Public Animas Ceremony Part 4b: Trust Your People: The Choreographer

Continued lessons from the Public Animas Ceremony: An Invitation to Passion.

"Dub" on the Water. Our choreographer & mentor.
Photo credit: uncertain.

If The Vision is true, it will find the right people. Trust them.

Trust them. This is a story about taking risks, trusting The Vision & trusting others to understand & respect The Vision.

Our troupe, Resh K'eljesh has been studying for over a year with a talented instructor who sometimes we refer to as JW & other times we simply call her Dub. She has been dancing for about a decade now, specializing primarily in Modern Egyptian & Cabaret with some fusion (Gypsy, Orientale, Turkish) influences. Some of us study other styles of belly dance with various instructors, but JW holds our hearts in her hands. She is, in our eyes, the embodiment of juicy, flowing Beauty -- & while she can fool you into believing she is really a swan or an antelope, she can swear like a sailor & will tell you when you're looking like crap & that keeps her real, grounded & approachable.

And we Love her.

But there is a natural hesitation to throw full spotlights on one's unconventional spiritual practices & while I personally had made it clear to JW that at least two of us were dancing for "spiritual" reasons, the bigger picture had never been brought to the table -- that being that one of our goals as a troupe was to provide devotional dances or, dancing-as-offering for our own practices & for the greater community. So when The Vision started to congeal & became certain, song-in-hand (so to speak) we had to give it up to the Dub.

And in a major leap of faith, we showed her the bad sketches & the site layouts & explained the Officiants & the offerings & the fire... & we played her the song...

And she stood in the living room, listening intently to the narration in the beginning of the song,

The Soul,
like the Moon,
is new,
and new again.

And I've seen the ocean, 
continuously creating,
since I scoured my mind,
since I scoured my body.

I too Lalla,
am new,
new again.

My teacher,
told me one thing:
"Live in the Soul."

And when that was so, 
I began to get naked,
and dance.


And when the music rushed in she sprang forth, whirling across the room, prancing & flowing, excitedly talking all the while about the rhythm & the fire & what the music was telling her...

The choreographer: JW.
Photo credit: uncertain.

And we all sat, perhaps a little dumbly, in awe of this phoenix tearing across the carpet. Would she catch something on fire?

If you spend a good amount of time among artists (or scientists -- I've mentioned this before) you probably have witnessed the transformation that occurs when a creative human becomes energized by an idea, overcome by a Muse. It is a personal alchemy in the alembic of their mind, heart, spirit-being. It is the experience of personal epiphany & creative electrification. When people enter this "place" (for lack of a better word) they actually appear different -- this is a full-being transmutation.

Then, at one point I recall her saying something like, "...and the offerings, they are special, precious, they are sacred and they need to be presented to the fire as such, perhaps like this..." as she leaned forward in her sinuous way, to pour invisible libations toward the imaginary fire in the centre of the room.

And wide-eyed, we all exchanged glances.

When she left, we were all still settled on the floor like a herd resting in the heat of midday. We exchanged glances & one of us hissed in an excited whisper, "She GETS IT!" Then, gasps & muffled squeals for the risk of trusting another with The Vision had completely & utterly paid off.

And Dub was & still is the right person, despite the challenge of distance & travel, she gives us tools to figure things out on our own when she cannot be with us & for that, we are perennially grateful, thankful.

Thank you JW. Thank you. 


If The Vision is true, it will find the right people. Trust them.

Really Trust Them.



To listen to our Animas Ceremony track, "Lalla's Ecstasy," in its entirety, use the player below. If you like it, please consider purchasing the track & support great independent artists. Visit the Shaman's Dream Music Collective/World Groove Ensemble Bandcamp Shamans Dream Compilation or the Craig Kohland/Shaman's Dream website.