ALTAR ego - an invitation for heARTwork through movement expression

Processing process | Keywords: METABOLIC - relating to or deriving from the metabolism of a living organism = YOU Metabolism - The chemical changes that take place in a cell or an organism = BREATHING Bolic - This suffix, in the context of metabolism, generally refers to the processes of transforming substances within the body = CREATING Altar - place for an offering. YOU are the offering. We are the offering. Our stories, our lives, experiences, our physical bodies and what is stored inside of them. Alter - change or cause change in structure or composition.

Reflections: A dance is an offering, a prayer. When was the last time you danced? what is your relationship to movement? For yourself, for pleasure, for the land, with others, with the water? Tune into your heart, how do you listen to it? When was the last time you FELT heartbreak? When do you know you are in eye / (i) linement? intention, intuition, integrity - how often do you compromise those parts of you? Tune in to your heart again, how do you silence it? When was the last time you experienced anger? I’ve been spending time with my alta(e)r ego(s), with/in my rituals of movement, my medicine for big feelings. Writing, wrestling, wailing, waving, wading..

I learned when I was younger that the only way I knew how to get through these big emotions was to move through them, to sweat them out, or feel them- to notice where they lived in my body. I didn’t know I was doing somatic work until there was a name, and a non-profit, and a for profit, and a degree and all these different things that validated what I already intuitively knew.

Emotions are energy stored in the body, and how powerful are we allI when we have the capacity to move with those feelings! I discovered my reflection at the age of 5 in the glass of our china cabinet as I distorted my face and made what my sister called, demonic expressions that transformed my personality. I became something else. I had an alter ego. I began to dance with her and I learned she was fierce and scary and funny and so many things I, regular old me, was not all the time; These egos allowed me the freedom to play.