WHAT: "Wheel of Life: Sacred Dance & Sound Medicine" teachings and events 2009-10.
WHEN: Seasonal weekend seminars — Nov. 7 and 8 "Gather the Seeds of Longlife"; Feb. 6 and 7 "Cultivate Right Relationship"; April 24 and 25 "Manifest Clear Intention"; and June 19 and 20 "Generate Luminous Compassion."
WHERE: Sunray Peace Village, 2202 Downingsville Road, Lincoln, Vt., about a two-hour drive from Plattsburgh.
CONTACT: Madeleine Piat-Landolt at (802) 453-3690 or e-mail, whitecloudarts@gmavt.net
WEB SITE: www.whitecloudarts.org
LINCOLN, Vt. — The wheel of life, on the simplest level, is an all-inclusive circle.
It is not stationary, but a dynamic wheel spiraling through all aspects of being.
"You can get more esoteric by looking at the Buddhist teachings, but we're not going there because this is a Cherokee teaching," said Madeleine Piat-Landolt, director of the White Cloud Living Arts Foundation based in Vermont. "That's the gist of it all — dynamic inclusivity and evolution. We like to think of it as spiralic, and that is akin with the work of dance."
Piat-Landolt synthesizes 25 years of study of Native American, Tibetan Buddhist and Taoist teachings in her new seminar series, "Wheel of Life: Sacred Dance & Sound Medicine" 2009-10 at Sunray Peace Village in Lincoln, Vt.
During four seasonal seminars, she will share teachings on sacred dances, fundamental movement, breath exercises and mindfulness meditation. The seminars conclude with a "Global Peace Prayer" on the 2010 summer solstice.
She starts with basic Cherokee teachings primarily transmitted by Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo, founder and spiritual director of Sunray. Since 1995, Piat-Landolt has served as Sunray's ceremonial dance mistress.
"All information, everything that comes up in our lives in the wheel of life, as the world turns, is useful," Piat-Landolt said. "There is nothing bad. It doesn't say there isn't poison. There are — physically, mentally and spiritually — poisons, but everything has a potential for transformation for the benefit of all our relations."
WIDENED SPHERE
Dance or physical exercise is a tool to identify blockages, clarify and pacify the emotions, physical body and the mind. Movement begins with breath. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
"If you look at the science of that, you're making an exchange of oxygen that is carried through blood cells and nourishes all the organ systems," Piat-Landolt said. "You can also say you have a relationship with the trees on the planet. Understand when you breathe out, you're feeding the trees carbon dioxide. As they exhale the oxygen, we inhale. That's a particular relationship. We're widening our sphere beyond our limited view of something called self."
The Native-American phrase "all our relations" references expanding circles of connectivity or oneness that ripple from self to family, friends, clan, nation, world and universe. In the Cherokee tradition, one strives to reach a harmonious balance through right relationship and clear intention.
Breath unifies the internal and external.
"That's one of the simplest things we can do. If you're standing on the earth, there is a relationship above you. There is the sky. Those energies are also working on you and the concept of no separation or unity. When we open our minds, our view to that relationship, we're also fed by that. That's a huge leap for some folks."
The "Dance of the Directions" references the cardinal points — east, south, west and north.
"That helps us organize space. It's giving you coordinates to find out where you are in space. It's the idea of that sphere widening and its application to all those levels (self, family, clan, etc.) and that is in relationship to intention. That's how powerful the mind is."
Sound medicine, vibration, includes everything from movement to drumming, chanting and vocalization. Whatever is dissonant or out of balance can be vibrated back into wholeness or its natural state.
"Through harmonious vibration, transformation can occur," Piat-Landolt said. "It's very important to pay attention to the mindfulness of speech, how we use our voices, our tone, the thoughts we are projecting through our voice."
Drumming, like thunder, shakes things awake. Through drumming, rhythmic patterning will be explored.
"Rhythmic patterning has the potential of healthfully reweaving the brain circuitry to stimulate and integrate the brain. So for everyone it is beneficial, particularly if anyone has brain dysfunction."
Drumming echoes the heart.
"We have many pulses in the body but also in the earth," Piat-Landolt said. "That's the big heartbeat that we're all attuning to. We are in a poly-rhythmic dance all the time. We want to flow on the path of least resistance.
"Whatever arises, you are moving toward a harmonious resolution. That could be for yourself and what you might call the other."
E-mail Robin Caudell at: rcaudell@pressrepublican.com
