Intentional Performance of Particles
by Jane Engleman
It seems that particles are waves that cause movement in other particles and waves. I don’t know. Just seems we splash.
Everything in the particle is in the wave it is, particularly in physical dance and physical poetry. Everything that we do is contained in the dance, in the activated muscle, the bone and the integration of the sensory neurons, within the context of arterial systems and the Vegas nerve. Maybe particles move the way the Father becomes the Son and the Holy Ghost, the way that ice melts to waters that become steam. The way gifting moves from stillness to energy.
I am definitely not a dancer, performance in the art sense, in the dance sense. So why is meditation and Medicine Dance so important to me? For 25 years I was lost in self-care, studying origins without ever being here inside my own body. I was taught, without feeling, that I could heal.
My life became activated by noticing how dendrites take in information, nurture it for a minute in a neuron cell, and send it on along through an axion to the body. Cognition is not brainwork, it is bodywork. Feeling is both pain and emotion, simply the response of our bodies to our genetics and environment. Conscious movement changes the thought-emotions that lead to action.
And it feels so good to dance, easy or wild, disabled or athlete, to silence, to coaching and to poetry and music. It feels good to perform. Waves are particles. Sometimes the particles are moving together and sometimes particles are moving against each other. Moving back and forth, in and out in circles, and as momentary still points gathering fire. Medicine dance physically informs my wellness, my poetry, my communication, my activism.
I work with Pro Peers Entry Network that facilitates the difference between surviving and thriving. Everything in a tree is in the seed. Medicine Dance prepares the ground, friending nature, optimizing the physical environment for everything that I do as a poet, as a writer and as a graphic designer, with the dream of advocacy for trauma survivors in Los Angeles.
Medicine Dance breathes me. Gives permission, space and balance. We are both energy and particle, paddling or floating. I am accidental, intentional waves. We exist, breath, love.