Hoop Inspiration - More Than Just a Pretty Dance

"Just go to Youtube and search for hoop dance." As the unofficial 'hoop girl' of my small Midwestern town, I make this suggestion at least once a week. Folks often respond with wonder, disbelief, or confusion upon learning that a grown woman spends hours each week dancing inside a plastic circle. For those folks who haven't seen hoopdance, those who don't have a reference point, it must seem ridiculous. Do they imagine I stand for hours just keeping the hoop up around my waist? Do they translate hoop dancer into stripper in the round. Sometimes it seems that way, so if I don't have a hoop on hand to demonstrate, I send them to Youtube. 

Later I wonder what videos they found. Is Shakti Sunfire's performance at O Dance studio in Boulder still the first search result? (I checked, it's farther down the list now.) Will they stumble across some gal rocking a bikini and fishnets and instantly doubt my promise that hooping is for everybody and every body? Will their digitized glimpse reveal the transformative magic, the healing, and the joy that hooping creates? Or will they see just another pretty dance? 

In the video collection below you'll find hoop dance videos that delve a little deeper. They explore the process, the practice, the philosophy, and the sublime magic of hoop dance. Though the skill and grace of these hoopers is mind-boggling in its own right, these videos also reveal a bit of the emotion behind the motion. 

Love the Process - Sandra Safire 

It's a Practice - Jaguar Mary 

Eye of the Storm - Brecken 

This is my Flow - Tiana at Hoop Path 7 

Sacred Hoop - Hoop Alchemy 

Across time: Carol Lee Sanchez

Last winter, a friend gave me a book of poetry, From Spirit to Matter by carol lee sanchez. The book was a thrift store find by a local poet. As I delved into the book’s first poems, I was enchanted. sanchez’s verses transported my mind to that reflective, creative sanctuary that can only be reached between the lines of beautiful poems. My friend and I, both delighted and inspired by the discovery of such a brilliant mind in our corner of the world, began to discuss visiting the poet. After all, she lived in Hughesville. I went to school there as a teen. I often drive past the town on my country cruises.

But when I wandered online to learn more, I discovered Ms. Sanchez had died the previous year. A small, undoubtedly selfish, corner of my heart broke.

Reading Sanchez’s poetry blessed my life like reading Millay blessed my life. “Symbols” moved my mind like “The Eolian Harp” moved my mind.

For a few bright hours I thought I would be able to say thank you.

In the author’s note, sanchez writes, “these poems then are what I ‘bring’ into hard copy, from spirit to matter, my ‘messages’ from where I am here to where you are -- there. I look forward to hearing from you through the pages of time.”

Our times missed a beat and never crossed, though I love to imagine we watched the same corner of the sky turn gold and shopped at the same grocery stores.

Thank you.

symbols - by carol lee sanchez

symbols release energy
move from mind to matter
matter very much
become stored knowledge
precious entities
collected as beads or bytes
restored on recycled tree



somewhere long ago
on an ordinary day
a human mind perceived
nature’s random paintings
as recorded reflections of
familiar things

wind prints on sand or
water marks on rocks
holding line and shape
together to form: animal
fish fowl tree branch leaf
human faces human bodies

somewhere on earth
on an ordinary day
a human hand understood
the magic transcription
used stick stone and bone
to etch symbols from her mind
into wood sand and stone

Tough Love and Trying to be Kind

Today I noticed that many of my blog posts are confrontational. They rage against the media or question assumptions. They often "take to task" things I love like yoga, paganism, motherhood, and feminism.

Most of my posts are inspired by something I read on-line and are a kind of distanced rebuttal to a casual phrase or concept that strikes my mind at a strange angle. I blame it on being an English major. I guess I'm not inspired to write unless I'm arguing, critiquing, or debating something.

However, with today's post, I want the world to know that I do it out of love!

I love my communities so much and so hard that I want them to rise. I want to peel back the layers and find the beautiful hearts beating underneath. I love them so much that I can't ignore something that bothers me. I have to understand it, and writing these little social critiques has become my path toward understanding.

In Outsider communities, there's a big impulse to always get along. After all, don't we get criticized and demeaned enough by the outside world? Shouldn't we create a safe space where no one fears criticism? No. (Here I go again!) That is how dogma and conformity are born.

I love my communities and I want to help them grow. I hope to give voice to thoughts that I imagine others must feel. I ask for more than prerequisite acceptance....from myself, others, and all things.

And this is why I will always call out sexism in science fiction films. This is why I will always get pissed off at websites that say yoga is for everyone, but inevitably feature only pictures of a slender white women. That is why I refuse to read pagan books that don't cite their sources and try to wrangle semantics with hoop dancers.

I love it all, but love requires thought. Love flourishes in the fresh air of discourse, thoughtful disagreement, and constructive criticism.

I hope to write in such a way simultaneously critiques and celebrates. (It's like being a Star Wars fan, you know? I've loved and petted these things so much that I've frayed the fibers and must pick at the wayward strings.) I hope to always write thoughtfully and in kindness.

Furthermore, I hope that when I do overstep the boundaries of thoughtfulness and kindness someone will have the bravery and beauty to speak out. That is, after-all, it's own form of love.

When we're willing to speak out, to disagree, and make our voices heard, we are supporting one another and our beloved communities as we strive toward equality, wisdom, grace, and compassion. Blessed be!

Hipsters in Stone

French photographer Léo Caillard and art director Alexis Persani have taken the hipster passion for all things vintage to a whole new level with Hipsters in Stone. Caillard photographed some of the most iconic sculptures at the Louvre in Paris. Then he photographed jean and t-shirt clad friends in the same poses. Persani worked a bit of digital alchemy and the resulting figures look equally equipped to orate at the agora or strum guitar at a coffee shop open mic. night.

Meleager by Louis-Simon Boizot
Doesn't every gal dream of a man who can bring home the bacon?

Agora 2?
 

You can view the rest of the collection here. 

Fairy Gardening 101

A fairy garden by Kleas

Fairy gardens are magical spaces inhabited by plants, miniature structures, and imagination. Fairy gardens are often planted in containers. Many parents, especially in the natural parenting and homeschooling communities, use fairy gardens as imagination stations or nature tables for their children. Other enthusiasts create fairy gardens to enliven indoor spaces and patios. Larger fairy gardens can be built into natural landscapes like trees. They can be added to pre-existing flower beds, altars, or rock gardens. Though fairy garden kits are widely available online, they are often do-it-yourself projects that inspire both adults and children to create whimsical landscapes from natural materials.

The following lists and links will help jumpstart your fairy garden project.

The "fairy factory."
Use a saw to slice a stout branch or sapling into disks.
The disks make great tabletops, chair
seats, and bases for other structures. 

Gathering Materials For Your Garden Structures:

Creating a fairy garden shouldn't be expensive. You can create amazing fairy houses, furniture, and landscapes using reclaimed materials and items gathered from nature.

Recycled and Reclaimed Materials

• Cardboard cylinders - Cover oatmeal containers with paper or birch bark to make fairy houses. Toilet paper and paper towel tubes can be added to smaller houses to transform them into towers and castles. 
• Terra-Cotta pots - whole pots become instant houses and fragments can be used as walls, stepping stones, or support for multi-layer container gardens
• Corks - use corks as bases for tables, bird baths, and more
• Scrap fabric - fabric scraps add a dash of color to your garden as fairy bedding, flags, and banners
• Plastic containers - burry a yogurt container to create a tiny pond in your garden

The possibilities are endless!

Finding Natural Materials

Next time you take a nature walk, keep your eyes open for lovely twigs, stones, shells, seed pods, nuts, dried plants, and pinecones.

Embellished pots, polymer clay mushrooms, & a twig fence

Early fall is the best time to find natural materials. Since many seeds, nuts, etc. have already dried and fallen, it lessens the temptation to pick living plants. Fairies walk lightly and thank the earth for her gifts. Fairy gardeners do too!

Crafting Supplies

• Glue Gun - Your glue gun will probably become your best friend as you delve into the world of fairy gardens. While professional miniaturists use a wide variety of glues for different materials, a glue gun will get you where you need to be, kennit? If you use hot glue, it's best to move your miniatures inside during rainy weather. If kids play in your fairy garden, expect a few miniatures to break. You can either return the natural materials to the earth or mend them. I feel that our ethereal fairy-friends would approve of this lesson in non-attachment. (You can find a detailed discussion of different glues here. 
• Polymer Clay - Polymer clay is inexpensive and you bake your work in the oven. Easy-peasy! With polymer clay you can embellish terra-cotta pots, make tiny mushrooms and flowers, or populate your garden with clay creatures.
• Wire Cutters or Loppers - Trim sticks and twigs down to size
• Craft moss- It's available in both synthetic and natural varieties. As I glue structures together, I stick moss to the spots where hot glue leaks through. It both covers the glue and gives the objects an earthy look.
• Pre-made miniatures - Why children have brought countless little toys to live in the fairy garden. You can also find wonderful and inexpensive little birds, flowers, and other objects at craft stores and online. 

Building the Garden

How To Build A Fairy Garden - Natural Parenting Tips
How To Build A Fairy Garden - Fairy In A Garden
How to Make Your First Fairy Garden (video)
How To Make A Fairy Garden - Magic Onions
Mini Spiral Garden - World in Green

Decorating the Garden

DIY Twig Furniture - Kleas
Make a Fairy Well - Juise
Make a Fairy House - Crafts by Amanda
Make a Fairy Tent - Anna Branford
Fairy Home Decore - The Magic Onion
Home For Fairies - Juise
Flower Fairy Peg Dolls - The Imagination Tree

Inspiration

Green Spirit Arts
The Enchanted World of Fairy Woodland 
The Magic Onion
Raven Moon Magic

Defining Flow

(This article has been expanded from my original post on hooping.org)

"Flow" is  term we tend to throw around a lot in the hooping community. We describe hoop-stars like Mona and Spiral as having "flow." We strive to cultivate it in our hoop-practice. But what exactly are we striving for? You see, when we talk about flow, we're actually talking about two different ideas that have become linked through digital alchemy.

On one hand, drawing on the work on  Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, hoopers conceptualize flow as a mental state where daily worries, time, self-criticism, and doubt drop away. The hooper enters a mind-state where s/he is completely immersed in the moment, in the movement. Many hoopers describe this state as a kind of heightened awareness where they reach beyond their normal limitations and they become one with the hoop. Artists in all different forms describe similar experiences and Chomsky studied those experiences to create his theories about "flow."

On the other hand, we also tend to use "flow" to describe a hooper whose skill, enthusiasm, and style communicate a sense easy grace or general bad-ass-ness. When someone appears to be totally blissing or rocking out, we say they have flow. In this case, we're describing fluidity, ease of movement, and flawless transitions. We're describing what their movement communicates to us, rather than their mind-state, because as much as a video can communicate emotion, we really have no idea what the hooper's actually experiencing.

It's important to distinguish between the two different meanings of "flow" because hoopers belong to a very visual community. We live in a visual society where Facebook, advertising, and Youtube have trained us to associate certain appearances with certain mind-states. We all want to be bad-ass (flow in the 2nd sense). We seek to awe a real or imagined audience.  We are, after all human, and part of what draws many folks to hooping is that it creates a space for us to be skillful, marvelous, and awe inspiring. And that's good!

However, when our community convolutes the appearance of flow with the mental experience of flow, we risk making that experience less accessible. Personal experience suddenly becomes linked to physical characteristics (like fluidity, beauty, and gracefulness) that have minimal correlation with a hooper's state of mind. These characteristics in turn create a rigid pre-conception of what flow looks like rather than what it feels like. Suddenly authentic self expression is replaced by the pressure to buy $100 dance pants and mime poses glimpsed in YouTube videos. Less insidiously, the mental experience becomes linked to a particular skill set or level of expertise beyond the reach of vast numbers of hoop dance enthusiasts.

Language is an amazing tool. It both shapes and is shaped by our reality and culture. Mihály Csíkszentmihályi's conceptualization of flow has given us a marvelous word to describe the marvelous experience of being immersed in our art. Our language possesses an equal capacity to describe the physical characteristics that are often mislabeled as flow. We can describe those mind-boggling expressions of hoop-dance virtuosity in language that simultaneously honors bad-ass performance and leaves space for flow as an uninhibited mental-emotional experience.

At the deepest level, the level that sustains our spirit,  we want to experience the power and bliss of flow (in the 1st sense.) When we embrace flow as a state of mind, we reaffirm that anyone can experience a joyous psychological state at any point in their hoop journey.  We can experience it busting out super-tech tricks. We can experience it dancing. We can experience it getting lost in the counted circles of three-beat-weave drills. It need be neither beautiful nor refined because it transcends appearances.

I 1st tasted flow hooping to Bob Dylan when I only knew 3 hoop-moves. If I'd recorded that glorious, but undoubtedly clumsy, session, no one would have marveled and declared, "That girl has flow!"

But I did, because flow is in your head. Flow is in your heart.

Michelle Nayeli appears to embody a transcendental hoop experience, but
may, for all I know, be experiencing a dreadful foot cramp while she waits
for a friend to take this marvelous photo. 

. 

Who? Companions!

The Feminist Frequency imagines a spin off series where the ladies of the TARDIS team up for their own grand adventures. Go there NOW!

by Ch4rms