Once you hear the phrase ‘soul’, what’s your first affiliation?
Soul is a posh and much-debated phrase, that always brings up robust emotions. With out going into non secular or philosophical discourse, it’s typically related to the breath, and with that mysterious spark of life power that animates the physique. I mentioned soul in a earlier publish Untangling the Triad of Life Drive, Spirit and Soul. At the moment I write about soul as a fluid idea, an essence that may get dispersed and in addition retrieved, and suggest a lightweight self-retrieval by dance as treatment that you are able to do by your self.
Fluid Soul
I’d like to begin by proposing soul as a fluid idea, extra ‘course of’ than noun (Hillman 1975 in Williamson 2017). Soul thirsts for journeying into the depths, and into the enchanted realms, the place it finds nourishment.
At instances, soul can ‘disperse’, or ‘dissociate’, once we face difficult experiences. Paradoxically, so as to hold soul intact, part of it leaves the physique. In shamanic paradigms, that is known as soul loss (Ingerman 1991). This occurs to every of us, many instances. It may be unnoticed like a bit breeze or rip by us like a full-blown storm.
I consider these elements go to soul college the place they proceed studying, till we’re able to name them again. We are able to do that in numerous methods. Historically, a shamanic practitioner performs a soul retrieval for a consumer (see Ingerman 1991, 2003; Villoldo 2005). Maureen Roberts makes use of the phrase ‘self-retrieval’ on the continuum between shamanism and psychology. She likens this to the Jungian strategy of individuation (Roberts 1999). Robert Moss (1996, 2012) makes use of goals as a software for soul restoration. On this publish I talk about retrieving your soul by dance.
Transferring has at all times been – amongst many different issues – a software of self-inquiry for me. You might nearly say a diagnostic software. As I’m shifting, I’m folding into an area of tuning in, observing, witnessing, checking in with what’s occurring for me. It’s nearly like getting into the quantum net or the akashic data, the place I’ve entry to info that usually eludes me.
Generally I turn into conscious of a second up to now, wherein part of my soul was now not capable of keep linked, by an lively alternative or sudden expertise.
I’ve danced my soul again spontaneously, or by longer motion dialogues of understanding, letting go of the vitality of the unique occasion, and adapting my habits as invitation for my soul piece to return.
Name your soul essence house
Here’s a recipe for dancing your lacking soul items again, which you’ll simply and safely do by yourself. Familiarise your self with the steps first, with a lightweight state of affairs. Maybe you misplaced a few of your energy in a verbal interplay, otherwise you stated sure once you actually wished to say no.
- Begin by discovering a quiet spot. Really feel your ft on the bottom, and keep in mind that you’re carried by the earth. Awaken your senses, and observe what you discover by sight, listening to, odor, even style, inside your physique and round you.
- Turn into conscious of your luminous vitality discipline, an egg-like form that stretches about so far as you may attain along with your palms, and in addition extends underneath your ft. In its complete and relaxed state, it’s permeable and clear. Data can are available and exit. By means of and past that, you understand the world round you.
- Discover this discipline throughout you, above and beneath you as effectively along with your palms, senses, or your creativeness. Once you really feel accustomed to this discipline and its texture, discover if there are any variations. You may understand this as gaps, or holes, in footage, melody, color and even as a way of ‘thinness’ in your discipline.
- When you may have discovered such a spot, think about your palms first as antennae. By means of the ‘hole’, you attempt to decide up a radio wave from the vitality matrix throughout you. The wavelength you might be searching for resonates with your personal soul. Is there a bit on the market that’s now able to return? It might really feel like a gossamer stream, a laser beam, or a subtly scented smoke. It may be something. You’ll recognise it intimately as a result of it belongs to you. Really feel its texture, its high quality. Really feel the path of vitality in it. Decide up any details about it that you would be able to. What color is it? How does it odor, style? Is it pulsating or regular? You don’t have to consider this, merely let info filter by you.
- If it feels proper, you may invite this strand again into your physique. Pay attention out for a way of permission, a ‘sure’, a ‘curiosity’. Be perceptive, and don’t manipulate this. Generally it’s not but time for it to return. When you understand a block, a way of ‘no’, a hesitation or refusal, then acknowledge it with gratitude and go away it for now. In that case, you repeat the method till you discover a piece that is able to come house. When you don’t discover any in any respect, then merely proceed with steps 7 and eight.
- Let the thread that is able to return, movement into your fingertips. You possibly can gently pull it in in the direction of a selected physique half; breathe it in and swallow it; or therapeutic massage it into your pores and skin. Your palms will know what to do. Then firmly knead it into your physique, muscle mass, bones, so it turns into a part of you once more.
- When your course of feels full, restore the membrane of your luminous vitality discipline. Once more, along with your palms as delicate instruments you think about plastering, weaving, glueing or in any other case mending any holes, rents or tears, till it’s complete once more, shimmering with aliveness and vitality.
- In your personal means, give thanks for what you skilled, and produce this to completion. Discover how you’re feeling now, and consciously return to the bodily actuality of your physique. Afterwards, take note of your vitality for just a few days, and observe any synchronicities, goals, or uncommon encounters. In case you have acquired any concrete cognitive or visible info, deal with how one can combine this in your life and begin making adjustments accordingly.
When you do that – I’d love to listen to the way you get on and what you discover. Right here’s to whole-ing the soul!
References
This publish is tailored from my article Kieft, Eline (2020), ‘4 body- and nature-based practices to maneuver your life power’, Dance, Motion & Spiritualities, 7:1&2, pp. 35–45, which is offered within the public area: doi: https://doi. org/10.1386/dmas_00015_1.
- Hillman, J. (1975), Re-Visioning Psychology, New York: Harper & Row.
- Horwitz, J. (1996), ‘Coming house: The Shaman’s work with soul-loss’, Sacred Hoop, 13, pp. 16–20.
- Ingerman, S. (1991), Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self, New York: HarperCollins.
- Ingerman, S. (2003), ‘Monitoring misplaced souls’, in G. Harvey (ed.), Shamanism: A Reader, London: Routledge, pp. 355–64.
- Kieft, E. (2020) ‘Soul Loss and Retrieval: restoring wholeness by dance’, Chapter 6 in Williamson, A. & Sellers Younger, B. (eds.) Non secular Herstories: Soulful analysis in dance research: Mind, pp. 180-206.
- Moss, R. (1996). Acutely aware Dreaming. A Non secular Path for On a regular basis Life. New York: Three Rivers Press.
- Moss, R. (2012). Dreaming the Soul Again Dwelling: Shamanic Dreaming for Therapeutic and Changing into Complete. San Francisco (CA): New World Library.
- Roberts, M. B. (1999), ‘Re-visioning soul retrieval: The spectrum of lively and passive therapeutic in Shamanism and Jungian psychotherapy’, http://www.jungcircle.com.
- Villoldo, A. (2005), Mending the Previous and Therapeutic the Future with Soul Retrieval, London: Hay Home.
- Williamson, A. (2017), ‘Falling in love with language, in phenomenologies’, in S. Fraleigh (ed.), Of the Physique in Efficiency, Champaign, IL: College of Illinois Press.
Occasions
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Bio
Eline Kieft danced from a younger age, together with rigorous classical and up to date coaching to turn into knowledgeable dancer. She then studied anthropology, deepening her fascination with worldwide similarities between indigenous traditions relating to intangible features of actuality and different methods of realizing, together with embodied epistemologies and shamanic methods.
She accomplished her PhD in dance anthropology at Roehampton College, educated in depth with the Scandinavian Centre for Shamanic Research and the Faculty of Motion Drugs. Eline labored on the Centre for Dance Analysis (C-DaRE) at Coventry College for 5 years, the place she created a Somatics Toolkit for Ethnographers, and pioneered soulful tutorial pedagogy. Her latest ebook Dancing within the Muddy Temple: A Transferring Spirituality of Land and Physique was effectively acquired as a singular mix of concept and apply and a medication for our instances.
She is now a full-time change-maker and facilitates deep transformation by teaching and programs each on-line and in particular person. Her strategy The Method of the Wild Soul gives a set of embodied, artistic, and non secular instruments to re-connect with inside power and navigate life’s challenges with confidence.
Web site: https://www.elinekieft.com Additionally on Fb | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn
