Silence is the language of god,
all else is poor translation.

- Rumi

Silence is a source of great strength - Lao Tzu

Nothingness

Noise emerges from a field of silence and disappears back into that silence. Movement emerges from a field of stillness and returns to that stillness. Our thoughts, emotions and feelings arise within a space that remains even after they have passed. Everything happens within this great Silence or Nothingness. It is a space of pure potential.

Centered in Silence

The invitation in movement is to allow our awareness to become identified with this stage, this space, this stillness, this silence and move away from over identification with the actors, the forms, or the noise.  As we get this right, our movements, actions, and expressions, arise from this silence, and ultimately drop back into it.

We learn that in even the noisiest environments, we are able to move centred in silence, and allow our movements to come from this source, rather than as reaction to the noise. This opens us up to the possibility of more conscious and creative movement, that helps us to break away from habits and reactivity.

It opens us up to the possibility of being more in flow with our true nature. To touch the silence of our being, is to enter into a divine communion with life. To move from this silence is to have a real conversation.

Arising Intuition

Moving from silence allows intuition to flow and for answers to arise. We are now accessing a place of creative potential. To be able to feel it or touch it with our awareness is great life skill! It allows us to cultivate an open spacious non-judgmental aspect our being and we are able to move more freely with what is. How awesome is that!

The Noise

However.... in our day to day, we often get lost in all the forms that move within and around us, and lose our balance mentally, emotionally, physically or even spiritually. We get very caught up in our lives, our drama's, our feelings or our sentiments.  Often we cling to these forms as we feel they define us. They are "who we are." We are prepared to fight for them!

How does one begin to even think about silence when we find ourselves unwilling or unable to turn the noise down? Once again movement is the key. Just like we can find our silence and move from there, from the inside out, we can also move the other way. We can explore the noise and this would ultimately move us back into silence, from the outside in.

Amplifying the Noise

There are definitely times that if we told our minds  to let go, be non-judgmental, allow things to be as they are, feel the silence underneath,  it would make us want to kill somebody!  If we recognise this, then we can take it into the dance.  Amplifying the noise in our movement, expression and attitude. Dance the noise and keep dancing it no matter what!

At times it will seem that everyone else is moving like peaceful blissful Buddha's, while your being is all rage, pain, despair or anguish. Others may smile all knowing little smiles at you. You will just want to slap them! Stay in movement, keep exploring every little bit of that noise.

There will come a time when the noise will be, maybe just a little more spacious, a little less noisy, or it may move you to tears, to break down, to catharsis, to surrender, and ultimately it will move you to that place of stillness. The more you dance, the more you will experience this and trust the process. As always, we follow the guidelines: Stay present, Stay in movement. Everything else will unfold in its time.

Pratyahara

In the yogic path there is a stage of before meditation called Pratyahara. The withdrawal of the mind and the senses from the world outside and turned to rest inwards. When you attain pratyahara,  no thought or sense perception causes the slightest reaction within your being.  You are at rest in that state of inner silence. The state of meditation is not possible until this stage is reached.

Yogi's understood something of the human mind. Pratyahara practices do not get you to directly force the mind and senses to withdraw. In fact they do the opposite.  The practice aims to guide you deeper into the experience of the mind and the senses. You keep putting all your attention into thought and sense experiences until ultimately the mind gets so tired of this that it naturally withdraws into silence of its own volition.

The Dance

In conscious dance we recognise that sometimes it's easy to drop into the silence immediately and move from there, and other times we just gotta move with the noise and allow the mind to withdraw into the silence when it gets tired of the story. Sometimes meditation is easy, sometimes we have to practice pratyahara first.

The beauty of conscious movement is it gives us tangible embodied experience.  Our movements and expressions embody the noise and forms of our life, or they come from the silent place within. One way, we are processing and letting go, the other, we are being and creating. Either way, no movement is ever a waste if we work consciously. Same goes for our life.