I was teaching class two nights ago, working on assembles on pointe. These are actually much harder than they appear, as all the power for the releve must come from the one standing leg with the added challenge of an extended gesture leg, front, side, or back, where dancers often place some weight. The assembles weren’t happening, and when I asked the dancers what they were thinking of, they all dutifully talked about abs and glutes and arms, but not one asked herself “where is my weight really, and where am I taking it?”

This is the fundamental question. Where is our weight? Where are we standing?And where are we going with it? Because where our weight is, our power is. After years of being trained to think about my body as a collection of unruly parts that had to be brow-beaten into acting like a whole, I’ve now made a complete about-face. The only useful thing is awareness of the space you are occupying and the space you wish to displace as you move. In this assemble en pointe, for example, the body is displacing vertically – so not only must the hips ascend to point, but the entire body must ascend. Though I’m stating the obvious, it is amazing to observe ballet dancers trained in not moving the hips laterally while the legs work, translate that into a horizontal and vertical immobility while traveling on the dance floor.

Pique is another instance where dancers are going from plie on one leg (down) to stepping up and over onto the other leg (across/up) and they frequently do not take into account a complete space displacement on both vertical and horizontal plains. As a teacher, I have talked about plie and pushing and stepping onto a straight knee, and all those little details that we want to happen. But what I’ve realized is that those never happen until changing weight through vertical/horizontal  space is taken into account.

So where our weight is, there is our power. And where we are going in three-dimensional space is how that power is directed.

It is no longer just a personal matter. The choices we make to sustain our individual health have repercussions in the world. Of all the industrial nations, the United States’ health care bill is highest, reflecting not just out-of-control drug costs but rampant obesity and addiction. Our economic crisis is the result of decades of choosing consumerist addictions to soothe the emptiness of our lives. When we are pushed to work more and more to line the pockets of already billionaire CEO’s, the meaningfulness of our labour can seemingly only be soothed by using that money to buy things. Feeling left-out of the American dream, we plunged head-long into debt, buying houses with perilous mortgages, just to own a piece of the shrinking rock. We lost ourselves, lost sight of the true meaning of freedom: not freedom to possess, but to be self-sustaining. This freedom from coercion is now a long-lost dream, as anyone with crushing debt knows. When you are in debt, you are not earning for yourself, but for the bank. Then work is not a spiritual practice nor a creative expression, but slavery.

Enslaved people, disempowered people, tend to make poor choices. In an effort to soothe the constant feeling of unease that such an economic situation promotes, addictive behavior flourishes. Food, sex, mind-numbing or stimulating substances, buying, over-work, everything becomes out of balance in an effort to feel compensated. Excess costs. Making decisions towards health and away from addiction, debt, overwork, depression, can seem impossible. In a state of addiction, we lose touch with our emotion, we lose touch with our body, and therefore, we lose touch with our soul.We must begin to make decisions as free from compulsion as possible. To begin the ascent from such desperate places necessitates returning to the body.

Take a few minutes every day to pay attention to your body, not by walking on a treadmill watching tv, but by sitting with your limbs, organs, flesh, breathing, acknowledging with gratitude this stupendous embodiment of your soul. Be with, for, and by yourself.

Cultivate a closer and more immediate connection to food sources.

Be aware of buying as a way to fill emptiness.

Touch the earth every day.

Allow yourself to feel whatever it is you’re feeling, without judgement.

Cry.

Choose to recycle.

Care for a plant.

Turn off the news. The world longs to be seen by You, unmediated by anyone else’s interpretation.

Serve someone with graciousness ever day.

Notice the people who serve you, and acknowledge them. Look into their eyes.

Before you eat even the littlest thing, give thanks for all that went into its making, and give thanks to your body for transforming it into you.

Awareness is the transforming agent. Acknowledging the interconnectedness of all of us, of all creation, fosters a sense of awe. Rather than being daunted by the response-ability this awareness will foster, let us all come down to Earth from the tower of our minds into the vast ocean of compassionate Heart. Understand that the life force that pulses through you IS you. Live from that place. The health and well-being of our planet depends on each individual’s own relationship with their body. How can it be otherwise? We are from earth and are the body of earth, conscious. What we eat, how we consume, what our relationship is with the plants, animals, air, and water that supports us, IS our practice.

Thoreau wrote: “‘Tis healthy to be sick sometimes.” True if we allow our dis-ease to incite us toward integrity. By that I mean that illness is a messenger, and if we listen to the message we can use it as a springboard to awaken ourselves to the imbalances we’ve created in our lives. Pain is the body’s last-ditch effort to get our attention. Body’s agenda is very different from ego’s because body is the material expression of soul, whereas ego is a construct, a mask programmed and imposed by social circumstance. Ego may insists on overwork for seemingly very rational and pragmatic reasons; these mean nothing to Body. Ego may insist on gallons of coffee and bad food to feed ambition and fear. Body, like Earth, cares nothing for success or failure.

When we take our physical being more seriously than egoic ambition, this is the beginning of true health and integrity. It has been a long way for me, driven first by ambition to dance, then by fears for survival that I used to compromise myself in relationships that ultimately did not align with my path. Sickness in the form of Crohn’s disease was my messenger – an inconvenient and obstinate angel that shook me by my bowels again and again until I paid attention.

If we think that paying more attention and care to the body is inconvenient, think again; the alternatives are far more costly. When illness pays a call, it is time to stop. The Annunciation, though not a visitation of illness, can be for us a model of acceptance. When Mary, seized in an ordinary moment, was visited by the angel – and there’s a wonderful poem by Denise Levertov on this – her acceptance is humble and powerful.  When we accept the message, when we pay attention to the consequences, it is our first step towards honoring the precious vessel of our body, the incarnation of our soul.

The separation of body and spirit is arbitrary and not aligned with truth. Even to speak of mind/body exercise seems ludicrous: how is it possible to work the body without some mental engagement? It’s time we moved away from these distinctions to embrace more fully the realization that body includes intelligence, emotions, and soul. Once we make that leap, we may discover that everything we need is already present in our body. By that I mean that transformation and healing are possible and indeed, are longed for by our very physicality, at the cellular level. The science of Applied Kinesiology has demonstrated that intelligence and discernment exist in our bodies not solely in our brain. The entire body perceives, discerns, and responds without mental/egoic mediation. Unfortunately most of us have been de-programmed from recognizing that pre-verbal intelligence. This is an intellgence that goes beyond instinct and is more aligned with the mysteries of intuition, clairvoyance,  and oracle.

There’s a wonderful book out there for those pursuing a path of mysticism and meditation through the body: “Touching Enlightenment: Finding Realization in the Body” by Reginald A. Ray. He writes lucidly and deeply about the Tibetan tradition of meditation with/in/through the body. A very strong morphic field generated by integral transformative practice is supporting humanity’s re-connection with the wisdom that resides in each individual body. Our bodies are microcosms of our planet/world. The Emerald Table of the alchemists said it: As above, so below.

The health and well-being of our planet depends upon each individual’s own relationship with their body. How can it be otherwise? What we eat, how we consume, what our relationship is with the plants and animals that support us IS our practice. It is an awesome responsibility. This awakening is what we are all moving towards. I was recently at a retreat center in St Louis guiding the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Qigong. On solstice evening we walked the labyrinth as a meditation. As you wind your way towards the heart of the maze, you see people walking alongside and in the opposite direction. But we are all, only, always headed towards the center, home.