Episode 5 - Chakradance and Dancing with the Divine

In podcast episode five, Tava Baird and Jennifer Taylor discuss the spiritual and healing aspects of dance, focusing particularly on Chakradance. They begin with an invocation inviting the energy of goddess Saraswati, emphasizing the importance of dance as a form of expression and healing. The hosts share personal experiences with dance, reflecting on how societal norms often limit its presence in adult lives. They discuss Chakradance, a movement therapy integrating Jungian psychology, chakras, and resonant music, founded by Natalie Southgate. Jennifer shares her transformative journey with Chakradance, detailing how it helped her manage rheumatoid arthritis and regain mobility. The podcast also highlights the broader cultural and spiritual roles of dance, challenging the notion that spirituality must be separate from the physical and advocating for dance as a means to embody one's spirituality.

Resources:

Chakradance with Jennifer Taylor:
 https://www.willowridgereiki.com/copy-of-chakradance

American Tribal Belly Dance Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFZG49yVtco

Fat Chance Belly Dance Lessons:
https://fcbd.com/classes/online-classes-private-lessons/

Datura Belly Dance Online:
https://daturaonline.com/

Group Belly Laugh Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqLn9gUyd1A

Ted Talk on Laughter Yoga:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p4dZ0afivk

Thank you joining us today, remember to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE to keep up to date with your tribe.

Connect with your Hosts!

Tava Baird: tavabaird.com or https://darkflowerbooks.etsy.com.

Jennifer Taylor: Willow Ridge Reiki and Healing Arts https://www.willowridgereiki.com/

Transcript

Jennifer Taylor: [00:00:00] 

Hey, everybody, we are back for podcast five. I'm Tava Baird. I'm Jennifer Taylor. And today we are going to talk with you about dance and something wonderful called Chakradance. But before we get into that, we want to set our space and our intention for sharing a good energy among all of us today with an invocation.

So here is my lovely, beautiful friend, Jennifer, to sing us into today's episode. 

Jennifer Taylor: I feel very strongly guided to invite goddess Saraswati, who is a Hindu goddess of creativity and music and arts and very influential in the development of Chakradance. so I invite you to take three slow, deep breaths and come into [00:01:00] this space that much more fully.

Jennifer Taylor: Imagine breathing in and out through the center of your chest, through your heart center. Om Shreem Shreem Saraswatye Namaha

Jennifer Taylor: Om Shreem Shreem Saraswatye Namaha

Jennifer Taylor: HOM SHREEM PREEM SARASWATYE NAMAH HWA AH OO OO OO [00:02:00] OO 

Jennifer Taylor: That was different than I normally do but I have been shown to Bye for now. call on Saraswati that way, and that's just what came through at the beginning. So clearly she was wanting to be here. 

I really liked it. 

I love the beginning. It was very different from what [00:03:00] you usually sing. I really like it, but it has a little bit of rhythm to it, which is perfect for what we're talking about today.

Yeah, then that one's the tune and, mantra at the beginning are not mine. Those, are, I believe traditional, mantras for invoking, Saraswati, but. I didn't remember that I knew those. It just came out so clearly I did. It's really cool. You have such a deep background in terms of a lot of this where you've heard different mantras and different, all different traditions, and then you're able to incorporate them into what you bring through. It's really impressive for someone who doesn't really sing. And, the fact that you keep dance as part of your life and have for your whole life is also really impressive to me as someone who, you know, basically stopped.

Dancing when I was in college, unless I was dancing with toddlers. [00:04:00] 

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah. Well, and it's so funny that you say that because one of the things that I wanted to share actually was that I remember being in college and I majored in dance and visual art. And I remember as I was graduating, because it was just my life for my last two years of college.

Jennifer Taylor: And it was amazing. And I remember the professor saying, just promise me that you will never be a person who says I used to dance. And I remember we were all just horrified at what she had said. It was like, of course, how could you possibly think that we would be someone who would say, I used to dance?

Jennifer Taylor: And she was saying, you know, things happen. And as you move through your life, I hear from so many people, I used to dance and that's one of the saddest things that I can hear and I remember thinking I will never be a person who says I used to [00:05:00] dance and up until about a year and a half ago, I had become a person who used to dance and I that came to me and I remember thinking, Oh my goodness, I used to dance.

Jennifer Taylor: I have to do something about that and dance started coming back to me and was coming to me from all these different places because I realized I had let it go. So, in full disclosure, I have to sayI was saying I used to dance for a very large part of, my life. 

Tava Baird: Really? I had 

Tava Baird: no idea. It seems like it's, you know, it's so much a part of your life again.

Tava Baird: When you're a child, you're encouraged to dance. Everybody thinks it's cute. And people take you to ballet lessons and tap lessons. And, everything from swing dancing to line dancing and, and everyone thinks it's,wonderful. And as a child, you're used to moving your body.

Tava Baird: All the time, you know, you have all of this energy and then in college, you know, where it's just all built around, there's so much of that, that [00:06:00] social structure and, dance is a huge part of that, of going to a party and, hanging out with your friends and dancing. And then when a lot of times, once you get into the career field after that.

Tava Baird: It's seen as something frivolous,

Tava Baird: When you get older. it seems like a lot of times society views participation in the arts as a hobby only. You, you know, you sing in the choir, um, on Sundays or you know, you dance at a wedding and that might be the only time you, you know, you might do the chicken dance once every two years.

Tava Baird: Um, and you know, being in a play where you're devoting a huge amount of time and effort to performing, they, they are regulated to that, not as serious as being at work category. And when we, but when we think about it, society's All over the world. I mean, we were all tribal people at one point, use dance and song and theater as ways of expressing the [00:07:00] divine and raising energy and changing, changing outlooks into being in a hopeful and active mode.

Tava Baird: And yet we let so much of that fall away. Um, I had some health issues over the last couple of years where I was at one point, I actually had a blood clot in my leg because I wasn't moving around enough. And I just remember thinking, God, if I'd been dancing, finding a little way to dance every day, even if it was just in the kitchen, you know, that would never have happened to me, you know, motion in the joy of motion is so much a part of what, we're supposed to be doing as humans.

Tava Baird: And so, um, I'm super excited to hear more about the re advent of dance into your life, because I know I want to bring more of it into mine and I'm sure there are people listening that would like to do the same. 

Jennifer Taylor: Absolutely. And [00:08:00] you know, I had gotten to the same kind of place and physically.

Jennifer Taylor: The time when dance started coming back to me and was just calling out to me as another way of moving energy and another way of more deeply connecting to myself again, I was in a place where I physically could barely stand for much time at all. and in doing so I was in a lot of pain.

Jennifer Taylor: So I was diagnosed with, rheumatoid arthritis when I was 27 and have been really working with freeing my body of that ever since. And I had gotten to a place where. It was extremely painful for me to stand. Um, the pain in my feet and ankles and knees and hips and hands and everything, it was just too much.

Jennifer Taylor: And so I would stand for a short period of time and I would force myself through and I was still going through my daily life and much a normal kind of way, but with extreme amounts of [00:09:00] pain. And I remember thinking, okay, so I'm going to dance like standing. is extremely painful, but so I'm going to dance.

Jennifer Taylor: And I was like, yeah, yeah, that's absolutely what I'm going to do. Somehow I'm going to start moving and I'm going to start dancing. And I just started inviting it in and trying to figure out how, am I going to incorporate dance? from this new energetic place of having Reiki and working with energy, And I just started putting music on and I started my Reiki and I thought I could just move around in the space just move my hands and direct Reiki around me and move as best I can and see if I can start moving my energy again.

Jennifer Taylor: And initially my dances were sitting in a chair. or largely on the floor. [00:10:00] And I just thought I'm just going to move as much as I can move. And I would maybe stand for a minute and then the pain would get too much. And I would start sitting on a stool and then I would just dance and move as much as I could from, from that spot.

Jennifer Taylor: So I want to make sure that, you know, whatever part of you, you can move. You can dance and, you know, letting go of when I talk about Chakradance. And when I talk about the types of dance that are really moving me in many senses of the word, it's not a matter of, Learning moves, you know, or like, Oh, I know how to, how to cabbage patch or floss or, you know, or pirouette or leap across the stage.

Jennifer Taylor: I'm talking about a kind of dance where it's happens from the inside out and you're allowing just your, body to move however it's inspired to move to music or to energy or [00:11:00] to a thought and that was how I started getting back into it and around the time that I started doingmy own personal dances again and I would call in the divine and I would start my reiki and I would just start moving and When I surrendered to that, all of a sudden, all of these, healing processes started happening.

Jennifer Taylor: I was kind of drawn into almost like shamanic journeys through my dance. And I started being aware of certain ways I was moving my arms or hands, and that I was actually emulating a certain, um, you know, movement of a crow, or that I was becoming something in my dance. And so all kinds of energy and healing started happening 

Jennifer Taylor: I started realizing that I really needed to bring this as another aspect of my healing into my daily [00:12:00] life. And what I found was I couldn't hardly walk or stand. But suddenly I was starting to be able to dance more and I was moving more and the more I danced the better I was able to move in the rest of the day and if I got up and I danced that morning I could move through my days and it wasn't just the movement because I wasn't able to move all that much it was the energetic movement and it was the energy and what was healing and releasing in me and moving through and coming out of me and coming into my conscious awareness.

Jennifer Taylor: And allowing me to heal it. That was allowing me to start moving better. And around that time I started doing that, I became aware of Chakradance and I thought, I don't know. It's not going to be this really deep process that I've been doing, but I don't know.

Jennifer Taylor: Something just kept drawing me back and kept drawing me back. And so I was like, okay, I'll sign up to be a facilitator. [00:13:00] and I started learning to facilitate Chakradance so Chakradance is a movement therapy modality that is a fusion of Jungian psychology, inspired movement, the chakras, chakra resonant music. 

Jennifer Taylor: And mandala artwork as well as guided visualization it was designed by, Natalie Southgate who lives in Australia and she was really, really into the chakras and how the chakras are able to, be guides for our health and, and how we can work with those as like a map for our life and was really into Jungian psychology because Carl Jung was one of the, first psychologist who was also looking into and bringing together the idea of energy.

Jennifer Taylor: and the [00:14:00] chakras and how that affects us. And so she became a union psychotherapist or trained in that not to become a psychotherapist, but in order to know and understand this that much better. And so she designed this wonderful framework in which we can use the energy of the chakras and our knowledge of the chakras.

Jennifer Taylor: We can use. intuitive movement and just free spontaneous dance and chakra resonant music. So when I say chakra resonant music, what I mean is that each chakra has a vibration. And when you have music that is in a resonant vibration with that chakra, it helps to enhance its healing.

Jennifer Taylor: It kind of reminds it of its original sound of it's the original song of that chakra. And when it's reminded of it, it [00:15:00] helps it to move back into alignment and into resonance with that healthy. And I realize I need to back up even further because there's some who may not really quite understand what I mean when I say chakras.

Jennifer Taylor: and I realize I am probably mispronouncing it. The most accurate word is probably chakra. Um, but I have learned it as chakra for so many years and Natalie Southgate, says Chakradance. And so it's just sort of stuck in there. So I hope that doesn't make too many people crazy. I know half, half the people are saying chakra.

Jennifer Taylor: The other saying chakra, we all know what we mean is the same thing. Um, so chakra actually means like wheel and it's essentially like a wheel or vortex of energy and our bodies have these vortexes or wheels of energy that are. lined up along our central channel. If you kind of think of a pole going down through the [00:16:00] top of your head, just in front of your spine and down out through your perineum, along that line, there are Chakras, and there are lots of kind of minor, smaller ones, um, not necessarily minor in less importance, but there are lots of smaller ones, but the main ones, there are seven.

Jennifer Taylor: There's one that is down right around, centered around our perineum root. And then there's one around, just below like our belly button that is our sacral, one right about our solar plexus that is called the solar plexus. There's one in the center of our chest, which is the heart chakra. It's in alignment with your physical heart, but over in the center.

Jennifer Taylor: And I talk about, I have us breathe in and out of that a lot because that is it's actually been proven by the HeartMath Institute as a way of bringing people into a state of coherence where it'skind of like the [00:17:00] orchestra of our body and our energy system stops going from everybody individually tuning to everyone playing the same tune.

Jennifer Taylor: That's like coming into coherence. So when we breathe in and out through our, at the center of our heart chakra, it helps to bring us into a space of coherence. So that's why I have us do that. in a lot of our invocations or the, closing at the end is to help to bring us into that place.

Jennifer Taylor: So then you go up and there's one in the center of your throat, which is the throat chakra. There's the third eye, which is probably the one that most people have heard of that is,slightly above between the center of your eyes and the crown, which is right on the top of your head.

Jennifer Taylor: And these are, energetic centers that all of our energy kind of moves through and works through and it is the repository of all of the information, all of the things that we have experienced, all of our traumas, all of the different types of experiences, things [00:18:00] that we've had, it's held in one of your chakras, and depending on which chakra it is, each one governs different types of things.

Jennifer Taylor: So your heart chakra is going to govern things like Your experience of love and being loved, was your heart broken by, someone and you just feel like you can't let anyone in or our root chakra has to do with our foundations, our basic safety, our basic needs, our connection to our tribe and our family and society.

Jennifer Taylor: And do we feel like We belong and we are grounded and centered here. And so each chakra has its own types of Issues and things around it. And when something is out of balance there, it tends to show up not, only, energetically, but it tends to show up physically, maybe in the organs that are governed by that chakra or that are fed by that, [00:19:00] that energy center.

Jennifer Taylor: And it also shows up in our external life. So it shows up in what we are projecting out into the world. and how the world seems to be responding to us. So if I have, a major imbalance in my heart chakra where I feel like, I can't let anyone in and I have this sort of walls around my heart, then I may just keep finding that, gosh, I just, I don't feel like the people around me love me.

Jennifer Taylor: I can't let that love in. And my relationships may not feel close and connected the way that I want them to be. And I may be having a hard time finding that person that is my, my soulmate. because I have these blockages that are not allowing me to see and feel it and attract that into my life.

Jennifer Taylor: So I realized I've kind of digressed a little bit, but unless you have a sense of what I'm talking about, chakra wise, the rest of it may not make a lot of sense [00:20:00] either. 

Tava Baird: No, it's wonderful because you see, a lot of times in yoga classes, them talking about chakras and there's so much good stuff out there written about it.

Tava Baird: Like this is a whole area of study you can dive into. Um, and it's interesting to me because, I believe the idea of the chakras came from the East, right. If I'm correct, like from India and that area. Um, but it's interesting to me over the last, couple of decades that.

Tava Baird: Um, I see more and more and more of it, because we're now, uh, coming into the pagan community in terms of how we express, uh, balancing, witches before they do spells or whatever they want to feel centered, often go out into nature and we do something called grounding and, I also hear that same term being used, among people who, work with the energy of the chakras, of earthing of going outside and feeling the flow of what we would call magic, you know, [00:21:00] that energy coming up through your roots into your body.

Tava Baird: And in spiral pathways, witchcraft, which is the type of witchcraft that I teach, um, and actually you gave me this terminology and I forget who it came from originally, but I heard you say it once and was like, Oh, okay. That's exactly how I'm going to describe it. There's the idea of the head, the heart, and the belly all being in balance, which is really similar to the idea of the chakras, although less, less complex.

Tava Baird: But, I think there's such a need now, a lot of times we go, this particular area of my life isn't working for me, this particular area of my health is suffering. you know, intuitively that it needs more than just, you know, medicine from the doctor, but that there's energy that seems to get stuck there.

Tava Baird: And to be able to have those names and be able to go, Oh, I've got, you know, stuff, I'm having issues with my chakra and to have alternative therapies and practices that can go [00:22:00] along with letting that flow of energy go through you is, um, is really helpful to have. 

Jennifer Taylor: It is. And, the chakras were something that to me always seemed very. kind of esoteric. It was like I didn't have an understanding. I'd read about them and I tried really hard to memorize each one and what they do. but there was always this block for me it was all very intellectual information that I was trying to memorize, but it wasn't something that I could feel and embody and connect with.

Jennifer Taylor: This was, you know, before I ever got into energy work. And. I think Chakradance is one of the best ways that I have found to truly, really connect in with and you're having an experience with the chakra, you are dancing in that energy, the colors of the chakra, the the energies of that are in the vibration of the music, which really helps you to feel it.

Jennifer Taylor: The imagery that you're led [00:23:00] through in a Chakradance practice, all of it, it really helps you to be in that chakra. It's like you're actually journeying into that chakra and you're journeying into your own chakra. And you can get a sense of. This feels good or we all have things in each chakra that need healing and balancing.

Jennifer Taylor: you know, some are going to be more pronounced than others, but through moving through these practices, I was going in and moving out things and it was reflecting in my external world and things were healing and as I started going through this training part of going through the training is actually going through the entire the process of Chakradance and you're dancing you spend a week in each chakra so you do this dance and the meditation And have this healing experience and you create a mandala from it [00:24:00] and then throughout that week, you're really living your life through the lens of that chakra through.

Jennifer Taylor: the types of healing and blessings that come from that and the strength that comes from, you know, being in balance and all of the things that that chakra can do for you, when it's really in balance. It provides a whole wealth of support and, resources for you to access and for you to utilize.

Jennifer Taylor: And it frees your energy to truly be who you really are in your life. And so you get to really look at things throughout that whole week. And as I was moving through that, I noticed I was walking better. I was standing longer. I was dancing on my feet. It was great. without having to have the stool. And I started, I think the process in I think it was September and in [00:25:00] March, I walked a 5k.

Jennifer Taylor: Which was huge for me, and everybody else there's like running it because they've been training for that. I'm like, you have no idea what a big deal it is. The fact that I'm walking and walked a 5k. I mean, that was huge when I couldn't hardly stand. And what I realized was I was moving, the energy through me and I was finding another way of healing the stuck places that were literally making my physical body.

Jennifer Taylor: Stuck and painful and unable to move and I didn't change anything else during that time. All I did was Chakradance and the energetic healing that was associated with that. And it was so profound that I thought, Oh my goodness, I have to share this. I have to do this. And, I know I was sharing my experiences with you, throughout that whole, time as well.

Jennifer Taylor: Thank you so much. 

Tava Baird: It's, it's, it's funny too, because if you think about it, a lot of us have been brought up to believe [00:26:00] that, um, the spiritual is not supposed to be necessarily in the same realm of the physical. I'm going to show how old I am here. Everybody remember the movie Footloose, right? So the idea was at the beginning of this movie that you had this town.

Tava Baird: That was very strong in their religious practices, and they had outlawed dancing, right? Nobody was allowed to dance. What was actually happening is that, you know, that's what all the young people then wanted to do was dance. Dancing is unusual in that it is the marriage of the physical to the spiritual.

Tava Baird: And in a lot of Western, mainstream religion, we have the idea that we are supposed to supposed to set physical completely aside if we want to be spiritual. Let's look at the idea right there that like priests are supposed to marry in a lot of traditions, right? You're setting aside that physical [00:27:00] in order to attain the spiritual.

Tava Baird: You look at, you know, monks who don't want to have any physical possessions. Um, you know what, if you look back in the middle ages when people were wearing hair shirts and whipping themselves, you know, the idea being that the physical is something to be shunned or to leave behind so that you can reach the metaphysical, that you can reach the spiritual.

Tava Baird: ButWe're saying the exact opposite thing here today. We're saying that if you look at tribal cultures all over the world, if you look at the way that people come together to raise positive energy and joy, as a spirit, it has a physical aspect to it. I am thinking about, you know, circle dances or round dances in the Native American community, which if you've ever done one, it's you and, you know, 60 people making a big circle.

Tava Baird: And the steps are not hard. You're basically just moving in one direction, and they're not [00:28:00] hard because they want to encourage everybody, whether you're two years old or 92 years old, to be able to participate and move your body and hold hands with your community as you move and sing. so this is a very.

Tava Baird: primal and old and infinite tradition that humans have of dancing to build community and raise power and enact positive change. But somewhere along the line, that idea shifted and we got this idea that the physical is bad if we want to get to the spiritual. And what what's really cool, at least to me about Chakradance is that it's taking Ancient, energies and these goddesses and bringing back the physical into our daily life as a way of celebrating and rejoicing.

Tava Baird: and you know, before we go into Chakradance a little bit more, I [00:29:00] also wanted to throw out there, you know, a lot of times if you are physically infirm or you're like me, where you're a big girl, you know, you feel like dancing. Oh, I look silly. You know, I feel self conscious about doing it.

Tava Baird: I highly encourage you to Google Fat Chance Belly Dance, right? If you ever want to see raw human female energy that is the most gorgeous, sexy thing you will ever see, you need to watch belly dancers. They are not little rail fin. They have hips. They have butts. And my God. , can they move and one of the most amazing things now is that with the Internet, there is an entire I'm trying to remember the name of it.

Tava Baird: I'll, I'll find it. Um, there is an entire online belly dance school where you can take hundreds of classes in your living room and get that joy of movement again. And it will do wonders [00:30:00] for your self image and for your physical health as well. 

Jennifer Taylor: Yes, absolutely. . And I think. in our, culture so much has become, you know, with shows like, so you think you can dance and you know, and just in the very title, there's the, judgment of this is only for the elite. And even most of you are going to be told, you know, you, you can't dance.

Jennifer Taylor: And this is not to knock the show. It's a fun show. And there's, there's some really beautiful, beautiful dancing and beautiful dancers and humans in that. But I feel like it's an example of how, at least in our culture, dance has been relegated to people who are, you know, in this perfect level of fitness and Are very technical and can do all of these special things.

Jennifer Taylor: And it's about how many moves can you do? How high can you kick your leg? You know, all of these things and, you know, dance is meant to be everything that Tava said it was, you know, [00:31:00] it's meant to move our energy, to connect us, to connect us with ourselves. And I think I love the point that you were making about, you know, that we've been.

Jennifer Taylor: Taught that our body is bad and our body is not a spiritual thing and I think we'll definitely need to do an entire episode about that because in order to be truly to Truly be making the spiritual progress that we need to be making in this life We need to be able to be fully embodied And fully a part of our body, love every part of it, be connected to it and aware of it and listen to the messages that it's sending us.

Jennifer Taylor: And that is absolutely imperative. You know, spirituality is not something that should happen out there beyond our bodies, but is something that we can experience outside of our bodies. But it's really important that we bring it in [00:32:00] and through our bodies and anchor it here in this life, in this physical presence.

Jennifer Taylor: And dance is a wonderful, wonderful way of doing that. one of the ways that we. Do Chakradance is with our eyes closed or With the lights, very, very dim and by candlelight, because that helps us to come inward in our dance. It helps us to take the outer. What is anybody else going to be thinking of me?

Jennifer Taylor: How am I looking? that kind of outward sense of I'm dancing for other people, or how I'm looking. And it brings the focus into the inner experience. And How are we? Inside and really Chakradance is very much about doing shadow work. It's a very, very safe, very held, beautiful, [00:33:00] enjoyable way of doing some very deep shadow work, because essentially what we do is we go in and , we go into each chakra and we look and we see it say, what is it here that I have not been willing to, to see or address what part of myself, am I not loving?

Jennifer Taylor: Am I not accepting? Am I not allowing? And you know, that's, that's really, that's going into our shadow, those parts of ourselves that have been relegated to the darkness because we think they're not good enough or our society has said, that's not acceptable. And. With each chakra, we dance into that.

Jennifer Taylor: We have a guided visualization and we go into a sacred space, some kind of sacred temple where we are supported in the process and we are able to move forward. Let whatever that next part of us, that's willing to step forward and say, Hey, could you [00:34:00] love me? You know, could, could you, or could you let go of the things that are keeping me from being able to be who I am?

Jennifer Taylor: And it is healed and moved through us. And it's really profound. And especially the Chakradance goddess course, where we work with a different goddess with each chakra and I love it so much because. You're doing this work, but you're also connecting with another aspect of the divine and that goddess holds you and heals you and helps you to move through and move out these things that you discover.

Jennifer Taylor: And you not only have. All of that additional support as you're doing this work, but you also have that connection and that relationship then to help you move through your life when you're not doing Chakradance and you're doing other things. I think it's such a beautiful, wonderful way of.

Jennifer Taylor: Getting into our [00:35:00] bodies and our psyches and our spiritual and energetic bodies and really moving with it and in every sense of the word. I 

Tava Baird: such an incredible process. There's so much in our life, where we're encouraged to sort of put the needs of our body aside. You know, like, especially, I was a teacher for 20 years and I worked a lot with really young children who, you know, a lot of times they needed to, I want to be in your lap, I want to hold your hand, you know, and I sometimes felt like my body was literally just becoming a jungle gym for other people,

Tava Baird: And, a lot of times when you are a caretaker of young children, you, you know, you're thinking, Oh, my God, I'm exhausted, or I need to eat, or I need to pee. And I can't do that because your needs are coming first. and it also happens in the workplace, you know, you are, working so hard that you don't have lunch.

Tava Baird: Um, You don't have time to go outside and take a walk on a [00:36:00] nice day. You are putting the pedal to the metal and even though you're exhausted, you're going to put in another two hours to get the project done. And over time, all of these little, pieces start to fracture away your connection to your own body.

Tava Baird: And it starts to arise in a lot of different areas. Um, sometimes it's physical pain. Sometimes it's just feeling like your body exists only to carry your brain around. Sometimes it becomes so that you no longer recognize yourself as like a sexual or sensual being in this world. And I think dance is a great way to kind of counteract that, to be able to get into a place where you say, I am moving.

Tava Baird: Not to look hot for someone else, not to look like I know what I'm doing and to impress someone else. I am moving to, say I have a body and my body [00:37:00] likes to move and it doesn't matter how silly it looks. Um, if you are self conscious, I highly recommend finding yourself a children's birthday party, or a, you know, or a children's music group, little kids know how to shake their groove thing, and they don't care who sees it, and they just dance, and they don't care what you look like dancing.

Tava Baird: Right. And that was a very healing thing for me. It sort of counteracted when I worked with young children, I became their jungle gym, at least a couple times a week, I would just put on music. And I had, this wonderful set of, international music that had like, music from Africa, music from the far east, and music from South America.

Tava Baird: And a lot of times we couldn't understand the lyrics because people were singing in different languages, but it had a beat. And we would just get out on the playground and dance. And [00:38:00] dancing outside is its own unique and wonderful pleasure. I have to say, Jen, I'm so jealous because you are married to a drummer.

Tava Baird: And You know what, if you're a little nervous about dancing, become a drummer. So for other people to dance, um, drumming and going to drum circles and, you know, there are even sites online like Crazy Crow. Crazy Crow is this wonderful site. it's run by Native peoples and it supplies, uh, All sorts of like, I buy my leather from there to do when I teach my bookbinding classes and stuff, drum kits on there where you can paint and string your own hand drum.

Tava Baird: And It's the bomb. It's the best. And so, you know, even if you don't think of yourself as a musician, everybody can eke out a basic rhythm on a drum. And you can add that to your dance or, you know, get yourself a cheap tambourine. [00:39:00] Um, there are so many things with the, with kids, especially if they had become self conscious and we wanted them The move again, we would give them scarves and they would move the different colored scarves through the air and you can find children's dance scarves on Amazon for, you know, next to nothing and just getting out there and looking at how things move through the air and then trying to follow it with your body is a great thing.

Tava Baird: Or, Different animals. I would encourage different kids, you know, now dance like a horse now dance like an eagle now dance like a butterfly and explore those different movements and then before you know it, you'll be dancing like a goddess. 

Jennifer Taylor: Oh, absolutely. 

Jennifer Taylor: One of the things that I used to teach a long time ago was creative ways of getting people to dance, like how to show them how they can move in an area and move them in a way that's different than a dance move and just standing and declaring a sacred circle around you. [00:40:00] And, see if you can touch all of the space in that circle, or imagine it's a sphere around you and just keep going and moving so that you are trying to touch every single part of the space in that sphere. You know, that is dance and it's beautiful and the movement is incredible. And like you said, moving like an animal, you can also invite in the divine spirit of that animal to move you.

Jennifer Taylor: And that's a really powerful thing to do, you know, inviting the energy of Raven. to dance through you and move through you is an absolutely incredible experience. So not only thinking of how would it feel if I were that animal, but inviting the divine animal spirit of that to move you.

Jennifer Taylor: And it is, it's really incredible. I highly recommend it. 

Tava Baird: There was an [00:41:00] exercise we used to do, um, you know, I have a theater background and a lot of times people show up and they need to be able to dance on stage, but they might be self conscious about it if they haven't done it a long time. And one of the things that we would do is we would get a group of people together.

Tava Baird: And 

Tava Baird: and the first person would step forward and just do a repetitive gesture. It can just be, I'm moving my hands in the same direction, or I'm, you know, shaking my legs and then everybody else in the group would do the same movement and then after about 10 seconds, you move on to the next person.

Tava Baird: They can be silly movements. They can be funny movements. You can be doing the mashed potato. It doesn't matter, but everybody in the group is contributing just a repetitive movement that everyone else copies and you're moving from person to person. Then the idea is supposed to be as you continue to go around the circle over and over again that you get to a point where everyone is watching the next person so carefully and trying to copy them that [00:42:00] you can't actually tell like someone walking up to the circle later can't tell who the leader is because you're all just trying to be in sync and it was a wonderful fun game that had people lose their inhibitions.

Tava Baird: And there was another exercise that we did You guys have ever done and you can't there's actually an entire Ted talk on this. and there's a lot of things online. I think I actually have a links to a couple of things on tavabaird.Com under community resources. There are exercises on laughter that go along with this, where you lay everybody down, and they all put their heads on someone else's belly and you start off.

Tava Baird: Fake laughing. And then the next thing that happens is actual laughter starts to get generated as your head is bouncing around on someone else's stomach, and you hear people laughing around you, and it becomes this incredible icebreaker. There are videos online of people doing it. You'll be [00:43:00] laughing just watching them.

Tava Baird: Of people having these common physical experiences where they're all laughing together, and then you get up and that's your next step after that is let's move into the dance or let's move into singing together. But these are all things to explore that can take, you know, the concept of dance even further.

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah, and I think there are so many things even in our this discussion that I was like, Oh, we have so many ideas and so many things to share that I think we'll definitely need to keep coming back to this in future podcast episodes. 

Tava Baird: If people are curious about Chakradance, There are things on your website that they could go to to look up, correct?

Jennifer Taylor: Yes. You can go to willowridgereiki. com, which there are links in the show notes and in various places that you can find that as well. And Chakradance will be on there and there will be some information about that and feel free to contact me. I'm still really working on getting my [00:44:00] website.

Jennifer Taylor: incorporating Chakradance as well, but there will be a Chakradance online goddess course starting in January, where you can go through and have an incredible experiences and healing experiences with seven different goddesses, one for each of your major chakras. And we can do that as a community.

Jennifer Taylor: and you can dance it whenever you have time during that week. And then we'll get together and we'll share all on zoom. It can all be done remotely so that we can reach as many people as possible. And we can also hold that space together. So more information will be coming about that as well.

Jennifer Taylor: But if you go on the website and it's under construction for some reason, or something's not there, please contact me because I would love to talk with you about that. 

Tava Baird: Well, it looks like we are running out of time today, so it's time for our closing invocation before we send everyone on their way into the [00:45:00] world.

Tava Baird: Okay. 

Jennifer Taylor: So, let's breathe into the center of our heart space and just feel the dancing of our spirits. Feel how much our spirits want to dance and move and be free. And fully a part of our physical bodies and move them. So just imagine all of that dancing spirit coming through for you. And in this week, as we move forward, and I will sing us a blessing for that. [00:46:00] Oh,

Jennifer Taylor: that was different than [00:47:00] usual. A lot more movement. You 

wonder why. I think that spirit of dance is coming out. Indeed. Thank you so much everyone for joining us today. Be safe and well and get out there and shake your groove thing. We'll see you soon next episode.