“Metamorphosis III”

     “Mine, mine, mine”

(fruit bat drinking orange juice.com)

—

METAMORPHOSIS III

Now a widow, Laura’s life took on different dimensions. The house was on the market, and she decided to travel. She thought of spelunking, exploring caves, climbing mountains.

Pouring over brochures, she heard a scratching sound. She unlatched the second story window and allowed Bart Batkowski to flutter in.

“I wish you would use the door like a normal person. You will draw attention this way.”

“Laura, do you forget what I am? Besides a co-conspirator in murder?”

Laura signed. Harold was dead, gone, Bart now sharing her bed. But it wasn’t the bed where the action happened. It was the damn closet and sex was gymnastic at best. Though Laura had known a transformation, it wasn’t complete. The angle of penetration was off. Bart would insist on hanging from his heels, and all attempts at necking gave Laura a stiff one; neck, that is.

Since Bart said his DNA required the closet hang, they compromised with a vertical 69 position. Bart would embrace her with his wings wrapped tightly around them, and Laura would get comfortable with her pubis level at Bart’s nose.

It was a strange mating, but when Bart snored it sent Laura to heaven.

 

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2010-2017

Teela Gets Her Groove Back, Part II

Today I taught the second class of the fall schedule. It was with two women, one new, one returning. I laid down the law: no tee shirts and sweat pants. They were to come to my class in appropriate attire, meaning long skirts, and BRAS~!.

You can’t do breast lifts without a bra. That would be lifting 10 lbs of lard (or less) by sheer will. A bra makes it so much easier because it corrals those girls and squeezes, getting their attention. Or something like that.

They did pretty well today. They came with at least a part of them looking like bellydancers. But what was good was an attitude shift in both of them. The returning student, we’ll call her Sala, picked up where we left off 5 months ago, but this time she really wanted to learn. Before she didn’t move much and I didn’t know how to reach her. You take belly dance lessons? You HAVE to move many parts of you. Otherwise, you are wasting your money and my time.

Who knows what happened, but she really will bloom now. Summer is over, she has a lovely tan, and her body is nice in anycase….with shapely arms. She is lovely to look at. And she wants to learn.

It’s nice when students have a natural beauty and they are discovering the ways to promote that beauty through movement.

Mala is a different case….she hasn’t had much dance, if any, and she doesn’t quite know what to do with her body. But what was interesting and touching to me….is how fast from the first lesson she learned something. I asked her if she had been practicing at home in the previous week, and she said no. But even though she hadn’t, there was progress in her present movements. She was much more confident and from that confidence, moved better. Plus, she had the most interesting tattoo of a lizard circling her belly button. I request my students get over their fear and loathing of their bellies and by pulling down their skirts,  expose that visual center of our particular dance. In doing just this simple thing, Mala started to look like a belly dancer.  I was amazed at the simple transformation. She was beautiful and will be a strong, commanding dancer.

Teaching these women is teaching me something about myself I didn’t expect. I am more patient, or at least more patient than I thought I would be. Perhaps having only two students in the room at a time allows me the possibilities of focusing on their movements in a more concentrated way.

And I didn’t realize how much I would care: care about how they did the movements, what they looked like, if they were pushing themselves to pain or discomfort. I also tried to gauge where they were mentally. You have to look behind the bold smiles to see if they ‘got it’….or were frustrated, or were in pain. Both have physical issues with shoulders and backs.  So you attend to these issues. Pain is the first thing that will drive a dancer away. Lack of encouragement is also up there. Every little step to invention and creativity should be applauded with sincerity. It’s damn hard to do these things, though I hold they are very natural for all women. It’s just that we don’t think they are.

I think we accept ‘messages’ about our bodies and our abilities that are restrictive and just plan wrong.

I’ve been thinking of my own journey as a dancer lately. I was thinking seriously of giving it up, but like a good friend in Ohio said: “You will never give it up, because it’s in your blood.”

It’s probably in my DNA. My mother was a ballet teacher for many, many years, and at 89 is still a teacher at times. It’s something that doesn’t leave you, because you have trained your body in ways of movement and presentation that just won’t quit. At almost 90, my mother strides into a room and every one notices her. She has a commanding presence and is usually wearing high black boots and a mini skirt. And she can pull it off, because she doesn’t move like an elderly woman. Her body is still awesome at her advanced age.

I was trained in ballet for a couple of years when I was very young, and with my mother, it was inevitable. But I developed boobs and that wasn’t good for a ballerina. Plus, I was more interested in horses, and one ballerina in the family was enough.

I did folk dancing and was a fencer for about 10 years, but that is a young man’s sport and I definitely wasn’t a young man.

A bit more than 5 years ago, something attracted me to belly dance. I plunged in with multiple classes weekly, and fell in love with flamenco. I was also very lucky to find a teacher, Aya Arsan, a Turkish woman who became my first and most influential teacher. I learned classical Turkish/Egyptian style from her, and because I was ½ Hungarian, she was starting to train me in Rom dance. (Behind every Hungarian stands a Turk!) Other local and regionally well known teachers followed: Shadia, Jenna, Samora, etc, and then last January up in cold Montreal, Audra Simmons.

I have written before about Audra. She was a gas. I learned more from her in one 4 hour intensive class than I had learned over the course of the previous year. I don’t know how to equate that, but Audra is one fantastic teacher and dancer. Inspirational.

Something clicked there for me, and I also learned more about arms than I had before. Something that was very missing from my training over the previous years. Watching Audra do an ‘arm dance’ to Sigur Ros (an Icelandic group)…the piece was “Ara batur” and was a transforming moment for me.

I came home with that piece of music in my head and the vision of Audra dancing to this in place. I started to use it in my classes with the few students I had over the winter/spring…..and today I tried to demonstrate it but the video wouldn’t come up. Damn. Next week, because I know what it will do for my students.

We all worked hard today, and I think we are all sore. I also now know that there may be only two students in the room with me, but there are three students to attend to. I have to be so damn careful what I demonstrate and I am pushed to do it properly because my students are bent on imitating  right now. Soon, they will come into their own, and I will just be positioning them, correcting and pushing the speed of what steps we are doing.  Adding layering.

Oh, layering!  They already have picked up that word and use it against me.  And they are right.  The issue of layering is too soon, but I am anxious to see them using more zones of their bodies. That will come in time.  I forget how I learned 5 years ago.

I outfitted them with veils and coin scarves because they are bellydancers now, and they are mine. Once they pass that portal of the first lesson, either they catch on fire, or they run away. These two are sticking it out so far, and it ain’t easy in the beginning. There are so many things to face: our bodies, our fear of failure, our energy levels, etc. But if we stick it out….we will start flying.

Belly dancing is one of the most transforming and energizing things a woman can do for herself. And many times the energy you gain here is not understood by others who aren’t dancers. You are opening channels in the mind and body that you never thought were there. They are, just waiting at any age, for you to plunge in and start to explore what can be done.

For now, all our missteps are just seeds for the future.

Teela

I’m going to raise something here for any further discussion…Next week sometime Part II on “Hyperarousal Trance…etc”

But…I found this piece of research so interesting that I wanted to include it in the Part 1 but I don’t think I did…so…

Elaine Smitha postulates this: “Perhaps junk DNA (90 +%???) contains all the secrets of the universe, including those unconscious potentials you have yet to discover.  Perhaps it’s this DNA that allows you to travel without your body into starry realms.  Maybe that is where you go in your dreams. (Ah! Doesn’t Jung talk about this??)  Quite possibly intuition, psychic powers, and remote viewing (non-local information gathering) fall into the realm of this amazing communication channel.  Perhaps with a relaxed mind, you can tap into the prime DNA alphabet soup for transport.  It’s absolutely fascinating to consider.”

OK…smotp explained just yesterday what ‘remote viewing’ was and I forgot it already.

But!  This will tie in (I hope) to other issues I want to write about…and hear from others mostly….like ‘subspace’, hypnosis, self-hypnosis, astral projection, auras…etc.

Later……..

Lady Nyo

Hyperarousal Trance, Belly Dance and Creativity…

PART 1

I have been asked to explain my experiences with Hyperarousal Trance and how it has effected my creativity as a dancer and a writer.

I can only attempt an answer because I am just becoming aware of ‘how it works’. I never really thought about it. It just seemed to appear when it was needed, whether I was conscious or not of it’s ‘need’.

Perhaps it would be better for me to start with an attempt to explain H.T. and why I started using it.

Two years ago I came across an article somewhere on the web about the ‘ayoub’ rhythm and the Zar trance dance in Egypt and parts of Africa. Being a belly dancer, I was interested and read as much about the Zar trance dance as I could. Actually there was not that much information at that time. Later there was more written.

I found there was a common element in this Zar dance, wherever it was utilized. It was this consistent 2/4 rhythm of the ‘ayoub’ or ayyoub (or zaar) rhythm.

It is hard for me to explain, but the dumbeks (the drums) used beat out this rhythm like this: Dum…tek!, Dum tek/Dum..tek!, Dum tek.

Sort of like a dotted quarter note on the first Dum…followed by an eighth note tek, but the next Dum tek is evenly beat.

Repeat until trance ensues.

And it does. Now, everything I write here will be contradicted, because it seems that each country where the Zar trance ritual is practiced has their own rhythms.  Some are particular to the demons entrenched within.

Oh, yes, the Zar ritual. I can’t make any assumptions here.

The Zar ritual is a healing exorcism used to shake up a demon residing in a woman. You don’t exactly evict a Zar (demon)….you give them new marching orders.

There are many issues about this, and I won’t go into them except to say that this is a highly controversial cultural issue and I for one, am remaining open to it all.

However, I will speak on my own experiences here with the Zaar rhythm (or ayoub). And I will try to link how this experience of listening closely to the ayoub rhythm changed points of creativity in my own life.

As much as I can understand this. I haven’t really closely examined it before, just took its presence in my life as natural. It is tied with my belly dancing, or perhaps it is more correct to say that I first became aware of the transforming and trance making behaviors of the ayoub rhythm in my belly dancing. I would find that I was going into a trance, and this was when I wasn’t attempting any set choreography.

Choreography seemed to interfere WITH the ability to fall into trance.

My belly dancing brings me into an altered state. This is very common to many dancers but I believe is disrupted when we are doing choreography. Set patterns, which we practice to take into ‘muscle memory’ still makes us conscious of our movements and somehow takes us out of the free-fall of trance.

The constant beat of the ayoub transforms consciousness. Somewhere I read it’s like a ‘horse’ that is carrying you inward and upward somehow. Perhaps the connection is a universal heartbeat, I don’t know really, but I do know ‘something’ happens to me. If it’s an altered state of consciousness, it has it’s reoccurring points: time disappears and something definitely shifts.

We do know through brain studies that there are many physical functions that are effected by Hyperarousal Trance. Blood pressure lowers, the heart beat slows, the body temperature changes. Now, I am not sure that this exactly applies to belly dancing, which can be quite vigorous. But rhythmic stimulation does change brain waves.

We also know that there are definite issues with Hyperarousal Trance in heightened endorphins, boosted immune system (even temporary) and accentuated energy…and an overall feeling of ‘high’ or ‘good’. These probably are no different than exercise highs. Another issue is that pain seems to be lessened with the trance state.

However, there is already a lot of evidence piling up that shows the brain issues (waves, etc) are different in H.T. than in hypnosis, or self-hypnosis. It’s a deeper effect on the brain in some way than these above.

I do find that listening to the ayoub rhythm beat out on drums or picked up in the background of music, effects me fast. I also drum on dumbeks, and this practice has allowed me to access the trance as much as listening or dancing does.

Somewhere I read that “Theta” brainwaves is the ‘set’ of Hyperarousal Trance, but I am still investigating this.

However, recently I did come across this: Theta waves occur most often in deep sleep, but are also dominant in the deepest state of meditation (body asleep/mind awake). The best place for deep thought is in this Theta realm. In Theta, we withdraw from the external and focus on a deep internal landscape. It’s basically a twilight state. Theta is a waking dream, vivid imagery is there and we can access it because it is before us in the mind. We are receptive to information beyond what we would be in a ‘normal’ state. Theta is the gateway to learning and memory. As Dr. J.J. Harper says in “Tranceformers: Shamans of the 21^th century”, Theta meditation increases creativity, learning, reduces stress and awakens intuition.

I can concur with this because there is something that happens when I am in a trance- like state, and this is accessed by what I have come to recognize  from the ayoub rhythm.

This entry is a work in progress. I have other things to say about Hyperarousal Trance, specifically to it’s relationship to subspace (another altered space) hypnosis, etc.

Generally the issue for me is creativity. I have realized over the past two years that H.T. is somehow very much bound up in my ability to ‘tap into’ different cultural issues, and to write about them. It seems that research is much smoother, easier and the writing, when I place myself in H.T. flows to where things reveal themselves and blossom.

At times, and these are not as rare as they would seem, I can access this trance almost without effort. That is a good day of activities, and especially writing. I think this is not rare amongst writers, either. I do know that my ability to concentrate and focus has allowed me to produce 4 novels, many poems, short stories, etc in the last two years alone. I am an American woman, and write about Japanese 16^th century culture, 6^th century Berber culture, modern Turkish culture and Celtic culture in my books. I have no background in any research, but these things become easy and unfold in different forms when I write. I can only attribute this to the background music and beat of the ayoub and other rhythms.

Something is happening in the brain here, and I for one am very grateful.

I am researching DNA and mysticism and have come across writings were it is proposed that everyone is capable of psychic powers, heightened intuition, clairvoyance, etc. Perhaps with a relaxed and then again…directed mind, you can tap into the prime DNA alphabet soup for transport into a heightened highway of the mind and the cosmos.

Anything is possible out there…and in here.

Lady Nyo