Happy Election Day!

I really liked the description of dance in the Hughes reading. He says, "Dance allows the the release of emotional expression and expresses joys and unhappiness experienced in life. Needs of the intellect are less important. The relationship between emotion and dance is close."

I agree with this quote from Hughes. I took ballet and jazz classes for 12 years or so and I danced in junior high when I was diagnosed with depression. I remember my jazz teacher pulling me aside to talk to me about how sad I seemed. I just kind of nodded as she talked, not wanting to talk about it at all. She was very understanding, but also rather narcissistic, so she was content to do all the talking in that conversation. Basically, she told me to use all my emotions and put them into my dancing. I was in 7th grade at that time, and I'm sure my thoughts went something like this: "Yeah, okay. Let me just use my sadness to help me achieve better turnout and greater flexibility. That sure sounds like it'd work."

But eventually (and I don't remember a specific moment), I understood what she meant and I don't know how I could explain it better now. Just like she said, I put myself into my dancing. And I think that if you went to a professional dancer (who belongs to a dance company, not a strip club) they would know what "putting yourself into your dancing" means. I think that dancing just to dance is obviously your own expression of creativity, but dancing to someone else's choreography can be just as much your own expression.

In my Tai Chi class, my teacher always emphasizes the importance of the "journey". He encourages us to do all the moves slowly, because just because we know what the end is, doesn't mean we have to rush toward it. I believe the same is true of altered states. There are so many ways to reach ASCs that I think the journey to the ASC is more or equally important as the ASC itself.

I think Walsh agrees. On p. 237, he says, "The journey is a central practice of shamanism."

Hypnotism is one way to reach an ASC, a way that I find fascinating. I've never been hypnotized and don't know that I'd ever really want to be, but I think hypnotism demonstrates the power of the mind. If you think about it, when you're hypnotized, you lose all inhibitions and focus of your surroundings. Like Pearce talks about Jung's patient who was able to keep her body in a straight line with her feet on one chair and her head on the other, at only 70 pounds. In her hypnotic state, she had no doubts that she couldn't do it, so she was able to do it. I think thats the key to hypnotism, removing all doubts.