Monday night 5pm pst Online! Click here to join.
I am in recovery.
I struggle with rage. I’ve lived in disbelief about human nature and get outraged due to my privileged idealism and innate self protectiveness. Rage is part of my ancestral and family patterns.
I am in recovery. 
I’ve refused to believe that there are physical diseases in oue collective consciousness, racism for instance, that infect whole systems and gather momentum when not treated on a bodily level. Like cancer or alcoholism, they are always there. Racism is bodily.
I am in recovery.
I grew up believing that violence was a permittable part of daily life. It is true that the flares of body wisdom signal important information. But as operating systems, they are never viable when directed at another being.
Rage and anger are deadly. Light the match of fear and these emotions send us to the burn wards of the permanently disfigured.
I am in recovery.
Sobriety slowly teaches that the way forward is to dignify rage through action and presence, to reach out and allow a higher power, with the help of just one other person, to hold what is incomprehensibly evil.
I am in recovery.
I know because I can grieve. The ability to grieve is the testament of a compassionate culture and person. I am learning to grieve!
I am in recovery.
To gain sobriety I need my soul. As a soul I need connection to a Higher Intelligence to hold humanity’s pervasive, uncontrollable madness and connect me to the Wisdom of Beauty and a Bottomless Love that unlocks me from insanity and shows me the way.
A monk is a warrior who has put down their sword. I am in recovery.
For me the dance of “handing it over” is the most thorough, direct way to open body, mind, and heart system to change, to recover. When I shed the words I allow my bodily gestures and energies to align with Creation’s Unnamable Power. This is when Love heals me.
In dance I am less afraid, less reactive, more trusting, more present, more honest, more able to respond to what confronts me. In dance I receive guide-dance and reassurance that I can notice and witness. I learn from the wisdom of others. This is not the dance created by external or internal commands. I am talking about the dance that arises from life. The dance that is always breathing in us, waiting to move us.
I am in recovery.
Recovery means I can grieve. I can be honest. I can lean into the difficult efficiencies of self care and accountable action.
I begin doing a new dance. Rather than dancing violence and reaction, I Change the Race Dance on the cellular level, opening my being to transformation. This is a mysterious and holy practice.
My recovery isn’t a reward. It does not make me successful. It’s simply what my soul needs to feel whole.
Recovery is daily practice since racism riddles my everyday experience of economic, educational, and religious structures. My body is vulnerable to this reality.
So, I humbly submit to the dance of Recovery in my personal life and as I work as an artist, healer, theologian and community member.
Do you seek recovery? Monday night July 11, I am hosting an Online Dance On Behalf of Recovery from Racism. The music won’t be perfect, nor will the people or the leadership. Over the course of one hour we will invoke the honest grace of our bodies. Then we will dance on behalf of those directed affected by hate. To finish we will dance on behalf of one another’s recovery.
You are invited to join me at 5pm pacific. I use gotomeeting. I suggest you come early to get inside the live room and turn on your mic and find your camera. You do not need to do that, but it is a blessing to see people who feel able.
Here is the link: Please join my meeting.
https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/850439213
Or, call in using your telephone.
United States: +1 (224) 501-3318
Access Code: 850-439-213
If you cannot come but are intrigued by the power of dancing with others from around the world online leave a comment for me below. Nancy Pfaltzgraf and I lead the Online Dance Chapel Mondays at 5pst, Thursdays at 9:30 pst. Click here to learn more.
To see more about the meaning of recovery in Alanon Click here.