that I came up with, and so after a brief minddance about various things, we began the divination. In this case this soul dance, punctuated by the brief body-dance of us both periodically getting up to stretch and by a little guitar work on my part for a heart dance, lasted the rest of the 2 hours we usually schedule for the Party. At some point one of us checked the time and found that it was time to close.

Again, the main idea of the Life-Dance is not to stick to some rigid and strictly equal temporal portioning of the different kinds of dances, nor to their strict separation (a really strict separation is, of course impossible since all are intrinsically co-implicated aspects of each other and to the whole). The 4 outer dances are just rules of thumb that help inform the intention of wholeness and give subtle direction to events that are nevertheless, primarily guided by the dynamic mutual facilitation of the inner and the outer consensus of all present. Therefore it is perfectly all right to have a Life-Dance party in which (formally anyway) only one sort of dance is danced by most, or all, present. As long as no one feels either inwardly or outwardly coerced into such an outcome, the event will have been a healing experience. On the other hand, a feeling of dissatisfaction after this, or any kind of Life-Dance Party is something that speaks of moments of inner and outer tyranny/repression, which should be processed both inwardly and outwardly. In thee case of this particular dance, the sense of a lack of formal symmetry within the confines of the ritual of the Life-Dance party when I consider it in isolation dissolved when I considered it, as it should be considered, not in isolation but as itself a single dance-step in the lived choreography of two whole lives, and moreover, as a dance step that will itself be repeated many times.

The closing the life-Dance party consists of ritual gestures and expressions of Gratitude for all of ourselves and for all of each other. These are the mirror of the gestures and expressions of welcome that began it and so I will not relate them in detail here.

So that was Thea’s and My Life-Dance Party for that day. Nothing special in a sense; as I said, just a conscious and loosely ritualized way of hanging out really: a simple dance of inner and outer friendship. And yet, in the context of the intention and understanding of Healthy Culture and Integral Science that we share, and also in the context of the other integral science rituals/experiments that we do together, such a simple ritual becomes, over time, part of a really different way of being with oneself and with others. There is really something languidly sublime and ineffable about the Life-Dance Party. At it’s best it combines the most healing aspects of being by oneself with the most healing aspects of being with others. As I imagine the tea ceremony to be, it is extremely ordinary, and in some way not in spite of, but just because of this, a truly profound and meaningful experience.

Finally, I would like to say something about the gestures of Welcoming and Thanks that respectively open and close the Life-Dance Party and that set the tone of Integral Science in general. The attitude of unconditional Welcoming Derives From a shared understanding and sense that Being is itself the Welcoming of everything that exists; that everything that exists exists only because it is welcomed by Being and that for us to also welcome everything that exists—in ourselves as well as in the world—is to assimilate ourselves to the nature of Being so that our Own Being is Strengthened. Yet this Welcoming is paradoxical in that even inhospitality, that is “unwelcoming”, is welcomed. Evil is welcomed with Good, but so is the urge to challenge and heal Evil with this very hospitality and Love.

The spirit of Unconditional Gratitude is similar in its intention and understanding and affirms that the willingness to be grateful for the whole of inner and outer experience—for the whole of existence— itself helps to reveal to us the Gift of learning that experience, whether pleasurable or painful, truly is.

I conceived of the Life-Dance Party as a way of challenging my own fear of rejection and vulnerability. My m.o. at its worst has been to preemptively judge and condemn the world and to live in more-or-less disdainful isolation. It is very far from my normal style to be inviting anyone to anything, much less to any kind of party, even a metaphorical one. (They may not come!) Because of this it is a way that I, Piankhy, at this time in my life, have evolved to try to coordinate my own healing with that of my neighbors here at Twin Oaks and with those who visit here. Its usefulness and success as an experiment, as is the case with all of the Integral Science experiments, is correspondingly to be assessed subjectively as well as objectively. So far I think it is still a good and friendly thing for me to do in the way that I am currently doing it; it has the right balance of listening, support and challenge (both to myself and to my neighborhood) to feel like a good dance step for me for now and for this place. But for this experiment to be a Living Experiment within a true and Living Integral Science, it can never become a mere mechanical habit but must always be responsive to, and contingent on, genuine inner consensus on my part that it is still (and in its present form) an appropriate and healing step in the Dance of My Life.

posted by: piankhy | 11:24 | comments