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dance (5)

Earth Dance: Maureen Freehill with Fuji Stick & Stones

Posted by Pushkara Sally Ashford on March 20, 2010 at 7:28am

3/18/10

Fuji Stick & Stones











Yesterday I received a transmission from Mick Dodge the "Barefoot Sense Say" about training and connecting with sticks and stones. He then graciously gave me an object that brought tears of gratitude and joy to my eyes as he encouraged me to begin to practice with it. The object is a walking stick that was carried by foot up Mount
Fuji. It was branded at each station on the way up to remember the journey (see video of entire stick below). Today's daily dance lasted at least 20
minutes, so this 5 min edited version is longer than the usual film but I wanted to give a sense of the energy that builds through this kind of
training. It feels so inspiring and effortless to keep lifting, moving and building strength. Because I am working outdoors with natural
materials I also gather energetic support of surrounding elements and living things as well as the Earth itself; especially when I am barefooted. I am really so excited to be moving toward a new and unexpected level of strength, flexibility and balance by including these new practices in my daily butoh training. Thanks again Mick!

Recently I heard of research stating that being barefoot and "earthing," in footwear that is not rubberized like skin moccasins or felt bottomed shoes, tends to neutralize the harmful effects of all the EMFs from electronic equipment we are
inundated with these days (cell phones, computers, electric appliances, etc.). This, added to the building craze (even in Harvard research now) that recognizes the benefits of barefoot running and exercise for the body, are making being barefoot (or in footwear that is nearly bare) more and more appealing. Since I lived many years in Japan and Hawaii, I already take my shoes offindoors. Now, being around Mick and the springtime is reminding me of this regularly, so I am being shoe free outdoors more and more often these days....Hooray!

As you probably know if you follow the blog, I tend to be a very free form mover and definitely believe in letting the soul move first and the body follow. Actually, this is some of the most soulful and freeing body strength training I have
experienced; even considering the very rigorous body training I have done with Jingju Bejing Opera, Body Weather and other butoh teachers.
Mick's transmission with metal, stone and wood objects was to create a pattern and repeat it then release it--literally let the object fly out
of your control. That is powerful really, the body knows and grows from this type of patterned movement repetition as we well know because we
learn to crawl, walk, run, etc. Of course this is also old news to the folks who lift weights in gymnasiums but it is totally different practicing reps with Mick. He invites you to freely choose the movement pattern then repeat it a few times till it is well established in your body and finally release the object (rock, stone, stick, etc.) you are moving with and open to even more freedom than before. Suddenly because of the contrast, you feel lighter and freer than before you did the lifting. If you love something set it free! He calls the training items "mass" rather than "weights" because he feels each different material has a totally different lesson to teach and way of moving. I totally
agreed and felt huge difference immediately with how I was moved by metal balls, the carved stones, the wooden sticks and the stones that
were not carved. Many people who train with weight believe; the higher number of pounds that you can lift up means the stronger you are. I now
experience and agree that the measurable weight alone can not determine how strong you will get. The various materials, how close or far and
with what (hands, feet, mouth, etc) you hold them in relation to your body; the directions you move; and so much more each contribute to overall fitness.

And as for that stick gifted from Mick and Fuji San...WoW. I am very humbled, grateful and inspired by it. I read this article and saw these pics from a climb by blogger Andy Gray
and it has me even more grateful. I hope my practice with this stick can
do the gift justice. Thank you all.

Thanks for watching. Enjoy!
videomusic: Ustad Ali Akbar Khan
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Momo Butoh, Maureen Freehill, meets Barefoot Bard, Mick Dodge

Posted by Pushkara Sally Ashford on March 20, 2010 at 7:46am

3/16/10

Barefoot Barding








Yesterday I wrote about the joy of doing your true calling and what you most love as a profession. The Barefoot Bard, Mick Dodge, graced my yard and home with his presence today and began to share some Earth Gym training tips. He is a truly
inspiring example of someone living his dream and walking his talk. One need only spend a short time with him to feel the practical brilliance he carries and shares so freely. He brought over one of his favorite old growth forest sticks and swinging stones in the elk skin bags and invited me to try dancing with them. It was SUPER FUN and really anamazing full body training in resonance with the land. He also really is inspired by butoh, my daily practice and dance.

We are scheming some very exciting new and great collaborations--so stay tuned for many announcements and new training films soon to come.

He sent me the message below after our session and when I read it I felt it said everything I wanted to share about today's dance and more, so he is the first MomoButoh guest writer/bard to appear in this blog. Hope there will be more great guest contributions like this to come.

Yoish!
Thank you for sharing food and foot. It was a good day and good sharing for me.

I have been on foot for a long time stealing shoes and reminding soles to foot the dance of the land and remember their primal (prime animal) inheritance by stepping out of the "defeeted" stride of domestication and follow their naked soles into wildings of the land.

Engaging a "Animist" like you shifts me into a relaxing form, a rhythm of thanks, shifts me into sitting with the fire and breathe "as" wind. Understand that you inspire the desire to move, your practice and presentation, your present to the land, your
gesturing of the wilding sings the calling of the land and flames the desire to move. I saw the wind rise.

So why sit? Because it is rare and so wonderful to share with the fire what i witnessed.

Dance "with" the fire, until you dance "as" the fire, is a mantra i was taught while in my cave in the Misty Mountains on the Island of River (the olympics).
I had built a fire in my cave and began to train in the movement forms that i had been trained in, fighting. Shadow boxing, throwing punches, kicks, fighting with my shadow on the cave wall. But the fire would distort my moves, weave them into other fluid forms, and so i began to move as those shadows. It was at this time, after years and years of
training as a fighter, and training others that i realized that i
never liked fighting. What i liked, what i was craving, what i desired was the dance. So i expanded my movement, turned into the fire and filled my wind with the words, "Teach Me!. I accepted the fire as my teacher and began to follow my feet in tracking it's source.

I carried this practice out into the gravel bars, would build a circle of stone, and wait for the sun to rise and begin dancing in the circle, moving as a coal, build into a flame, learning to balance my fire, my desire. I would stay in this cirlce of stone as the flame, as the desire, from sunrise to the sun setting beyond the edge of the land. I realized that the solar fire, was released through the wood of a fire, the wood, trees releasing it's flow. The fire and trees taught me how to craft and cultivate my internal desire. How to place a goal on the desire, as i placed coals on the fire, and use my wind to release the wilding.

So i sat last night at the fire, did not dance. I sat and honored and gave thanks for engaging you on this path, reflected upon your path and dance, and gave thanks for your footing of the land.

Dance As Fire,
Run As Wind,
Embrance the Stone,
Flow as the Water within,
Train in these four ways while in your naked feet,
And with your Touch wide open,
With your heart wide open,
With your soul wide open,
the earth will teach!

Barefoot Bard's Earth Gym Poem spoken with Mick Dodge, danced by Momo to music by Muzikas.
See video: http://maureenfreehill.blogspot.com/
"Stick and Stones" Duet with Mick Dodge & Momo to music by Calexico
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"Trees and Memories," Benefit for Trillium, Whidbey-Camano Land Trust purchase

Posted by Pushkara Sally Ashford on May 13, 2010 at 4:30am

Thanks For TREES & MEMORIES, a blog post by Maureen Freehill







This was an evening to remember always; a day of great challenge, adventure and triumph for all participants and patrons at the "For TREES & MEMORIES" gala benefit and MomoButoh Dance Company. We gathered to raise funds and awareness for Whidbey Camano Land Trust's effort to purchase and save from 664 acres of Whidbey's last contiguous forest land forever. We raised just shy of 4K, just about 1% of what is needed to buy it. It feels great to have gathered with such a strong positive energy and intention for highest good and give it our all in the face of some very challenging circumstances.

I had to do the majority of the cleaning and preparation of this wood mill on my own (many thanks to my mom and student Evan who helped!). The sound guy cancelled a day before, the video guy got the flu and could not do it. The dressing room just about killed us; we had nearly no time left for rehearsal and some performers
decided to make directorial decisions at the last minute adding a touch of spicy chaos to an already interesting techno soup. More audience members showed up than expected and they all participated with such enthusiasm and respect. The abundant and delicious food & drink were prepared and served with such care and generosity by my mother and her partner.

The SingPeace! folks with Pushkara, Laurence Cole and Mick Dodge, along with Harmonica Pocket's Keeth Apgar and Nala Walla, gathered and built our community spirit by giving birth to new songs to honor the trees under the blue sky before we entered the hall. Dennis Zimmerman the DJ showed up at the last minute to save the day and was amazing at jockeying both the sound and film projection as it illuminated all over the wood filled hall, even though he had never been a VJ before. Wow! Christine Tasseff helped with much needed equipment and took up the task of documenting the event on video. Here are some of the results to give you a little peek into highlights of the festivities.

The most amazing thing for me was the Live Edge Woodworks space itself donated by Kim Hoelting and adorned by Deborah Koff-Chapin's drawings that surrounded us in wooden slabs and magical images inspired by the trees and forests. We were all reminded of how the trees are not only important for our physical survival but also to nourish our souls.

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Gifts of Grand Mother Maple

Posted by Pushkara Sally Ashford on April 7, 2010 at 3:00pm

4/7/10


Gifts of Grand Mother Maple




















In late March I gathered with Mick Dodge, Pushkara Sally Ashford & her son, David, for a singing celebration just before her maiden off-island voyage of the new SingPeace Gypsy Wagon.

There is an immense grandmother maple tree in Pushkara's front yard that
I was immediately drawn to dance with. Mick filmed and pointed out a
huge dead branch hanging on its last limb over our heads. Mick was
musing happily for the day when "Maple would gift this beautiful staff
in her own time."

Well, with last Friday's crazy wind storm, the time came and Mick salvaged the limb and began fashioning staffs, including one for me. When I went to visit him today, I was feeling cold, stiff and in need of motion and building heat. He started a fire in his tent wood stove exclaiming how much he loved "freeing and receiving the gifts of sunshine, wind and rain from the burning wood."

As I listened to his orally transmitted teachings, I began a daily dance to
explore and train with the gifts of grandmother maple's staff and the
fire's heat. I had never so consciously attended to receiving the
elemental gifts of heat & light from the stored energy of the sun as
they were released though wood burning. My body and soul were warmed by
the physical heat as well as the living poetic story of it all. I felt
my connected place in a larger context and community of all life. Mick
showed a manuscript from his friend's book-in-progress about how
changing our bodies can change the world. He told me that he never
trusts the written word or "talk" of an author till he can see the life
and "walk" that s/he lives. I was honored that he continued to say my
blog writing worked well for him because he sees that it arises from the
way I LIVE and share directly from this embodied experience and not
from disembodied LOGOS--intellect, logic and rational ideas from the
thinking mind alone.

In the film below, you can listen to some of the teaching he delivered in the
way he prefers-- directly, spontaneously and orally. He is also
sometimes called "the barefoot bard" because he naturally exudes and
transmits poetic expression of his inner life and wisdom derived from
decades of practice and experience of inner and outer wilderness
landscapes. I am grateful for our growing collaboration, understanding
and support of one another's gifts and intentions to walk our talk
because this path can be a challenging and sometimes isolated one.

I look forward to seeing the carved maple wood staff emerging as an empowered
object over time and practice with it. Much as indigenous people have
done for ages with their sacred tools, this training object will contain
and reflect the lessons and gifts I receive while working with it and
eventually it will be passed on to the next generation full of this
wisdom. There is a clear grace and rightness to this natural progression
of passing on gifts.This practice has been lost in much of our modern
social life and education if we forget to honor elders and ancestors for
their profound contributions-we are literally living extensions and
transmissions of them. I hope I can continue to remember and receive
inspiration from grandmother maple, Sense Say Mick, Kazoo Ohno, and all
my relations that have truly walked their talk before me.


The theme sentence of the upcoming event sponsored by MomoButoh Dance
Company and LiveEdge Woodworks
upcoming event is "Ask not what the trees can do for you, but...." You are not what you think say or do...you are the sum total of your actions, ideas and words that come TRUE. What are YOU doing for the trees? If you are going to be anywhere near S. Whidbey Island on Friday May 7 do not miss the amazing benefit for Whidbey Camano Land Trust's Trillium Land Purchase at Woodland Hall. Contact Momo TODAY --entry by reservation only through MomoButoh info at maureenfreehill dot net!


video video

music: rachels

Try viewing the videos from: http://maureenfreehill.blogspot.com/
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We're on our way! Momo butoh dances to SingPeace! at the gypsy wagon

Posted by Pushkara Sally Ashford on March 21, 2010 at 5:30am

3/19/10

Sing Peace!






I believe that each and every one of us has a special calling and a unique role to play in this great emerging world. We will know it by our great desire and joy with embodying it. Some are brave and strong enough to answer this call with great passion and dedication. Dear Pushkara Sally Ashford is one of those people; a singing grandmother who wants nothing more than to make Peace on Earth a reality for her progeny and many generations to come. She is called to spread peace is through a pilgrimage of song, dance, communal gatherings and celebration in and around a beautiful hand made gypsy wagon that she designed to become a center-peace for SingPEACE gatherings and events in the Northwest and beyond.

This afternoon Pushkara; her son Dave visiting from Woodstock, NY; Mick Dodge the Barefoot Sense Say; Charlie the dog and I gathered to make song, dance and film at her new gypsy wagon. It is an exquisite work of art and so inspiring in the late afternoon sunlight at her home overlooking Puget Sound and Mt. Tahoma to the south. The wagon is parked next to a great grandmother Big Leaf Maple with a Buddha face peering out of its side. Below the tree is the grave of Pushkara's beloved dog, Miwa. It is truly a place of peace and
grace that I felt honored to dance upon. We began with the song "I'm On My Way" from the back of the wagon. This seemed so appropriate because
we all are pilgrims on our respective paths moving on our way toward Peace and Global Harmony. When asked what she would like to happen with
this pilgrimage she said she would like to encourage those she meets to find their own sources and stories of peace. Mick had brought out a number of his hand crafted staffs and training items and I danced with them while Pushkara sang, Uncle Dave drummed and Mick filmed and interviewed us. Such a joyous & peaceful way to celebrate this last day of winter together!

I will add another daily dance film we made with the grandmother maple tree to this post soon. For now I just want to get this first one out into the world asap because Pushkara & Co. are heading to a big peace rally in Seattle and an event with Congressman Jim Mcdermott at Town Hall in honor of her mother's lifetime of activism on Sunday 3/21...This is the maiden voyage for the SingPeace wagon to the big city. I wish them all the best and hope I can join them the next time round. For me, Sunday will be an Equinox celebration of pole dancing--to hopefully finish stripping thelast 11 poles for the new tipi.

What is your calling? What are inspiring sources and stories of Peace and Harmony in your life? Are dance, song, craft, beauty, travel and creative collaboration sources for peace in your life?

Thanks for watching. Enjoy!
video


Posted by momo

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