Dances of Universal Peace Australia Inc www.dancesofuniversalpeaceaustralia.org

Welcomes you to: Dancing Integral Consciousness

Our Annual Residential Dance Retreat:

Wed 23rd April to Mon 28th April 2014 Phoenix Rising Retreat, 627 Left Bank Rd,

Mullumbimby

A number of thinkers have attempted to define the next step in the evolution of human consciousness. The Indian sage Sri Aurobindo considered the emergence of super consciousness in some individuals as the next step; in a similar vein the Swiss philosopher Jean Gebser spoke of the coming of four-dimensional integral consciousness, rising from the prior stages of archaic, magical, and mythical mental consciousness. (Ervin Laszlo, 2008)

About the Retreat:

We live in a time of transition. According to the Mayan people a new era began after 21/12/2012. A shift in consciousness and a shift in civilization was envisaged by many Native American cultures, including the Maya, Cherokee, Tayta, Xingue, Hopi, Inca, Seneca, Inuit, and Mapuche. The Achuar of the Amazon and other indigenous people of the south prophesised that this would be a time when the Eagle and the Condor would fly together. The Eagle being a

symbol of the material and intellectually driven north, which has dominated for the last 500 years, and the Condor of the spiritually driven south of the Americas.

When Samuel Lewis created the Dances of Universal Peace in the late 60s, he created a way to embody

integral consciousness. It was also his way of spreading the Sufi message of Hazrat Inayat Khan of ‘love, harmony and beauty’. Inayat Khan’s task of harmonising east and west through his music was thus accomplished by Murshid Sam through the music of the Dances of Universal Peace. The rapid spread of an evolved consciousness is crucial for humanity's future as much as for the planet’s future.

In this retreat we will explore this embodied form of integral consciousness through dances that resonate with each structure of consciousness, which also can be related to the chakras and periods of human historical evolution. We’ll begin with Earth based dances from indigenous cultures, as the Base Chakra relates to the element Earth and this is the time of the Archaic consciousness, when we humans were still completely identified with the natural world from 200,000 to 70,000 years ago.

Some of our ancestors subsequently left Africa and spread throughout Asia and the South Pacific. This marks the beginning of the magical consciousness, which relates to the water element and the second chakra, the svadistana. Dances relating to water and the moon will be part of this section of the retreat exploring the nature of magic and the spirit. Other aspects of the second chakra, like colours and qualities can also enhance our experience of the process. Historically this represents the time of migration around the planet of hunter-gatherer peoples between 70,000 and 10,000 years ago.

The next section of the retreat we will explore the mythical consciousness, relating to the element of fire and the naval chakra. The mythical consciousness cultures developed around the river deltas of the ancient world, so they include - Hindu, Buddhist, Zoroastrian dances as well as some of the Jewish, Christian and Aramaic dances. This is the time of the sharing of stories, our personal myths as well as collective ones. The mythical consciousness began around 10,000 years ago and went to the Renaissance in Europe, when the mental consciousness became dominant with the invention of 3 dimensional art and the domination of the intellect. This relates to the heart chakra and the element of air.

Then finally the climax of the story of the retreat will be the final phase of the integral consciousness where the element is ether and it relates to the throat chakra the vishuda. This phase is 4 dimensional space-time so we will experiment with how we move from the perspectival 3 dimensional world of the mental consciousness to the 4 dimensional aperspectival world of integral consciousness.

We will then explore how the dances, the walks, the meditations, the creative expression and the breathing patterns could be used to develop practices that would consciously move people towards a more integral consciousness. So we will explore the element of each chakra, as well as the colour and qualities through dance and other practices.i This would give a different angle on our

universal worship in dance because we’d not only be bringing together the different spiritual traditions on the planet, but also include the indigenous and the Goddess. Bringing them together they constitute the integral consciousness so needed in this time of major transition.ii

Co-Creators: Arjuna and Noorunissa Anna, DOUP Mentors plus all who attend.

The above information was part of the flyer for our annual Easter dance retreat this year, 2014. The list of dances proposed for the retreat appears below, this list was modified according to offerings presented by other dance leaders, however it formed the initial skeleton of the retreat. There were some 20 participants overall with a core group of 16, which made the retreat more intimate, as one of the retreatants observed. Indeed the success of the retreat on all levels was reflected by the feedback of another highly experienced dancer, who stated that this was the best dance retreat she had ever been on. Naturally, as one of the two creators of this dance retreat this was music to my ears. Along with other positive feedback, it made me reflect on the question: what were some of the reasons for the success of the retreat?

Some Background Thoughts and Reflections Perhaps the most important factor was that the theme of the retreat was integral consciousness, which is the structure of consciousness that according Jean Gebser and others consider the consciousness that is most need to be developed in this time. Every day in the news we witness a world out of control, according to the news media. On the one hand there is war, violence of all kinds, drug problems, pollution, unsustainable ways of living, excessive consumption of limited resources, climate change, a major refugee problem of people fleeing war zones, poverty, places that are being destroyed by the climate change with rising sea levels. Meanwhile our political and corporate leaders, and many teachers and academics are operated in the ‘business as usual mode’ as if all these reports are of no significance. That is until they need to use the media to their own advantage to promote their political and economic power. This theatre of the absurd that we witness daily, could make us laugh as it did when the existential playwrights like Eugene Ionesco ( a fellow Romanian), Samuel Becket, Arrabel, Harold Pinter, Edward Albee – to name the most famous writers in this movements, wrote their plays directly after WWII. They were in the tradition of the Dadaists and the Surrealists who emerged from the WWI. Both these world wars were the result of the most so-called civilized nations of the planet fighting and killing in the name of peace in our time – another absurdity! With the invention of nuclear and chemical weapons, with the Holocaust, the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the number of acts of genocide in the 20th century that came in the wake of the last 500 years of genocide of indigenous people, all over the world, often at the hands of the so-called civilized people, the absurdity is more likely to make us cry at the tragedy of the human condition. This was something that the Buddha had already observed some 2,500 years ago and something that many saints and prophets have commented on including Mahatma Gandhi. Perhaps his comment to a British journalist deserves a special mention. When the Mahatma went to the UK to explain to the workers in the textile industry the reason why the Indian cotton industry needed to develop a home grown industry, he was interviewed by a journalist, who asked Gandhi: “What do you think of British civilisation?” He replied: “I think it would be a very good idea!” Perhaps the colonization of India, a nation with a culture and spiritual tradition of some 7,000 years by a nation that was barely 1000 years old is a most poignant example of this absurdity and the accuracy of Gandhiji’s comment. Now considering the situation closer to home, one could be equally astounded by the comment of many Australians that the British brought civilization to Australia and the Aboriginal people should be grateful for this. On top of this comment comes the British version of Australian history, which I learnt both at primary school and at high school. This was the notion of ‘peaceful settlement’!

Nowhere was there ever a mention of Aboriginal resistance, of contact history, of genocide, of stolen children, of stolen land or of 100 years of Black wars. And all this sits on top of the worst record for species extinction on the planet, of the almost complete desertification of the land by inappropriate agricultural techniques, twice – of the pollution of most of the major water ways – need I go on? Meanwhile here lived the oldest continuous culture in the world. This was even more than 5,000 years of Chinese culture, 7,000 years of Indian culture, 20,000 years of Native American culture as it was perhaps up to 60,000 years of Australian Aboriginal culture. So here we are on the driest continent on the planet, with some 2/3rds naturally occurring desert where these so called ‘un-civilised’ people were able to live sustainably for longer than any other culture on the planet, which is quite an achievement if we consider the fact that water is only second to air as the basis of all complex life forms like ourselves. I’ve said enough now to draw attention to the seriousness of the crisis we are facing in our world today, both locally and globally, and this has to affect us personally, whether we’re conscious of that or not. The most common affect I first learnt from Joanna Macy, an amazing Buddhist scholar, peace activist, deep ecologist and member of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship along with people like the Vietnamese Zen Master, Thich Nhat Hanh. This effect is called ‘psychic numbing’. It was discovered by the psychiatrist R.J. Lifton when he was researching the effects of nuclear war at Harvard University back in the 70s. ‘Psychic numbing’ is the direct result of the negative information overload that we get from the mainstream mass media day in and day out, of the apparent incompetence or impotence of our political or corporate leaders to address or even acknowledge these issues. However, deep down we are all connected, or to use the term of the quantum physicists, ‘entangled’. If this is the case as Buddhists, yogis, Sufis, Kabbalists, other mystics and indigenous people also say, then we are also feeling the pain of the Great Mother Earth. We feel her pain unconsciously and it is unbearable, so is it any wonder that we escape into our addictions of alcohol, drugs, light entertainment, rave parties, violence, excessive consumption, excessive waste and general destruction of the natural world around us. For it is the natural world that is continually reminding us of our connection to nature. As Hazrat Inayat Khan said, “read the sacred manuscript of nature, it is the only book that will enlighten the reader.” The contemporary Christian mystic Matthew Fox, who wrote the introduction to Saadi’s Prayers of the Cosmos, says something similar when he says we should consider the 13.82 billion year revelation of the Universe above the 1500 years of the Quran, the 2000 year revelation of the Christian gospels, or even the 4000 years of the Torah or the Tanach (Jewish Bible).

The Dance Retreat Now returning to our recent Easter retreat of the Dances of Universal Peace, we may be able to see that part of the reason for the success of this retreat is that by focusing on the theme of integral consciousness we were able to begin a healing process of this terrible condition of ‘psychic numbing.’ For the primary requirement of this condition is a disconnection from the Sacred Earth, our Great Mother according to our indigenous people. This double disconnection from the Sacred and the Earth was addressed on the very first day of our retreat with dances like the Earth is our Mother, we must take care of Her! E Malame, with its Earth and sky, sea and stone and words addressing the Sacred. All this began a process of reconnection to our base chakra and our Archaic consciousness, the most ancient structure of consciousness that we modern anatomical humans (AMH) lived for our first 130,000 years. Furthermore this is the structure that our prehumen ancestors experienced all the way back to the Big Bang, or the Flaring Forth, to use the term that Brian Swimme uses in The Journey of the Universe, the creation video which we watched as part of our first evening program.

After dedicating the whole first day to creation dances and indigenous inspired earth element dances and the archaic consciousness, we moved on to the water element on the second day. This is the domain of the magical structure of consciousness that was inspired by the mutation or evolution to the indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures of the planet some 70,000 years ago when our ancestors had to leave Africa and began populating the rest of the planet with our mob AMHs. The magical consciousness is one step removed from the Earth, however it’s still very much connected. Spirits inhabit all of creation for this structure of consciousness and these spirit beings need to be respected and communicated with in some way. Rituals and language in its modern double articulated form began to appear at this time and these became the basis of magic. Non-African animals, plants, landscapes and things, needed to be named and people needed to find new ways to travel, to hunt, to gather and generally to live their lives. The magical nature of water and the need to ensure the fertility of the tribe, all bring us to the second chakra, the sacral or sexual chakra, the place of creativity and reproduction. This day included water and Goddess dances and walks, as well as the compassion practices that relates to the water element, while gratitude related to the earth element of the previous day. These virtues also gave us dances and Sufi practices and Wazifas that enhanced these qualities. Given that we only had 5 days for the retreat, we decided to use the 3rd day, which happened to be the Saturday, for both fire and air and then the Sunday for the Universal Worship in dance and the ether element. Part of our thinking was that these were actually much more familiar to people in the contemporary world,

which has been dominated by the mental structure of consciousness for the last 500 years. Prior to that we had the Mythic consciousness in its decayed form during the medieval period, and these led to the contemporary world of religion on the one hand and science on the other. So we entered the world of integrality on the Sunday with our Universal Worship on the theme of Peace, which is most related to the ether element. Also ether contains all the other elements and together with fire and air, is essential to our healing process as the prayer Nayaz proclaims: “Through the rays of the sun/ Through the waves of the air/ Through the all pervading life in space”. These elements “purify and revivify us” and enable the divine presence to “heal our bodies, hearts and souls”.

During this retreat in the evenings we watched other videos like the William Dalrymple’s video on Sufi Music and during the afternoons we did creative activities like the clay sessions with Karen, storytelling and walks that helped us to connect to the land. Some of the special additions of this retreat was a locally created Banjalung welcome dance and several Maori inspired dances that Shafia and Wendy have been created in our sister community Aotearoa/New Zealand.

The Location and The Food Two other aspects of the retreat that were positively regarded by people was the food and the location. It was generally agreed that this was some of the best and most balanced retreat food ever. As well the Phoenix Rising retreat centre is very beautiful and spiritual place with an abundance of art works and beautiful gardens, a pool and sauna all nestled in beautiful Northern NSW rainforest. The abundance of tropical flowers allowed Freya to create beautiful flower mandalas. Some Concluding Thoughts No doubt others will remember other aspects of this rich and enlivening time for our dance community and hopefully will write about some of these. I came away with a feeling that we were honouring our ancestors in the dances Hazrat Inayat Khan, Ruth St Dennis and Murshid Sam, as well as all our wonderful teachers and Pirs in the Inayati Sufi communities and the international dance community. As well we honoured our personal ancestors in our predominantly Jewish and Christian traditions of our Anglo/Celtic/European/Middle Eastern families as well as our location in the south Asia Pacific region. And with our indigenous dances and our daily dances outside in nature we acknowledged and honoured the indigenous traditions of Australia and the Pacific Ocean. Thus I left this homegrown retreat with a feeling of completion and integration and a sense that we were truly maturing as an Australian dance community. Al Hamdulilah!

Standing around the pool for the water ritual on Day 2

Integral Consciousness Easter Retreat Program 23-28th April Timetable 7-8am Morning Practices 8-9 am Breakfast 9.30-12.30pm Morning Session 12.30-2pm lunch 2-3.30pm Creative session 4-5.30pm Evening Session 6-7pm Dinner 7.30-9.30pm Evening Session Wednesday 23rd April Welcome to Country Synopsis of Retreat: E Malama The Fish in the Water Om Nama Shivaya Kamal Zikr Thursday 24th April: Exploring Archaic Consciousness/Earth/Gratitude Introductory Bismillah Afternoon 2-3.30pm: Clay session etc Beresith Afternoon Dances 4-5.30pm:Dance Offerings Te Kore Abwoon Body Prayer followed by : Abwoon D’Bashmaya Sesshin/Morning Tea Ko Papatuanuku The Earth is Our Mother The Earth Element walk/Buddhist walk Evening: Film “ Journey of the Universe” May I take Peaceful Steps Shakur Allah Ya Hamid Belit Mati Abdun Shakurun Friday 25th April Magical Consciousness/Water/Compassion Morning session Afternoon Session Mother Earth is a Great great ship 2-3.30pm Water ritual/Trust walk etc Sam: Rahmat Dance 4-5.30pm Dance Offerings Suggestions Ganga Ki Jai Jai Circle Dance Wishita Shalom Benediction Ama Usum Sesshin/Morning tea Yemaya Tane Mahuta Neesa Neesa Shaddai Shakti Yey Yey Water Walk Inana Ishtar(Karen) Evening Session Cascading Zikr Butter Zikr/Basira’s Bismillah etc Saturday 26th April: Mythical (Fire/Supplication) and Mental( Air/Invocation) Morning Session Afternoon Session Hare Krishna 2-3.30pm AGM Suriya Sree Ram 4-5.30pm Storytelling and Dances Fire Walk We Circle Around Light the Lamp of Devotion Maha Mantra

Sesshin/Morning Tea Come Come Whoever you are Jai Hanuman Aruna Chalashiva Air Walk Evening Dance: Prophet /Prayer Night Only a Heart with Wings 3 prophet Dance This is how I would die Dhikr Dance Santa Maria (Karen) Sunday 27th April: Integral Consciousness/Ether/Communion Morning Session Afternoon Session: to be decided by all Here I am Drawing/ writing Session ? Shema Israel Body Awareness with Elana Chidananda Rupa Nan Yar Sesshin/Morning Tea Universal Worship on Peace Suggestions Indigenous: May I walk in Peace Hindu: O Peace Deep and Divine Buddhist: Om Mane Padme Hum/Om Namo Amittabaya Zoroastrian: Ashem vohu Jewish: Shalom

Christian: John Rutter Kyrie Eleison/Dona Nobis Pacem Evening Session co-created… zikr ? Islamic: Asaalam Aleikum

Sufi: Benediction Dance Monday 28th April : Closing Circle We Come into a Healing Time Lord Make me an Instrument Shalama Bayta Sesshin/Morning tea How do we integrate all this in our life? Any other Dance offerings? Kalama Finish with Lunch at 12.30pm so folk that need to leave early can….

i Here’s an overview reference for your interest: http://www.sirenabernal.com/the-seven-chakras-an-overview/

ii Here’s the article I got the Laszlo quote from: http://files.meetup.com/885675/The%20Next%20Evolution%20of%20Human%20Consciousness%20by%20Ervin%20Laszlo.pdf