Befriend Our Feelings

"To befriend our feelings, we can dance them, sing them, act them, write them, and paint them; we can creatively explore and celebrate them."
Maps to Ecstasy

Black

"When I think of the infinite, I think of black. Black is forever and then some; it will outlast light. Black is the beginning, the source, the before and the after, the Alpha and the Omega. . . .

"Shamans taught me that black is the color of the west on the medicine wheel, the direction linked to earth, the female body, introspection, change, death and intuition."
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Original Light

"I believe we each hold a spark of the original light of creation within us. I've seen it light up people's faces and bodies when they dance. In a thousand ways it has been revealed to me that God is the dance and we need only to disappear in the dance to liberate the sexual, creative, and sacred aspects of the soul."
Sweat Your Prayers

Intuition

"Each of us comes into the world 100 percent intuitive; it's just a matter of reclaiming your birthright. To do that you need to get out of your own way, to strip away the things that are blocking, distracting, diffusing, suppressing, and depressing the natural dance of your intuition. . . .

"To fully realize our intuitive abilities we need to be instinctive, intimate, imaginative, integral, and inspired. Each of these energies is a facet of intuition, our connection to the divine force that moves all things. The problem happens when we stop trusting its supreme intelligence, when we allow our intuition to be overwhelmed and diminished by the loud, reactive, defensive voices of the ego.

"The ego is all about self-importance. Carlos Castaneda's Don Juan calls it a "foreign installation." It has nothing to do with who we really are, where we are going, or how we will get there. . . .

"If intuition is our super hero, our inner Batman, the ego is our inner Joker, constantly scheming our demise and creating roadblocks that prevent us from fulfilling our destiny. To liberate our intuition, we must outsmart our ego."
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Scan Your Body

"A Tibetan monk was saying that each morning, before you get up, you should just lie there for a moment and enjoy the warmth of your body. You should scan from head to toe, noticing how each part feels. You can do that at any time during the day; it never gets boring because we are constantly changing. That's what keeps us mysterious. That's what keeps us alive."
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Surrender to Movement

"Instinct has drawn us back into the beat, back into the body to begin to sort out our confusion. Whether we turn to dances with steps, rave all night in clubs, or aerobicize till we have buns of steel, the idea is to get moving. Once your body surrenders to movement, your soul remembers its dance."
Sweat Your Prayers

Drums Kept Going

"The drums kept going and so did I. I danced till I disappeared inside the dance, till there was nothing left of me but the rhythm of my breath. And in the rhythm of my breath I felt totally connected, body and soul. I finally realized what holy communion was all about.

"I entered another universe, shifted into a new dimension in which there were no boundaries; everything was energy and I was just a particle riding the universal wave."
Sweat Your Prayers

Tribal Individuals

"Underneath it all we are tribal individuals. We seek connection because we need to know we are not alone on this planet. A taxi driver once told me that no one in his African country gets on a bus without greeting every single person on it. It's unthinkable not to do so, not to honor a sense of something larger than a solitary self. We're not kites without strings — each of us is attached to something bigger than ourselves. We're all part of the same web, spun by the same mysterious spiderwoman."
Sweat Your Prayers

Boot Camp for Love

"Friendship is a boot camp for love. It's where we batter down the walls we've erected to protect ourselves from emotional betrayal and train ourselves to be open and vulnerable. Friendship is where we learn to track somebody else's emotions and create a safe environment for the other to express themselves. Friendship is where we face the brutal truth: mother lied. We are not the center of the universe."
Sweat Your Prayers

Reclaim Natural Instincts

"To reclaim our natural instincts for self-preservation and self-enhancement, the mind has to be liberated from the past and the future so it can be more fully present, spontaneous, magical, intuitive. You've got to know the past to erase it. And erasing the past erases the future, leaving space for something real to happen. Something new."
Maps to Ecstasy

Imagination

"Imagination is the force that pulls your physical, emotional, and mental energies into dynamic harmony, giving wings to your soul. When your imaginative life is rich and generative, you're in vital touch with the rhythms and messages of your body, heart, and mind. You're no longer saying "yes," feeling "no," and acting out "maybe." You're making art of your life, and the radiance of this creative living attracts others who want to live soulfully as well. We all have the capacity for creative integrity, whether we're shoemakers or ballerinas. You just have to determine to settle for nothing less than being fully alive — to show up, be who you are, and share your gifts."
Maps to Ecstasy

Five Realms

"Intuition is your passport to this unseen magical world, which . . . has five realms. In each of these realms you make an offering. Offer your body to the realm of mystery and receive the gift of instinct. Offer your heart to the realm of darkness and receive the gift of intimacy. Offer your mind to the realm of chaos and receive the gift of imagination. Offer your soul to the realm of unity and receive the gift of integrity. Offer your spirit to the realm of destiny and receive the gift of inspiration.

"Your challenge will be to keep a wary eye out for your ego, which wants to ensnare you in its own web of self-importance. In the realm of mystery, it will try to define you. In the realm of darkness, it will try to hide you. In the realm of chaos, it will try to diminish you. In the realm of unity, it will try to separate you. In the realm of destiny, it will try to sabotage you. The ego is all about controlling and fixing you so you aren't free to move, to change or to grow. To dance your dreams, you need to trust your intuition, for your intuition feeds your soul, and your soul is the most essential part of you."
Connections

To Sweat is to Pray

"To sweat is to pray, to make an offering of your innermost self. Sweat is holy water, prayer beads, pearls of liquid that release your past, anointing all your parts in a baptism of fire. Sweat burns karma, purifying body and soul.

"Sweat is an ancient and universal form of self-healing, whether done in the gym, the sauna, or the sweatlodge. I do it on the dance floor. The more you dance, the more you sweat. The more you sweat, the more you pray. The more you pray, the closer you come to ecstasy."
Sweat Your Prayers

Your Body

"Your body is the ground metaphor of your life, the expression of your existence. It is your Bible, your encyclopedia, your life story. Everything that happens to you is stored and reflected in your body. Your body knows, your body tells. The relationship of your self to your body is indivisible, inescapable, unavoidable."
Maps to Ecstasy

Moving Center

"All these energies [the five rhythms] come together in you. In your deepest center, you are the stillpoint. You are the rhythm beyond stillness, the feeling beyond compassion, the sexual energy beyond celibacy, the life force beyond death, the vibration beyond inspiration.
"The moving center is within you."
Maps to Ecstasy