JourneyDance Philosophy
MOVEMENT AS SPIRITUAL PRACTICE
RITUAL - Ritual makes magic.
Ritual is as simple as setting an intention and can be as complex as a staged performance. Opening with a simple circle, we create ritual space. We focus our intentions, we open our bodies and our hearts to Source’s mystery, and connect through sound. Throughout the dance, mini-rituals are created with imagination: building a shamanic fire, embodying our power animal, or diving into the ocean of emotion. Ritual allows us freedom to explore and express ourselves, and helps the mind to believe. Outside of ritual space, we see ourselves as transformed, physically, emotionally, energetically, and spiritually.
IMAGERY - Images and creative visualization take us on a journey.
By giving specific sensual images as we move, we find ourselves transported into the present moment, into our bodies, and into sensual and spiritual worlds. Images give the mind a focus, freeing the body to find its expression and soul to travel. We use a combination of paradigms: the chakra system, the elements of earth, water, fire, air and spirit, and the JourneyDance™ flow. Some examples of images might be: undulating as a snake or cat, rolling in mud, bathing in golden honey, moving like seaweed or an ocean wave, being warriors or goddesses, etc. We use creative visualizations to make JourneyDance accessible to the broadest range of people.
MUSIC - Music and sound inspire our bodies and energy.
The music is the key to opening the doorway of impulse, imagination, creativity, and healing. Music has the power to change our states, moods, and levels of consciousness. We weave selections of evocative world and popular music to stimulate various states of being, feeling, and moving for the body and soul. With musical guidance alone, we can become diverse characters such as warriors, gypsies, sensual lovers, or angels. Music encourages us to clap our hands, sing out, cry, move, or dance. We, as energy, respond to vibration, drums, melody, rhythm, and sensation. Music inspires movement from our very core.
CREATIVITY - Creativity is the expression of soul.
Imagination is a gateway to creating the life we want. During the dance, we have the opportunity to visualize the life we want while moving and “buzzing positively,” bypassing the mind's role of questioning, doubting, and negating. We dance to manifest our own dreams and desires. The freedom to dance from within and dance with others in improvisational ways awakens the force of creativity and power in all of us.
AFFIRMATION - Affirmations align us with our highest self.
The power of positive thinking has reached critical proportions in the New Age philosophy as well as mainstream thinking. It has been proven that our thoughts are powerful; they create our reality, influence healing, change our body, and affect our emotional well-being. Dancing lifts our spirit and energy. When feeling good, we affirm our lives and ourselves, and we amplify our desired manifestations. Affirmations uplift us from our dark moods, help to make us aware of and transform any negative self-talk. In JourneyDance, we use the power of movement, our bodies natural cleansing through sweat, the rise in endorphins from exertion, and vocalizing affirmations to raise our consciousness and our vibration. We speak and chant our affirmations to teach our cells new ways of being. We take time to affirm our self-image, our self-esteem, our hearts, our creativity, and our connection with Spirit.