Belly Witch
It has been about two weeks since I was at camp... two weeks ago I bellydanced to the accompaniment of a live dumbek ensemble and guitared for the talent show. I was one-fifth of our pickup bellydance team that pulled in $220 cash which was shoved into our costumes by eager Witch hands. How sweet to feel that I actually accomplished something for the good of my community... by undulating my hips. :) It was my first belly dance performance ever, and was dedicated to my first teacher LVG, whose Central Asian Dance Camp I would have wanted to attend, but it was the same week back in Maryland.
But my guitaring in the talent show was better than my dancing. Several in the audience expressed astonishment and admiration that I had played "Mood for a Day" by Yes... and one person even made the bowing-with-both-palms-held-out gesture toward me for having done that.
It's a cool piece of music, I just wish Steve Howe had given it a less dorky title. I should retitle it. How about "Therese," after my cute cousin? I once named a cool guitar solo I improvised after my cousin Antonella in Sicily.
Just today I read Margaret Cho's account of how she got hooked on belly dance. She is right on, I feel the same feelings she expressed so well... and she was with me, in the form of that book I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight, throughout the camp and was invoked by Queers for her powerful voice.
"The audience was practically all women. I had this notion that belly dance was strictly for men, like strippers, but I couldn't have been more wrong. There were women of all ages, all shapes and sizes, dancing for each other and having a blast. I've never seen a more accepting environment for women's bodies. It blew my mind. Here, what is considered excess flesh by mainstream Hollywood standards is considered beautiful. In fact it's better to have some weight on you if you want to shimmy properly. Women were moving their bellies, popping them out, popping them back in. Undulating. I had never seen women celebrate their stomachs before, ever. The stomach had always been a shameful thing for me, the dead giveaway that I was never going to be the ethereal love object, the chic and popular model, the movie star's girlfriend, but merely a fat and unchangeable human being. In ballet class, I was always admonished for not pulling my stomach in tight enough. In the gym, I was screamed at because I could never do enough crunches. I didn't even like to drink water because it made my belly bloat. These are the reasons I just stopped working out. I couldn't take all the dehydration and self-hatred. At the Cairo Carnival, my belly was free. Cairo-a name that conjures up the desert-ironically is the one place I finally felt safe to drink. Drink in the joy of women enjoying their bodies, loving each other and themselves."
(Beautiful!)
"When you go see a belly dance show, if you look around you see that a lot of the women are crying. Tears for a million different reasons. Because they can't believe how beautiful the dancer is; because that beauty is something that is reachable, accessible, not something that is elusive and distant."
:) I just love Margaret Cho.
I was going to try writing about the Witchcamp, but it was so much, so very much packed into one week, and altogether a bigger experience than I can encompass in a journal entry. One thing about camp felt like it wanted to be told. I wonder why this of all things. The last day of path was for Spirit, and homework was to come up with a prayer for my desire. It could have been words, it could have been dance or an art installation or anything. Most people prayed in words that day. Many people, as always, came up with amazingly fresh and original creative expressions.
I surprised myself. I got up in front of everyone and prayed as I do spontaneously when I'm all alone right from my heart. I'm ordinarily too guarded and shy to even do formal prayer in front of anyone, but here I was giving a genuine example of my intimate prayer in front of people. I never would have believed myself capable of that. It shows how radically living and doing magick in that sacred space in the forested hills can open up a person that much. Radically wide open-and with no fear. Is this anything less than a human miracle? Something "reachable, accessible, not something that is elusive and distant."
Belly dance is my primary connection to my own magick. This became clear at camp. If you know me, my hips want to start moving in sinuous curves at the beat of a drum. As a Reclaiming Intensive, it lived up to its name for me. I'm glad I went there and grooved with a lot of good folks.
But my guitaring in the talent show was better than my dancing. Several in the audience expressed astonishment and admiration that I had played "Mood for a Day" by Yes... and one person even made the bowing-with-both-palms-held-out gesture toward me for having done that.
It's a cool piece of music, I just wish Steve Howe had given it a less dorky title. I should retitle it. How about "Therese," after my cute cousin? I once named a cool guitar solo I improvised after my cousin Antonella in Sicily.
Just today I read Margaret Cho's account of how she got hooked on belly dance. She is right on, I feel the same feelings she expressed so well... and she was with me, in the form of that book I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight, throughout the camp and was invoked by Queers for her powerful voice.
"The audience was practically all women. I had this notion that belly dance was strictly for men, like strippers, but I couldn't have been more wrong. There were women of all ages, all shapes and sizes, dancing for each other and having a blast. I've never seen a more accepting environment for women's bodies. It blew my mind. Here, what is considered excess flesh by mainstream Hollywood standards is considered beautiful. In fact it's better to have some weight on you if you want to shimmy properly. Women were moving their bellies, popping them out, popping them back in. Undulating. I had never seen women celebrate their stomachs before, ever. The stomach had always been a shameful thing for me, the dead giveaway that I was never going to be the ethereal love object, the chic and popular model, the movie star's girlfriend, but merely a fat and unchangeable human being. In ballet class, I was always admonished for not pulling my stomach in tight enough. In the gym, I was screamed at because I could never do enough crunches. I didn't even like to drink water because it made my belly bloat. These are the reasons I just stopped working out. I couldn't take all the dehydration and self-hatred. At the Cairo Carnival, my belly was free. Cairo-a name that conjures up the desert-ironically is the one place I finally felt safe to drink. Drink in the joy of women enjoying their bodies, loving each other and themselves."
(Beautiful!)
"When you go see a belly dance show, if you look around you see that a lot of the women are crying. Tears for a million different reasons. Because they can't believe how beautiful the dancer is; because that beauty is something that is reachable, accessible, not something that is elusive and distant."
:) I just love Margaret Cho.
I was going to try writing about the Witchcamp, but it was so much, so very much packed into one week, and altogether a bigger experience than I can encompass in a journal entry. One thing about camp felt like it wanted to be told. I wonder why this of all things. The last day of path was for Spirit, and homework was to come up with a prayer for my desire. It could have been words, it could have been dance or an art installation or anything. Most people prayed in words that day. Many people, as always, came up with amazingly fresh and original creative expressions.
I surprised myself. I got up in front of everyone and prayed as I do spontaneously when I'm all alone right from my heart. I'm ordinarily too guarded and shy to even do formal prayer in front of anyone, but here I was giving a genuine example of my intimate prayer in front of people. I never would have believed myself capable of that. It shows how radically living and doing magick in that sacred space in the forested hills can open up a person that much. Radically wide open-and with no fear. Is this anything less than a human miracle? Something "reachable, accessible, not something that is elusive and distant."
Belly dance is my primary connection to my own magick. This became clear at camp. If you know me, my hips want to start moving in sinuous curves at the beat of a drum. As a Reclaiming Intensive, it lived up to its name for me. I'm glad I went there and grooved with a lot of good folks.