Here is the music from the dance on 5/18/07

Warm up

1. Sat Kartar - Ong Namo/Sat Kartar (10:21)
2. Sat Kartar - Ung Sung Wahe Guru (7:26)
3. Kate Bush - Nocturn (8:34)
4. Sat Kartar - Guru Ram Das Chant (8:25)
5. Kate Bush - Aerial Tal (1:01)
6. Kate Bush - Sunset (5:58)
7. Kate Bush - An Architect's Dream (4:50)
8. Krishna Das - Mountain Chalisa (9:54)

Dance

1. Flowing (0:04)
2. Kate Bush - Mrs. Bartolozzi (5:59)
3. Madonna - To Have And Not To Hold (5:22)
4. Staccato (0:05)
5. Madonna - Ray Of Light (5:20)
6. Ganga Giri - In the Jungle (5:16)
7. Ganga Giri - Carawonga (5:46)
8. Chaos (0:04)
9. Marilyn Manson - The Beautiful People (3:39)
10. Jason Hann - Omoroji (4:57)
11. Marilyn Manson - Kinderfeld (4:51)
12. Lyrical (0:04)
13. Loreena McKennitt - Never-Ending Road (Amhrán Duit) (6:00)
14. Various Artists - Rachel Z. - Tears 4 Your Love (4:52)
15. Stillness (0:08)
16. Various Artists - Mark Billman - The Real Jewel (5:26)
17. Sat Kartar - Guru Ram Das Chant (8:25)

This entry was posted on June 8, 2007 at 9:54 AM and has received 873 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

I am giving some workshops at FSG.
http://www.free-spirit.org/Festival/ClassesAllAges.html

Getting Real: Practicing Honesty in Relationships
"Presence is what makes you radiantly alive, confident, and attractive. The key to presence is honesty."

Getting Real teaches truth skills that make honest communication safer and more fun. Most people are afraid to be totally honest. They fear damaging the relationship, creating a hassle, or hurting someone's feelings. But when you learn to put your attention on your own here-now experience rather than worrying about the outcome, you discover the real source of personal power and self-trust. We all participate in speaking honesty and noticing how language affects how we communicate. There will also be some fun exercises including playing an honesty game. We will explore: * What practices are available to support my living in my here-now experience instead of in my beliefs, judgments, and shoulds? * The difference between my senses and my mind. * How we can express anger and sadness without trying to control the other person. * How we can transparently label our intent.

Improv Play
Do you want to be more playful? Would you like to think more on your feet? Would you like to get over your fear of making mistakes? This is a hands-on workshop and it will be a lot of fun! Improv is entertaining, energetic, and exciting. Improv is always different. If you find repetitive tasks dull, this is for you! Expect your confidence to increase, virtually all players improve on assertiveness, and creativity and problem solving are increased, as is public speaking, poise, and skill. We will learn the basic principles of improv and then create a improv play together.

This entry was posted on June 2, 2007 at 12:29 AM and has received 542 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Are you friends with Silence? Or do you put her away like a person you dislike or are slightly afraid of? When
she comes to visit you and a group of friends do you let her in and greet her or do you make chatter to fill the void. Silence brings the gift of not knowing, of the void. Silence can connect us with spirit.

Silence Quiz (page 182 of Getting Real) Rate yourself: 1= not true, 5 = always true
1. I often finish people's sentences for them (or at least I feel like doing it)
2. I find it frustrating when someone takes a long time to make his point.
3. If someone asks me a questions, I usually answer it right away, without much reflection.
4. If I ask someone a questions, I like her to answer it right away and not leave me hanging.
5. I sometimes ask a question and then answer it myself without giving the other a chance to reply.
6. I find it hard to tolerate ambiguity, uncertainty or being in limbo.
7. When I am around the house alone, I often keep radio, television or music playing in the background.
8 I like to keep busy (or, even if I don't think I like it, I usually am busy).

Ideas on bringing more quiet time into our lives at:
http://www.lightworks.com/MonthlyAspectarian/2003/December/feature4.htm

This week we will practice Silence in conversation. See Getting Real Chapter 11, page 179+

This entry was posted on May 14, 2007 at 4:22 PM and has received 1634 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

In the two weeks since Beltane Spring has fully arrived! The trees are green, flower are open the nights are warmer. I have put the pot plants from my living room outside to enjoy the coming summer. And weeds are growing like crazy in my garden too! So I pull them up. And they grow again from other weed seeds that lie in the ground. Sort of like busy or anxious thoughts that can grow in my head. So I practice weeding of my thoughts - through meditation, exercise and deliberating slowing down at times during the week. One of these times is the Sandbox Wednesday gathering. A time to connect with others on a deeper level than much of every day life provides. To share preparing the space and dinner. A time to play with others, to hug, perhaps to deeply listen to what someone is saying below the surface and to be deeply listened to.

This week I deliberate don't offer a planned activity or mini workshop at the gathering. So that in this fallow ground beautiful flowers may bloom of their own in the space we all create.

This entry was posted on May 12, 2007 at 7:06 PM and has received 566 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Do you hold on to stuck emotions in your body? Do you enjoy moving freely, uninhibited, to the sound of primitive rhythms? Do you want to go on a shamanic journey with others in a sacred space? Trance Dancing is easy to learn and releases stuck emotions from both mind and body. Plus it is fun to do! The focus is on connecting with self and spirit, not on how well you “perform”. To facilitate this we will dance in a darkened space. Join us as we dance to the five rhythms of the feminine, masculine, chaos, integrated and stillness. Dancing to stillness? How can that be? – find out at the dance! To help people get into the trance there will be no talking at this event once we start dancing. Wear fun clothes or bring scarves or to dance with.
Bring water to drink.

This dance is open to all (no dancing experience required). I will be facilitating the dance.

Suggested donation $20 (sliding scale for those in need - if you can only afford less then pay less)

- Michael/Michelle

PS Note that the June dance will be 6/15 and not 6/22 as previously announced. Jim Guzel will be leading that dance as I will be away at Free Spirit Gathering. We are scheduling future dances for the third Friday of the month.

Friday, 

Note new location in downtown Bethesda - hopefully easier for folks to get to and more space that my house has!

Location:

Washington School Photography
4850 Rugby Ave
Bethesda, MD 20814

Directions at
http://abundantmichael.com/blog/page.cfm/Directions-to-Washington-School-Photography

Thanks to Jim Guzel for providing this location!

This entry was posted on May 12, 2007 at 6:51 PM and has received 954 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

We will be playing with paint this Saturday at my house in Rockville MD
It will be fun. You don't need any experience in painting - just show up and
be prepared to experiment! The last time was a lot of fun!

 * What is Free the Artist Within?

I like to paint and write poems. I don't seem to get around to it
often. This group is for people who want to create art of some form or
another but who have some internal blocks to doing it regularly.

For more information see Free The Artist Within.

Cost: $10.

See Directions

This entry was posted on May 8, 2007 at 11:58 AM and has received 1041 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

It's not unusual for an artist, whether an amateur or a professional, to have ups and downs in their creativity. Suffering from a creative drought, or artist's block, does not mean you're losing your artistic ability. Here are some tips to help:

http://painting.about.com/cs/inspiration/a/artistsblock2.htm

I will add coming to Free the Artist Within can help too!

This entry was posted on May 8, 2007 at 11:52 AM and has received 1134 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

I went to Artomatic on Friday 5/4/07 for the Meet the Artists night. It was a great experience - so much art, music, interesting people to meet. And it is all free (though donations are accepted) and near the metro and I-395 freeway. If you like to drink wine with your art they have a bar. You can also buy pieces that you like. This is not your normal artshow - Artomatic is open to all artists to exhibit at (well at least all ones with the $75 exhibit fee and 15 hours of volunteer time available to help run the event) so you get to see a much wider range of art that you would at a museum or gallery.  There are 600 area artists and performers in 90,000 square feet of space that used to be a US Patent Office building. Some artists decorated the walls and space as well as hanging pictures, photos and sculpture. There is also poetry, film, pottery, music and dance in different rooms.

The event runs every day except Mondays from noon to 10pm or 1am depending on the day. It closes in two weeks on 5/20/07 and normally the event is only every two years. Don't miss out!

Artomatic opens on Friday.  It's located at 2121 Crystal Drive, 6th & 8th floors. 
To learn more about Artomatic, visit http://www.artomatic.org. 
There's great art, music, films & more!

You can take the Metro to Crystal City and then walk underground through
the shops and exit after you pass McDonalds.

This entry was posted on May 7, 2007 at 1:39 PM and has received 1102 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

With the spider card, the octopus (kind of like a spider) and the spider bites I was getting in my bed last week I think there is a spider totem in my life right now. I looked up spider totem in my book and it says that it is

A spider totem teaches you balance --
between past and future, physical and spirit,
male and female.
She is strength and gentleness combined.
She awakens creative sensibilities
and reminds you that the past is always interwoven
with the future.
 
Tarantulas (and all spiders) are the keepers of the primordial alphabet
and can teach you how to write creatively.
Her body is shaped like the number 8 and she has 8 legs,
which is symbol of infinite possibilities of creation.
Her 8 legs represent the 4 winds of change and the 4 directions of the medicine wheel.

Spider's message is that you are an infinite being who will continue
to weave patterns of life and living throughout time.
Do not fail to see the eternal plan of creation.

Those who weave magic with the written word usually have this totem.

From  http://www.linsdomain.com/totems/pages/tarantula.htm
---
So I am contemplating this. A name for my new business that combines Spiral Dynamics with Web technology, honesty and Whole Brain came to me:
  Spiral Web.
Not sure if that is my final name but I wanted to share with you. Relates to spider spinning a web. And the infinitity of creativity. oo that is the void too.

Also the mystery letters on my posterboard (structure of my emergence) fit in with the primordial alphabet stuff above.

This entry was posted on May 7, 2007 at 1:37 PM and has received 1174 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

I will be hosting trance dances on Friday 5/18/07 and Friday 6/15/07. Location TBA but will either be Rockville or Bethesda.

This entry was posted on May 4, 2007 at 5:36 PM and has received 828 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.