One of my teachers used to say “Enlightenment is like a light bulb. A light bulb blinks light dark light dark so fast we only see the light. That’s what it feels like on the inside- equal parts of dark and light.”

Navigating life requires knowing how to enter darker, low energy periods. The question is how to include and move with low energy states and still sync up with lightness? Winter rituals are all about this.

St. John of the Cross knew about the dark. He said, “In the lucky dark no light to guide, except for my heart this fire inside.”  His heart held the secret.

I am grateful to be a dancer, artist, and someone who knows how to keep the heart fire going. I confess I rely on 1000 strategies and agree with Neil Slade the author of Tickle Your Amygdala that the very best approaches are to

• create
• collaborate
• imagination- stay connected to curiosity.
• Intuit
• use logic

I’d add

• always always get outside and play in nature
• reach out for help from others
• be of service
• stay amused

Many things, including laughter, move me back into synch with higher states or “powers” when I am down. The only thing I have to watch out for is becoming addicted to the idea and state of being high. I can get zealous in place of truly loving life. In this state I push myself into lightness. I know when this is happening because I’m also slightly irritable. Those around me know it too.

One way I deal with this is to stay connected to my lower states in healthy ways through music, minor keys, sung prayers, sad movies, writing poems,  and telling and hearing the stories of challenge.

Dance, too, is incredibly efficient for keeping spiritually healthy. Those who move in community use less will and effort to upshift  into happiness. Add a higher purpose to the dance and we see how ancient cultures use the grounding of danced prayer as THE go-to tool for booting up and reestablishing communal and individual health.

The creation of InterPlay arose from observing and experiencing the way the body arts of movement, voice, story, and stillness support spiritual health. In my research I learned that Dance is THE most direct energy-vibration art form connecting people to the Source of Life. Even witnessing dance can shift your energy. I also learned that everyone can dance if the dance can make room for everyone’s way of moving.

How then do we dance with darker, lower times?

I think of low times as initiations rather than “problems.” For instance I’m getting CEU’s for learning to include negative projections of me. Ow.  Fielding negative projections is a task of all leaders, but, what a “downer.” Shame rises. With a susceptibility to depression I fight back. In doing so I tend to overwork my adrenalin rather than rely on the Source of Love. Adrenalin and hard work are “uppers” that run out of juice. I have to slow down into the steady rhythm of joy, love, art and sharing with people who understand to truly let go and let God.

Life affects our energy. Here is a vibrational chart I found on Anne Sayces’ website.

Life’s low times are challenging.  Here’s the irony. Working with healthy “big” energy is challenging too.

Ecstasy, joy, and amusement can scare people who don’t relate to it. For instance, I’ve been told that the freedom in my white body can alarm someone who walks with the weight of cultural oppression everyday.  Of course, white people are wary of those who live in freedom and joy too.

Why do people call me brave for being free?  I often joke about a passage in a Christian Testament that says, “When one body suffers, everyone suffers and when one body rejoiced everyone rejoices.” In my experience I change the saying to “When one body suffers everyone suffers, and when one body rejoices, everyone gets irritated.”

Being an ecstatic or playful person may be seen as unaccountable and unrealistic. That is why it feels safer to be ecstatic in community, dancing the beauty way as a normal practice. Lacking that I do my best to love, to be joyful, to rejoice, to create, to be.

I do see a need for sisters and brothers who can dance on behalf of the lower energies not just for exformation, but for restoration, rebalancing, and simply showing up for one another.

As I see the world in turmoil, beloved people in pain, loose solid footing in a changing world, and enter the dark of not knowing, what would it look like to grieve with my whole heart in a way that moves me into sync with Creation, in a way that honors the dance of life?

I am honored to be among a cadre of authors and practioners in a book published this Fall by Skylight Paths, Grieving with Your Whole Heart.

Practicioners of Spiritual Intelligence know that spiritual wisdom interrelates with emotional, kinesthetic, and cognitive intellect.

Here at mystic tech I am interested in how modern people engage the wisdom of body and soul for our times. If you are new to my blog the email list is a good place to start. Please sign up. I love comments and read them with care and attention.

How do you reboot your spiritual energy?
How do you move through low periods?
How do you navigate being free and ecstatic when others are not?