"THE WAVE" video, subtitled "Ecstatic Dance for Body and Soul", provides music, images, and inspiration to do a form of meditation called The Wave. This is Gabrielle Roth's personal form of moving meditation, and thousands of people have been moved to do it through her tape and her workshops. The Wave is structured enough to be a meditation practice, and it is free enough that each of us can be ourselves in the moment during this moving meditation.
The meditation starts with simple movements of various parts of the body. Then one moves through five basic rhythms that "form a map to your innermost being":
| flowing | "fluid, continuous motion" |
| staccato | "short, sharp, perscusive stops and starts" |
| chaos | "wild, abandoned and free" |
| lyrical | "airy, light, playful" |
| moving stillness | "focusing on the inner dance" |
Gabrielle Roth encourages us to express what we are in the moment, whether that be light or heavy, etc. In words that any of us can understand, she says:
If you don't do your dance, who will?
The Wave is not about partner dancing nor about partnering, but it is very relevant to both. Through the Wave one can deepen one's connection to oneself and to oneself as a dancer. And then one can bring that deepening to one's partnerships in dance and in the rest of life.
How could one not like a video dedicated to:
Zen tantric shamanic existential
taoist cowgirl surfers of the wave
and their mothers
© Copyright 1998 George Woolley
for more info about Gabrielle Roth, see Raven Recording page about Gabrielle Roth.
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