Dancing with Your Ancestors

Listening deeply for the benevolent guides who surround and support you

New Moon blessings of release and movement through discomfort! 

On the schedule for today was a guided shamanic journey and working with power animals but what came through again was slightly different. 

I've got to keep returning to The Source.  It is the only thing that makes sense and feels so right when I do.  There are many paths leading to and from this spiritual center - the cosmic womb of life, God, nature, the wellspring, mother-father-birther - whatever name it is given.  Dance is one of these pathways and it is sacred wisdom passed down from generation to generation, a precious medicine our ancestors received and which they teach us to keep receiving.
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So let us explore the power of intentional dance to move stagnant or ungrounded energy together.   The medicinal healing power of moving energy through your body with dance is a powerful tool you can use anytime, anywhere, and with anyone.  ​Try dancing with your children and see how it makes you all feel.

As an empath, the experience of this life-time journey for me has been as cyclical as the planets revolving around the sun spiraling through the universe.   In the space of darkness and "not knowing", when I've spiraled to face a direction of not seeing clearly, I trust that I will return to the warmth and light of the sun.  I intentionally allow myself to let go and flow towards that which I am being drawn towards.   

At first, during the chaos of youth, that deep knowing was intuited unconsciously from within the stillness at the eye of the storm.  Now, there is a more conscious connection and trust that has evolved over time and trial, experience and practice.  It is a continual returning to consciousness.  It is a deepening trust in letting go, of the structures which out of fear and oppression I perpetually construct to protect myself from the dis-ease of this unnatural "civilized" world.  When I let go I stop resisting the flowing wisdom, the guidance being downloaded from my ancestors.  When I get out of the way, the journey becomes easier, the path clear and direct.

My most recent experience of the restorative uplifting power of dance was when I was feeling funky, isolated in my being, overstimulated by the multitude of people at an unschooling conference I was attending with my family, and exhausted by lack of sleep and the needs of my highly sensitive children.  I was ready to weep and longing for deep connection and spiritual community, I returned to my hotel room to get some rest.  Then I heard the call and followed the ancestors' guidance to dance.  Later when my children returned to the room - even though I was still very much requiring sleep - I was able to hold space for their needs once more feeling renewed energy, patience and compassion.

I realized I had been feeling inundated by the presence of so much energy - many souls and their ancestors - surrounding me.  The noise of the conference I was attending was not only audibly overwhelming but energetically disorienting as well.  This one particular evening I began to feel uncertainty; adrift, I felt I was losing the sense of my orientation in the world: I felt disconnected from my tribe, from the wellspring of belonging, and the safety of unconditional love from within a mass of hundreds of people.  I returned to my hotel room, feeling the welling up of emotion from within, much of the noise resounding within my inner container.  And the walls of my vessel were ready to crack after expending so much of my inner buttressing resources to simply be present in those public spaces while extending myself to continually tend to the needs of my family.   

In the space of that spiraling darkness, I descended into the void and I listened.

I could have done a number of things.  People offer the suggestion to have a glass of wine, take a bath, read, write, sing, pray, watch tv and talk to a friend - to "take the edge off".  There are myriad "self-soothing" and "numbing" things we can do during times of discomfort and not being able to be present with what is.  Not all of these lead to the same place.  Some manage to suppress what becomes an inevitable explosive release of pent up energy.  However, there are many ways to meditate on or bring awareness to and become more present with what is stirring within and wanting to be heard or expressed and released from the confines of this mind-body our spirit-soul inhabits.  This time, I was invited to search for some music of my Mali lineage and allow my body to move with it.  

I was guided to do exactly what was needed to promote healing in that moment.  Witness a medicinal journey of dance guided by the ancestors.

I listened, trusted and felt renewed. 

​I was able to feel restored and rebalanced in the space of that high-energy situation where I would have to remain for another few days until the conference was over.  Then I could enjoy a beautiful weekend with my husband and children in a deeply restorative natural landscape. 

Until then, "Dance!", my ancestors whispered to me.

What are your ancestors whispering to you?  Trust enough to be receptive to these more quiet messages.  Listen for their guidance in all the synchronous subtle nuanced symbols they share with you through the natural world within and around you.  Open your heart and let their love flow through you.   They are here for you, for all the generations that came before and have yet to be, for all life on our planet.

Thank you for your guidance, spirits of my Mali ancestors!  

music: Ali Farka Touré
album: The Source
track: "Inchana Massina"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Farka_Tour%C3%A9