Inner Dance: My Explorations of Philippine Shamanic Wisdom

It's been an eventful few weeks, I can say that much. In the world of Nature, things move slowly. Changes happen gradually. A lot of time is spent sitting, watching, immersed in silence. Time is of little consequence. But in the world of people, a lot happens; the dynamic beings that we are, I guess.

I've now spent a good few months surrounded by many people, here in the city of Manila. It's funny how that happened, really. I had been intent on completely going into hibernation, locking myself up for days and even weeks at a time in my room and devoting myself completely to my solitude. But many times, events also pushed me out into the world. Even when I'd thought I would be completely retreating from the rest of the world when I went to the seaside in Aurora, I was still flung into activities with people there. So quite by happenstance, I met many new people and reunited with old friends and family members as a consequence. And now I've come to remember just how much I really, truly enjoy being around people. It required a bit of memory-jogging, as I had become so accustomed to the peace and quiet of Nature in the past 2 years of living on a boat at sea. I'd felt too overwhelmed by the busy activities of people during the first 2 months in Manila. But as I see it now, Manila rightly re-ignited a part of me that had been dormant for quite awhile now: a deep love for being a part of the daily world of human interactions!

My latest experience was in a workshop that practiced Inner Dance. A couple of years back, I had been introduced to this wondrous, mysterious practice when I stayed at Bahay Kalipay in Puerto Princesa, Palawan, where the founder, Pi Villaraza, had been conducting it (besides conducting it everywhere else in the world). Being a resident of quiet, rural El Nido, I had found Puerto Princesa too nerve-wracking with its unending hum of tricycles and other urban activities. Bahay Kalipay, with its rural, natural setting on the outskirts of the city, served as a respite for the few days I had to be in Puerto Princesa. Back then, when Pi decided to initiate me to the practice, I felt a strange energy holding my arm that allowed me to keep my arm suspended in the air for a whole hour with no effort whatsoever, while I lay on my back. Something had kept my arm lifted in the air, and it wasn't me. I mean, if it were, how then was I able to keep it in the air for that long and not be tired from it, right? Still, I had my doubts about it then.

To give you a background of the Inner Dance practice, Pi came upon these mysterious flowing energies when he took on a pilgrimage around the Philippines with nothing more than the clothes on his back. The day he started walking was the day he left a successful marketing career and all other belongings he possessed. Something else had called him to take the walk, and he followed. About a year after journeying around Mindanao (Southern Philippines), he came to Palawan and settled himself on an island, where he remained for almost 2 years, subsisting only on a diet of coconuts. One day, a mysterious force suddenly consumed his body. His body started moving, prompted by energies that were coming from within. He found himself running up and down the beach in full vitality, as well performing strange stick-fighting techniques that he never possessed any knowledge about, prior to that experience. He was even doing somersaults and all kinds of acrobatics that he had no idea he could actually do! At the same time, he felt blissful and invigorated. Blessed by the experience, he decided to explore it further. He traveled through small towns to test the use of the energies, and found that they were able to heal people's illnesses, no matter how severe the illness.

Exploring further by visiting Philippine tribes, he then discovered through the baylans (shamans) that these tribes have known the involuntary body movements as “the hidden dance that heals and awakens people”. The tribes told him that they were the energies of grandmother spirit; a spirit very linked with the Earth, from my understanding. They were discovered one day, when a man started dancing wildly and joyously. So then, Pi started to heal people physically and emotionally. He discovered that the same energies were latent in each person's body, just waiting to be awakened. He was able to awaken them through the energies that were already awakened in him to be shared. Thus, Bahay Kalipay was born.

As I said, back then I still had some doubts about it. I didn't think I had enough of an experience to confirm the whole thing for myself. Well, if you've been keeping up with my blog, you'll remember that I had been talking about mysterious bodily movements that started happening to me one day while I was practicing yoga and meditating in my room, about a month ago. The energies made my body and arms dance and sway spontaneously, while I had looked on in awe. I had thought then that it might have something to do with Kundalini rising – the awakening of powerful healing energies at the base of the spine to unlock the human being's fullest potential, often brought about by religious yoga and meditative practice. But looking at things now, I believe that Kundalini rising and Inner Dance are simply two different names for the same thing...Inner Dance being the Philippine version of it.

I had been a bit scared about taking the energies further, as I knew nothing about them; but at the same time, I was unsatisfied with my Kundalini yoga teacher's suggestion to keep the energies under control by remaining still. I really loved flowing and dancing with the energies. When I asked her again later on if it would not be okay for me to explore these energies by allowing them to take their course, she finally said yes, but not during my yoga sessions. I needed to separate the two, as one practice (yoga) promoted self-discipline and control, while the other (Inner Dance) promoted free-flow and letting go. Two very opposite things. Yet I couldn't help feeling that they were somehow complimentary, as the first was more masculine, and the second, more feminine in nature. By employing the two methods by turns, I thought that I would perhaps come to a good balance between stillness/mental-discipline, and flowing/letting go. Besides, I don't think that experiences just happen randomly. There's always a reason for them. I took it that my body was telling me to explore Inner Dance.

So there I was then, in the Inner Dance workshop held by Arianne, who had been trained by Pi to facilitate the practice in Manila. My brother had been suggesting that I join the workshop. And right when music came on, my body instantly started to get swayed by the energies that seemed to move along with the vibrations of the sound. As always, I wasn't controlling my body; I was merely witnessing it. And right then, I knew it would be okay too, because everyone else started to move as well, with the same energies that I felt. The energies were a lot stronger than I had ever experienced them, and I found myself in a complete state of letting go to whatever my body was doing. Pent up emotions started to rise out of me powerfully...particularly those that I had been suppressing when a close friend took his own life just a few days ago.

My friend took his life one night, out of a deep depression at not being able to see his kids. He had rushed over to his ex-wife's house immediately after finding out that she and the kids had come back from Singapore. But upon getting there, his mother-in-law refused to let him see the children. I don't have to imagine the pain that comes with not knowing when you will ever see your children again. I had also experienced the same, a few years back. I wish I could've known that the night he called me was a night that he was actually pleading a friend to help raise him out of his hopelessness, because it was the same night he took his life. I didn't see that coming. He had sounded eeriely cheerful, was all I'd thought then. In fact, I had been annoyed that he seemed to start becoming dependent on me to fill whatever hole he was trying to fill up in him, so I kept the conversation short.

When I learned of his sad fate, I was in shock for a couple of days. Mostly, I felt afraid of facing the reality that he was really gone, and guilty that I hadn't been able to do more for him. Thanks to the support of good friends, though, I grew to slowly accept it. I didn't want to attend his cremation, but at the last minute, decided that I had to see him, if only to face reality full-on, that he really was gone. And I'm glad I did that, because then, a sense of peace in acceptance washed over me at seeing his body with my own eyes. Yes, he was really gone. And in facing that fact, I was no longer afraid, and for the first time, I was able to express the deep sadness that I really felt. No tears came though. They seemed to be stuck in my chest, still.

It was the Inner Dance workshop that finally propagated the full release for me, because I cried and cried then, the tears seemingly unstoppable, until a great big burden finally lifted off me. I became able to send my friend the love that I'd been withdrawing, out of the fear that feeling anything for him at all might hurt. After the session, I felt unbelievably light and grateful. The loss of my friend finally came to a healing close.

During the next part of the Inner Dance session, we were asked to take on partners. I ended up being partners with a girl named Mymel. We were asked to face each other on our mats and close our eyes. We were to get to know our partners on an intuitive basis. As the session progressed, the now-familiar energies came again. And as my body moved, the vision of a galaxy filled with many stars came to me. I started connecting with my partner so intimately that I came to a knowing that she and I had been great friends, sisters, for a very, very long time. I felt so much love for her. I just knew her! And what was crazy about it was that I never even met her until that day! But in the session, I felt so much familiarity and love for her that I was urged to extend my arms and pour all the love I felt out to her.

At one point, I felt compelled to open my eyes. When I did, I saw that our hands were in the exact same positions, midway up in the air, as if in offering. I thought that was strangely interesting, but closed my eyes again. My hands swayed to and fro a little more. Towards the end of the session, my hands rested on my knees. And when we were asked to open our eyes, Mymel and I discovered that we were sitting in the exact same position again! This emitted a burst of amused laughter from both of us.

During the sharing, Mymel and I found out a number of amazing things. She told about her vision of a galaxy filled with many stars – the same vision I'd had; she told of her body being taken over by a bouncy sort of energy, which she enjoyed playing with for awhile with her hands – the same bouncy energy I always felt when my body movements came on; and she told of feeling a great surge of love and warmth filling her at one point, coming from me! All these synchronistic events happened with our eyes closed.

And so this has left me in utter awe for our capacity as human beings to communicate psychically. Given the opportunity for our psychic faculties to grow, our currently limited means of communication through words would surely become obsolete. Words just don't suffice for the depth of love and understanding for another, that the psychic form of communication is able to reach. There's much happiness in psychic communication, due to a soul-knowing and understanding of one another. I do hope that one day, our world could grow into this. I mean, currently, we humans are only using a miniscule portion of our brain's true capacity. Imagine the wonders we could create when more avenues are opened up in our brains. Miracles would be a daily occurrence!

Okay, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here. But in saying all this, I'm truly grateful for the Inner Dance experience I had. It healed me of suppressed pain; it left me with a greater sense of awe for life, a more expanded view of the world; and most of all, it showed me my real capacity as a human being to love another, regardless of whether or not they're family, or even whether or not I'd ever met them before in my life. Love, in its deepest aspects, knows no difference in race, creed, personal history, or blood ties.

So I've made a renewal of vows. I've vowed to be a more active participant of this world of beautifully diverse human beings; to share more of those precious moments of life with others, even though that very same diversity in us as individuals often poses challenges in getting along peacefully. All it really is, is a little drama, a little more shape, splashes of color melding together to in the end, make the painting of life a masterful work of art. I've come to remember that God is felt as much in being with all the people around me as He/She is felt in the solitude of my heart. So I guess I'm not meant to live the life of a hermit. At least not in this lifetime. And you know what? I actually think that's a good thing.              

Strange, New Things

I realize that I haven't written anything on my blog in almost 2 months now. Interesting things have happened, but I'll start with what I've been up to. Well, the good part is that I've finally adjusted to the overly-stimulating city environment without the overwhelming feelings I first got, upon coming back here after years in the quiet of Nature. It was a slow and difficult process, but I'm happy to say that I've now adjusted enough to function normally here.

I've been so busy with work and activities, that it all left me pretty exhausted in a matter of weeks. And so I'd dropped into a part-time work schedule instead, so that I could regain my balance. That also meant that I would earn much less than I originally intended. But plans change, and my life in the past couple of months has been nothing short of a letting go of previous plans, and a falling away of purposes that, I've realized, don't serve me anymore.

You see, I had so many plans. I would go here and there, do this and then that, meet these people and those people, and it was all so exciting and purposeful, because it was all for the benefit of my new pilgrimage. But after awhile, all these plans started to pale. At the same time, I slowly got worn out with work, as I couldn't see a clear purpose to what I was doing anymore. I had to spend a whole lot of time reflecting again. And when I did that, certain plans started to fall away, as I started to see the opportunities that were already being presented to me right here and now. Here I was, plotting out all kinds of things for the future that were already happening to me in the present!

The thing about excitement is that it's a fleeting emotion, entirely based on outer circumstances. We constantly run toward events that make us happy, excited, or simply comfortable – the dream job, the dream partner, the dream family or friends, the dream life, the dream destination - and away from things that make us sad; constantly doing things to “fix” whatever makes us feel uncomfortable. But it just didn't seem like real freedom to me. All it seemed like was a doomed fate to keep running all our lives, toward one thing and away from another; just a tiring, repetitive cycle. I had promised myself long ago that I would never be part of that cycle. I would flow through life without attachments. But without knowing it, I had been part of the cycle at times too.

And so a couple of weeks ago, in complete surrender that once again, I didn't have any answers, nor did I know where to go next, I had my bizarre experience.

As I've said in my previous post, yoga has offered itself to me in bountiful amounts since I got to Manila, starting with the reunion with my brother, who helped me deal with my recent breakup experience through a more devoted practice of this discipline. I'd taken this, as well as other invitations that had to do with yoga, as signs that I'm being led through this way.

The latest offer was a free Kundalini Yoga class at my workplace, where the teacher has trained for years and traveled from India to teach it here in Manila. I've always been curious about this mysterious practice that claims to awaken the powerful energies at the base of our spine, causing a great surge of energy to release itself upward and through us, eventually leading to our enlightenment; enlightenment, being the release from the illusory physical world we currently live in, and attaining that perfect and finally permanent bliss...which is very different from the feeling we currently know as happiness. It can be dangerous for the unprepared person who hasn't taken the time to build foundations to stabilize the powerful energy that the body needs time to adjust to. The whole thing sounded a bit scary to me. But seeing as a class was being made available to me freely, I took that as a sign that I might finally be ready to learn it.

And so I went, and I diligently practiced the techniques on my own. As the days passed, I started feeling a little “foot-off-the-ground”, coupled with intense mood swings. I felt a little alarmed, because I had already managed to stabilize myself after my somewhat traumatic experience of a break-up from a serious relationship, coping in the loss of control over myself, being thrust out of Nature and into the overwhelming activities of the city, and having little more than spare change in my pockets, all at the same time. I didn't want to go back through all that again.

I finally fell into despair one day. That was the day I no longer knew where I should go next, because I felt that everything had been tried, tested, and done with. I've traveled, been in more occupations than I can even remember, loved deeply, let go when I had to, been ecstatically happy and hopelessly sad, been immersed in different cultures, subcultures, and social environments. I'd lived in the city slums at one point in my life, where my apartment was nothing but paper-thin walls and a floor that was about to give way to the garbage dump beneath it. By the same token, I've lived on a sailboat, in the sheer pleasure of physical freedom. I've observed and learned from all I needed to see! As far as I knew, I've been faithful to all my callings. What else did life want of me? “I'm utterly bored now!” I screamed to it.

The only thing I felt compelled to continue was my yoga practice, even though I didn't know exactly where it would lead me. I didn't even feel the desire to teach it.

That day, after a short and tearful prayer to be shown the way and I would again follow, I continued my Kundalini practice with abandonment. After the exercises, as I sat down to meditate with chanting music, I noticed that my body started to vibrate with heightened sensitivity to the music, and I felt a great urge to move my arms. My hands got lighter and lighter, and I started moving with the smooth, flowing energies that I could feel strongly in the air. Then my hands soon took a life of their own, moving around my head and various parts of my body...and I was merely witnessing it! For a whole hour or so, my hands untiringly went back and forth like pendulums, and around in circles throughout my body. It was like watching hands move that weren't mine. But I wasn't scared the first time. I thought it was fascinating. But then when it happened again in another session, and it had become stronger, that's when I got scared.

Thoughts started racing through me: How is it that my body is moving of its own accord? I'm not dreaming, that's for sure. I'm watching all this happen, and I'm fully conscious. My eyes are open, and I can hear the children shouting, the dog barking, and the cars passing by outside. Everything in the room is still in the same order. It's getting stronger! Am I possessed? Am I going crazy? There's no one to witness what's happening to me, what if I explode or something and die?!

I pray fervently to the heavens, trying to calm myself as best I can, while this experience happens. But then I find that I'm still in control, even while my body moves by itself. I can choose to stop it anytime I want, simply with my will to do so, if the experience ever gets too much for me. And so I go with it.

What follows after these experiences are very intense feelings releasing themselves with a vengeance, of all the fears and hurts I've held onto over the years. This process lasts for hours, leaving me exhausted, and then I fall asleep quicker than lightning. When I wake up, I'm at peace, but a little disoriented because I didn't know I fell asleep.

I had a feeling Kundalini yoga might have something to do with it, so I made it a point to do some research. What I unexpectedly discovered from there is how I've actually been going through a Kundalini rising process for quite a few years now. Apparently, some people experience it as a powerful and sudden surge of energy, affecting them and those around them forcefully and immediately; while others go through a slower, milder version of it that grows stronger in time as the body takes in more and more of it. The Kundalini is often triggered by an awakened sense of spirituality in a person. Another factor can be a recent traumatic experience that shocks the system and somehow awakens this energy more potently, even in a person without spiritual background.

As the energy tries to move upward from the base of the spine, trying to cleanse blocked centers within the body in an accelerated manner, a person will experience any of the following or more:

Increased body temperature; trembling, sudden muscle twitches or spasms, usually during meditation or rest/sleep; pain between the eyes (pineal gland area) or headaches/head pressures; extreme and uncontrollable emotional disturbances where unresolved issues are amplified (w/c can cause mental confusion, as the person going through them can't understand why they're so out of control); interval periods of ecstasy; hopelessness or loss of enthusiasm for reality as the person currently knows it; symbolic dreams; electronic gadgets malfunctioning during heightened experience; and acute sensitivity to the environment. There are more signs, and the Kundalini experience varies in each individual, but I name a few of the ones I've been through, which came to a climax this past year...and which has led to the peak of turmoil in me, to say the least.

Kundalini rising has been a known phenomenon in the East for centuries. Yoga and other ancient scientific practices have been devised for the gentle management of the Kundalini energy as it rises, to ensure that the individual's body and mind can smoothly accommodate the transition to this energy state. It's also called the Chi or Life Force, among other names, and once it's awakened, it only grows stronger with time.

People who have not been able to manage this energy have usually been diagnosed as mentally ill or psychotic, as the energy very much affects the mental state. For decades, doctors have apparently been puzzled about the strange phenomenon, of which their usual medical practices have had no positive effects on patients experiencing this. Often, these patients have not been introduced to grounding practices, such as a light diet and the practice of any of the ancient techniques for managing it. Eventually, they “fly off” with the strong energies. Vincent Van Gogh comes to mind. I think he might have actually tapped into these high energies, which caused his artistic genius, but he also didn't know how to come back down to the ground.

Experiencing a stronger form of energy, such as the Kundalini, is sort of like plugging 110 volts into a 220-volt socket; it's going to blow. An adaptor is needed, which is what yoga, martial arts, chi gong, or other such disciplines serve for us. They help the energies flow through more smoothly.

So anyway, I had a talk with Ines, my Kundalini teacher, regarding my experience. She said that I'm to control my body whenever this happens. This will keep the energies locked into my body, so that my body can learn to integrate them as they grow; otherwise, the energies will scatter everywhere, and that's never a good thing when you're talking about something powerful being allowed to unleash itself before its time. She gave me a series of exercises to get me back grounded. And I also better understand my whole experience of scattering energies now, particularly in the more recent past.

I learned that as the energies grow stronger, the more imperative it becomes to practice the grounding activities more regularly. This, I wasn't doing. I was very undisciplined and flying all over the place with these energies, somewhat akin to being high on drugs. Even my yoga practices were inconsistent then. My energies scattered all over the place, greatly affecting those in my immediate vicinity, either positively or negatively, depending on my state. This scattering of energies eventually left me confused.

So now I'm learning to handle the energies properly. It's made me realize why I had to come back to Manila. I had to integrate my body through yogic techniques and guidance made available in my vicinity. Who would've thought that I would find these things in the place I vowed never to come back to? Life's little humor, I guess. Well, laugh it off.

And so my previous plans have all flown out the window. I've always been where I'm supposed to be. At this point, the most important thing for me to do is not to over-stimulate myself with sensory experiences, and to get a bit more guidance in the Kundalini process. I don't know what tomorrow will bring, but when did I ever anyway?

Right now, I'm also getting used to the swaying energies my body moves to as I meditate. It's a bit like being water itself, because I feel so fluid. Now I don't have to immerse myself in water. I am water! But okay, I'll still take my baths (blah).

Well I've had to work up some guts to write these personal details of my life, at the risk of perhaps a few of you thinking, “That's it. Now she's gone completely nuts.” But I feel a commitment to telling my pilgrimage as it is. So take what you can from it, if anything.

As for me, well my reality has just gotten a lot bigger, obviously. I was bored with the world as I knew it, and so it showed me a little more. And all it took was letting go of my own tired, repetitive plans. Funny how life works that way, isn't it? Well, I sure like its plans better than mine.

Namaskar, Namaskar <3