Monday, September 4, 2006

September 2006

music movement magic

Much of the theory of Nia is explained in triangles, using three "pearls", such as the ones you see above, to describe the power inherent in Nia. As I walked by the river this morning, I shared with a friend what "music movement magic" means to me.

First, always, we begin with "music." We hear the music with our ears, drink it in to our skin through our pores. Our hearts and souls connect to the sounds, rhythms, melody, words, vibrations, tones and harmony and we begin the opening process of letting our bodies, minds, spirits and emotions be affected by something outside of us, something that has the power to change us, to transform us.

Enter the second piece of the triangle: movement. Connected to the music, we begin to interpret it through our movement. We give form, through the temple of our bodies, to sound. At first, we are simply copying our teacher's movements, but as we get more comfortable with the movements, we make them our own. We feel what feels good in our bodies and we do it, over and over.

And that is where the magic comes in. Allowing ourselves to be moved by the music, we are transported to a place of transformation, a place where thinking, ego mind is overriden. Fully in our bodies, with only the music as dance partner, we become intimate with that most deep place of ourselves, a place where we are open to memories of rain; to body rememberings of being five years old, swathed in a red cape; to hopes for our future that only we can envision.

In Nia, through the music, through our movement, and through the magic that is the nexus of the two, we move into conscious awareness. In conscious awareness, we are most alive, dancing closest to our core, expressing our truth. When we take this conscious awareness with us off the dance floor and into our lives, in Nia we say we are "dancing through life."

For September, I wish for all of us, "mmm...": music movement magic... dancing through life with Mother Nature as she paints the hills in their burnished gold autumn cloaks.