Balanced Choreography – What does that Mean?
Imagine being a tight rope walker on moving on a rope stretched between two buildings high above the street. You use your balancing staff to help you adjust left and right, forward and backward. You take into consideration the shifts in your body weight as you take a step forward, the wind patterns, how the rope might be stretching, how the crowd below is affecting you. And you do all this with the least amount of energy, in balance, as you choreograph your movement forward efficiently and effectively.
Life is like this. We may not be actual tight rope walkers facing death if we misstep. But, on some days, it may feel this way.
One of the most basic tools within the Sweet Medicine SunDance path is the Balanced Choreography Wheel. This wheel teaches us how to align ourselves with energy rather than fighting it. This wheel can be used to find the places where we leak energy in our everyday lives.
This wheel overlays the aspects of our humanness (emotions, body, mind, spirit, and life-force energy) with the natural energy or motion of each of the worlds (plant, mineral, animal, human, and spirit) also sit in a specific direction of this wheel. The worlds, when we connect with them, teach us how to be in balance in our own naturalness.
In the south sits our emotions and the plant word, who teach us how to give with our emotions with tenderness. Think about all the plant world gives us without any expectation and strings. Fruits, flowers, vegetables, shelter, medicine, herbs, furniture, toys, rope, and most importantly, oxygen.
Our body and the mineral world sit in the west. The minerals assist us in knowing how to hold (and transform) with our body. Just think of all the minerals that are spurred to action as we take a bite of food. Calcium, potassium, sodium, magnesium, phosphorus, chloride, and so many more minerals keep our heart beating, our bones strong, our blood flowing, our nervous system sparking and signalling, and our muscles supple.
The north holds our mind and the animal world, who teach us to receive with caring. When we have an open mind that is ready and willing to receive, it places in the present moment. When an owl in a tree hears a rustling below, it listens, smells, looks, and senses where the rustling is coming from and who is making it. It does not sit on the branch and think about how much the noise maker weighs or whether it will be too furry to eat, whether they had the same meal yesterday, or what its friends might think if s/he does not catch this potential prey. It uses its senses and seizes the moment.
In the east sits our spirit and the human world. Here, we learn to determine our lives with passion and lust with spirit. When we know ourselves at a soul level, we understand that it is not our minds who are in control of our journey. Our higher self guides the journey so we have the opportunities to learn and grow, to change and transform.
To be truly alive is to have fluidity in our emotions, flexibility in our minds, stability in our body, expansiveness in our spirits, and orgasm with our sexuality.
