Dancing for Sustainability and a Healthier Planet

Molly Lawrence has a Ph.D. in Science Education and is an Assistant Professor of Secondary Education at Western Washington University. She practices 5 Rhythms Dance and loves the community of Bellingham for its commitment to creativity, sustainable living, and natural beauty.

“No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it.”

-Albert Einstein

Had you asked me this question a year and a half ago, I would have perceived no connection between committing to an embodied form of movement like dance and co-creating a healthier world for all beings.

However, over the last year, dancing has helped me to engage in an intense process of transformation in how I relate to myself, others, and the planet. And this sort of transformation in relating to self and others is key to a more sustainable and just world. How could this be the case?

Quite simply, through dance we can move more fully out of separation, which lies at the heart of Western ways of knowing and being, and more fully into connection. And as we viscerally embody this shift, we transform the world in every action. We become more conscious of the ways in which we separate from and within ourselves, which contributes to the violence and destruction we see environmentally.

In his book “Research is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods,” Native American scholar Shawn Wilson (2008) speaks to the power of changing how we relate: ““Rather than viewing ourselves as being in relationship with other people or things [separation], we are the relationships that we hold and are part of [connection and wholeness].”Thus, we must be the relationship we want to see, because we are the relationship we are seeing. If we are seeing planetary destruction, what are the ways in which we embody this destructive relationship?

Quantum physics explains the power of transforming how we relate to ourselves as integrally connected to the broader tissue of universal fabric.

“The quantum mechanical view of reality startles us out of common notions of what is real. Even to scientists, it is admittedly bizarre. In the quantum world, relationship is the key determiner of everything. Subatomic particles come into form and are observed only as they are in relationship to something else. They do not exist as independent ‘things.’ There are no basic ‘building blocks.’ Quantum physics paints a strange yet enticing view of a world that, as Heisenberg characterized it, ‘appears as a complicated tissue of events, in which connections of different kinds alternate or overlap or combine and thereby determine the texture of the whole.’ These unseen connections between what were previously thought to be separate entities are the fundamental ingredient of all creation.”

Margaret J. Wheatley

“Leadership and the New Science”

Thus, working on the environment without shifting the way in which we relate (internally and externally) will not result in an outcome any different from what we see all around us. If we, however, can learn to relate to ourselves and the world in a way that acknowledges that we are the relationship we are seeing and that refuses to create further separation, violence, and destruction, we can embody new forms of consciousness that create different realities.

So how has dance helped me relate to myself and others differently? To engage from a place of connection rather than creating further separation and violence?

Growing up in a Western culture, I was constantly up in my head. My analytical mind ruled and I used it to do many things. This came at a cost for me and the planet, though. How so? In “Birth of the Chaordic Age” Dee Hock explains that “We are now at a point in time when the ability to receive, utilize, store, transform, and transmit data – the lowest cognitive form – has expanded literally beyond comprehension. Understanding and wisdom are largely forgotten as we struggle under an avalanche of data and information.” In other words, we are culturally stuck in the analytic mind (head) and out of touch with understanding and wisdom, which are dimensions of the heart. As a result, we are consistently reproducing separation and violence in our world.

Here is how this separation and violence played out in my own experience. I made many decisions based only on what my analytical mind told me I was supposed to do. Often these decisions were based primarily on the external: others’ ideas of what might work, what research told me, or what I feared would happen in the world if I did not do what my analytical mind told me. I regularly felt my analytical mind (head) and intuitive wisdom (heart) in opposition to one another, resulting in considerable stress. Working primarily from the analytical mind, I found myself trying, pushing, or unconsciously doing things. Because I was disconnected from intuitive wisdom and my heart, fear shaped my actions and decision making. I feared the planet would fall apart. I feared deep down that I was not enough and needed to do something to contribute in order to be enough. And I feared that other people would ruin the planet. All of these fears are a form of separation, and acting from a place of fear led me to 1) reproduce the very violence and destruction I was trying to eliminate in the world and 2) stay separated from the deeper intuitive wisdom that flows through me and becomes increasingly accessible as I come into my body more fully.

But getting back into my body and beginning to experience connection between head and heart, analytical and intuitive ways of knowing, is quite a terrifying endeavor. In her book “I Will Not Die an Unlived Life” Donna Markova explains that our work in transforming ourselves into connection is to find our way beyond the “islands of fear” inside of us into the “continents of wisdom and truth.” And we do this as we educate ourselves “in the interior dimension.” Thus, dance allowed me to begin learning from the inside out.

Dance is an embodied form of movement. And it allows anyone to begin embodying more whole and connected movements. In my case, I had to learn to be within the tension of intuitive wisdom (heart) and analytical mind (head) and the seemingly conflicting messages I received from them. This led to considerable uncertainty. However, as I have come back into my body and learned to be within this tension, I am beginning to experience the tremendous creative possibility as we refuse to create more separation by acting from either the place of the head or the heart, rather than from a place of connected head and heart.

Tara Brach (retrieved online March 5, 2012 at http://www.tarabrach.com/audio/2012-02-29-Embodied-Presence-TaraBrach.mp3) speaks to the power of reconnecting with our bodies and the connection between this step and a healthier planet: “There is no way that we can be connected with our inner life and with each other and with the earth and care about our inner life and each other and the earth if we’re not in our bodies. We leave [our bodies] a lot. Our senses live in the present moment.” As we are willing to be in our bodies we can begin embodying connection rather than separation.

2. I began learning to trust and love the creative motion and flow of the universe (a quantum universe) rather than being attached to certainty and expected outcomes (a Newtonian universe). When dancing in community everyone in the room is moving through the empty spaces. As the collective begins moving faster and faster through the available spaces, an incredible creative force can be felt in the room. Just like the order I experience when in nature but am not able to fully explain or recreate through planning, the room is a living, breathing, self-organizing system. This feels much different from how I tend to engage with others in my work at WWU, in planned interactions where roles are defined and expectations are more likely to shape my interpretation of what is going on. In the flowing, creative energy of the dancing community, I experience my connection with myself and with others in the room in a completely unexpected, unattached, and grounded way. Through others’ movement, I am presented with new spaces that spark my own creativity and potential. The space that exists is lived, breathed, and moved through by those in the room. We all dance freely and fully.

Contrast this with an experience I had at the Wild Buffalo when I was just learning the visceral feeling of a moving and connected community of dancers. Packed to the gills on a Saturday evening, the room was filled with people dancing in their somewhat fixed spaces. I found myself dancing in my spot, moving in place. As more people entered, my space began to feel like it was shrinking. I found myself immediately wanting to stick out my elbows and preserve my tiny space.

As we learn to see and experience the universe as constantly in motion, as filled with available space, and as embodying an order that can be felt and sensed but not planned or detected fully by the analytical mind, we learn to be the relationship that contributes connection, wholeness, aliveness in all contexts. We transform ourselves in ways that create connection rather than separation even when we dance at the Wild Buffalo or work on difficult issues like the coal trains in Bellingham.

Dance helps us viscerally experience the creative motion and flow of the universe (a quantum universe). Embodying this understanding can help us to rapidly and radically transform ourselves and our world. How? By coming more fully into our body and the wisdom pulsing through it, which is not defined by a role, nor limited by an expectation. This necessarily leads to transformation outside of ourselves as we become conscious of, embody, and live connection more completely. Through it, we learn to “act in the world and not on the world” as Peter Senge and others describe in “Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future.” We learn to embody “Falling Into One Eye” (collage created by Molly Lawrence). Transforming the world starts with transforming the way we relate, which starts with how we relate to ourselves.

• Brach, T. (Podcast retrieved online on March 5, 2012 at: http://www.tarabrach.com/audio/2012-02-29-Embodied-Presence-TaraBrach.mp3)

• Hock, D. (1999). “Birth of the Chaordic Age.” San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler

• Markova, D. (2000). “I Will Not Die an Unlived Life: Reclaiming Purpose and Passion.” San Francisco: Conari Press.

• Senge, P., Scharmer, C. O., Jaworski, J., and Flowers, B. S. (2004). “Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future.” New York: Crown Business.

• Wheatley, M. J. (2006). “Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World.” San Francisco: Berrett-Koehley Publishers.

• Wilson, S. (2008). “Research is Ceremony: Indigenous ResearchMethods.” Black Point, Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing.