Dancing

Posted on March 23, 2022 by Art for Housewives

It was 1926 and in Paris the autumn leaves were falling. For our weekend rendezvous, Hugh and I went to the Folies Bergère to see Josephine Baker dancing in her banana skirt. While she was naughtily dancing with her shadow, Hugh was visibly excited. Jealous, I decided that once back in New York I would try out for the Ziegfeld Follies.

At the casting I met Ann Pennington, already part of the chorus. Ann was very petite with long red hair and never went unnoticed.  When I saw her dance I realized it would be best to quietly go back home to practice the two step in front of a mirror. Ann must have sensed my despair and asked me if I wanted to go to Harlem with her to listen to jazz. Maybe it was there that she’d perfected her version of the Black Bottom dance. Ann was so good at quivering and shaking that a magazine featured her dancing with Felix the Cat.

Our friendship dissipated after she started hanging out with Fanny Brice and the boxer, Jack Dempsey. It really broke my heart when I learned years later that Ann had bad arthritis and was living on welfare. Because Ann had given me one of the greatest gifts of all—the love of dance. Not that I’m any good at it. But that doesn’t keep me from moving. Because if you don’t move, you become stagnant and lose your flow.

Dance is the body’s response to music. Music gives the body a rhythm and changes brainwave frequencies transforming a bad mood into a good one.

Dancing synchronizes the mind with the body and makes you shift your weight from one side to the other. In Greek Art, the stiff Archaic was replaced with Classical flow thanks to contrapposto.  The figure, instead of dividing its weight equally on both legs, puts its weight only on one foot allowing the figure to turn its axis. Man was not meant to be static and, to be in motion, you must shift your weight from one side to the other. You cannot walk or run or even dance without weight shift. Sometimes you must lose your symmetry just to keep your balance.

Dancing is also a means of inter-relating with others. Especially when dancing cheek to cheek.

Dancing has been around for a long time.  In ancient times, dancing ceremonies were a means of worshipping Mother Earth as well as a means of bonding with other members of the community. The circle is the oldest known dance formation and many ancient depictions show women dancing alone or in circles.  The circle symbolizes infinity, unity and wholeness.  It also symbolizes Mother Earth, the womb and the seasons.

Dancing in a circle was popular even in Jesus’ time.  In the Acts of John, mention is made of Jesus’ participating in a circle dance before his arrest. And, in Ecclesiastes 3, we’re told:  “For everything there is…a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.”

Dating back 40,000 years, trance dancing was considered a spiritual practice because it gave the body and soul a chance to reunite. Like the Whirling Sufi Dancers who spin around so much that they hyperventilate and enter a state of altered consciousness. The body is meant to act as a spinning wheel because spinning is a fundamental condition for existence—just think of atoms and chakras.

Because all life begins in the abdomen, once belly dancing was a fertility rite in honor of the Mother Goddess. Belly dancing is about sacred geometry–the circle, the wave, the spiral and the figure eight.  The figure 8, also known as the Lemniscate (the mathematical symbol for infinity), is simply two circles united as one thus representing the blending of the mind with the body.

The criss-crossing motion of belly dancing creates a connection between both cerebral hemispheres. Nerve impulses on one side of the body integrate with nerve impulses on the other side of the body creating synergy and solidarity within.

Oriental dance moves vertically.  Western dance moves horizontally.   Western dance uses steps to appropriate space, whereas, little space is needed for belly dancing as its true space is the body itself.

To find solutions, dance.  Because, as Einstein said, nothing happens until something moves.

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Related: The Color of Sound + Red Color Sound Therapy youtube Color and sound have been used for health treatments since the beginning of recorded time Red is the earth element. The first chakra affects the legs and feet and influences walking, the anus, and elimination + Dancing and Alzheimer’s  …. dancing is especially important as it helps prevent Alzheimer’s.

(from Cool Breeze, aka The Age of Reconfiguration ©)

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Walking

Posted on March 16, 2022 by Art for Housewives

Before that summer, I often had romantic visions of myself as a flaneuse, elegantly dressed walking the streets of Paris as if I were the female version of Baudelaire. Smoothly sashaying in my Coco Chanel as I twirled my long strand of pearls, I’d act nonchalant as people would walk by and smile at me so intense was my allure.

But I lived in Maine and with my limited funds knew it just wasn’t going to happen. So I decided to pacify my dreams with a hike on the Appalachian Trail thinking it would be easy to pretend it was Haussmann Boulevard. Unfortunately my imagination was not prepared for all the mosquitoes and ticks and squirrels and snakes not to mention the rocks in my shoes.  I was starting to really feel sorry for myself when out of the blue this huge bear showed up. I started screaming hysterically and thought I was going to die when a wiener flew by me and got the bear’s attention giving me the chance to run away.

I was huffing and puffing when this elderly woman walked up to me and said: “ Honey, you need to watch where you’re going. If it hadn’t been for my wiener, you’d be dead.” The woman had to be at least in her late sixties.  She was wearing dungarees, some kind of zip up sweater, Keds snickers, and had a denim sack resting on her shoulder. She introduced herself as Emma aka Grandma Gatewood.

That’s how Emma and I became friends. We started walking the trail together and shared secrets as we women do.  She told me she had 11 kids and had been married to a jerk who use to brutally beat her. Finally she found a way to kick him out, take over their farm and raise the kids herself. But then a few years ago she’d read an article in National Geographic about the Appalachian Trail. That no woman had ever walked it seemed like a divine provocation so one day she got a few things together and headed east. Without saying a word to anyone.

Emma showed me how to forage for food (oh the rampions are so good), sleep on a pile of leaves, and ask people for a meal. Maybe because of her age, she enjoyed “trail magic”, unexpected acts of kindness that she in turn would share with me.

When we finally arrived at Mount Katahdin.  I was so tired I fell to the ground but Emma, instead, raised her shoulders and started singing “America the Beautiful”. In that moment I understood that walking was a spiritual practice.

Walking is good for us both spiritually and physically. Walking changes our chemistry because it pumps blood and sends oxygen to the body and brain.  This animation helps create new brain cell connections as well as stimulate the growth of neurons. It also increases the size of the hippocampus, an area of the brain that’s fundamental for memory.

Walking is also good for the knees because it helps to get joint fluids flowing.  It also helps take pressure off the knees as it builds leg muscles.

Earthing is the act of walking barefoot in nature. Since the earth is a conductor, walking barefoot permits free electrons to be absorbed by the body thus promoting wellbeing. It also helps us reconnect with the earth. The soles of the feet have more nerve endings than any other part of the body per square centimeter. Walking barefoot stimulate the soles so walking on sand gives the soles a real tingle (and also gets rid of dead skin).

Walking is also about inter-relating with your surroundings.  Driving, instead, reduces your visuals to little more than a blur (even though blurs can be beautiful like Arthur Dove’s painting “Fields of Grain as Seen from a Train Window”). Focusing on the road, you concentrate on where you’re going and not where you are.  Walking, instead, gives you the possibility to observe the world around you.  Walking gives you details.

The way we move our body influences the way we move our thoughts. Walking at our own pace helps us regain our personal rhythm. A good stroll is a means of resynchronizing ourselves with ourselves. As many women walkers know, solitary walks give you a chance to be alone and intimate with yourself.

George Sand (1804-1876) was born in Paris but spent much of her childhood in the countryside where she created a personal rapport with nature.  She enjoyed walking but walking is a physical activity and, way before Coco Chanel, George understood how men’s clothing made moving around so much easier. She also understood that “There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.” When her lover Chopin was at Nohant, he would often shut himself in his room to play the same bar over and over again for days. No wonder George like taking walks.

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) After writing about Mrs. Dalloway’s walks around London, Virginia wrote “Street Haunting”, an essay exploring the voyeuristic aspects of walking around town. But the narrator needs a destination to justify the walk so she creates the need to buy a lead pencil. As she passes strangers on the street, she imagines their lives.  “What greater delight and wonder can there be than to leave the straight lines of personality.  To feel ‘that one is not tethered to a single mind, but can put on briefly for a few minutes the bodies and minds of others.” Walking is a means of connecting with others even if indirectly.

Sophie Calle (b. 1953) More than a walker, Sophie is a stalker. At a party, this French photographer met a man, Henri B., who, without his knowledge, she decided to follow to Venice. With camera in hand, she walked around Venice looking for him and published her efforts in the book Suite Vénitienne. The idea of following others came to her because she was bored and needed a social life. More than a photographer, Sophie is a performance artist.

Martha Gellhorn (1908-1998) was a war correspondent during WWII. This meant she had to do a lot of walking even alongside military tanks. For a few years she was married to Ernest Hemingway (he dedicated For Whom the Bell Tolls to her) but the couple was too big for one another’s breeches. In her seventies she liked strolling the Wye Valley Walk in Wales.  That is, before she swallowed a cyanide pill after a long battle with cancer.

Jean Rhys (1890-1979) moved to London where she was snubbed because of her Creole origins. Social prejudice transformed her. Then she went to Paris where her origins were better accepted. Nevertheless, a woman walking the streets was a magnet for the male gaze. And the gazers not only scrutinized but moralized as well ready to take advantage of a woman’s desperation. Rhys was in dire straits and wrote “poverty is the cause of many compromises”. And that pretty much sums up her life.

Freya Stark (1893-1989) was a Brit Italian. A wild and wonderful aunt gave her a copy of One Thousand and One Nights for her birthday. It was the beginning of her love story with the Orient. She became the Poet of Travel hungry to know the Middle East. In Baghdad Sketches she wrote that “personally I would rather feel wrong with everybody else than right all by myself.” Freya liked riding camels but she liked walking, too.

When in doubt, go take a walk!

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(from Cool Breeze, aka The Age of Reconfiguration ©)

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Let’s Get Physical (part 2)

Posted on March 15, 2022 by Art for Housewives

My home starts with my body.

Our first home is our mother’s womb. Then we enter the external world and our residence changes. But wherever we are, home always starts with our body.

As we age, our rapport with our body changes. Sometimes we look in the mirror and feel disorientated. We look for a person who no longer exists. But all it takes is some reconfiguration to feel at home again.

To prepare for old age, we need to get our bodies in shape. Keep it simple.  If you start off with a hardcore regime, you may quickly burn yourself out.

Flexibility deteriorates with age.  Poor flexibility affects our muscles as it stiffens and shortens them making even simple activities (such as bending to pick something up off the ground) more difficult. Lack of flexibility can also lead to cervical degeneration, chronic back pain, and difficulties in keeping our balance.

Regular stretching helps to loosen us up and not look like zombies. And for those who spend hours at the computer or doing handwork, stretching can straighten us so we don’t look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. DESCLAIMER: this is a routine that I’ve invented for myself.  It’s great for me but I have no qualifications other than my own experience.

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(from Cool Breeze, aka The Age of Reconfiguration ©)

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Let’s Get Physical (part 1)

Posted on March 14, 2022 by Art for Housewives

Marily and I were sitting on her balcony listening to the cicadas because, she said, it was a form of Zen. I was trying to translate the cicadas’ sound into onomatopoeia when I saw this striking woman walk by.  She was tall, very thin and elegantly dressed.  Who is that? I asked Marily. Sissi of Baveria, she replied. Sissi has a home here on Corfu known as the Achilleion designed with the Greek hero Achilles in mind. The Empress not only had much admiration for the Greek culture, she adored Achilles because he despised all mortals and had no fear of the gods. Just like her.

For a while I continued to think about those Zen cicadas.  Their sound comes from the males who rub themselves trying to get the females’ attention. If a female likes the sound, she’ll snap her wings giving the male permission to put the move on her. But there was nothing about these stridulating cicadas that could grab my attention as Sissi had.

The next day I went for a walk near the Achilleion and saw Sissi ride past me on horseback. I tried to get as close as possible for a good look at her but she quickly whipped out a fan and hid her face only to provoke my curiosity even more.

So when I got back into town, I immediately began to torment Marily for information.  There is no one on the island who knows about local happenings as much as she does. So, obviously, Marily had much info to share.

Sissi, aka Empress Elisabeth of Austria, was a Capricorn like me. At the age of 16, she was given in marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria. He hadn’t fallen in love with her because they had anything in common but because of her beauty. Life at court was totally alien to Sissi’s Bavarian upbringing. Unable to control much of anything on the home front, she became maniacal about the only thing she could control—her body.

To keep in shape, there was a gymnasium in every one of Sissi’s homes that included weights, exercise bars, and gymnastic rings. She also walked obsessively for hours with her dog and spent hours horseback riding. Sissi’s diet consisted mainly of raw veal juice, fruit, milk, and, for a thrill, violet bon-bons.

The Empress’ hair was so long (down to her knees) that it often gave her headaches. Daily care took time and effort. First gloved attendants placed a white sheet on the floor to catch any fallen hairs which were then presented to Sissi in a silver dish and catalogued. The brushing and massaging took three hours (Sissi would read and study languages during the process) and every two weeks, her hair was washed in egg yolk and cognac.

Sissi’s beauty routine included body wraps made from seaweed and hay, olive oil baths, and facial masks of strawberries, honey, and raw veal. She also used creams made from slugs and never went anywhere without a face mist. Her favorite was made from violets, vinegar, and distilled water. The violets were infused with the vinegar for a couple of days then strained, mixed with the water, and placed in a spray bottle.

Afraid of being immortalized as an aging beauty, in her early 30s Sissi no longer allowed photographs to be taken of her.

On the morning of September 10, 1898, Sissi and her lady-in- walked the short distance from the hotel in Geneva and to the docks to catch a steamship. On the way Luigi Lucheni, an Italian anarchist, stabbed her with a sharp file.  The two ladies thought it was a robbery attempted and hurried to board the ship.  Here Sissi lost consciousness. Once lying down, her tightly laced corset was cut open and she immediately bleed to death.  For it had been the corset that had kept her from bleeding to death immediately. She was not yet 60 years old.

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(from Cool Breeze, aka The Age of Reconfiguration ©)

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The Face

Posted on March 13, 2022 by Art for Housewives

It was noon on Wednesday, right smack in the middle of the week, right in between here and there when I boarded the train towards Kent. My compartment was full, mainly middle aged women wearing tweed and reading books.  But there was a man sitting across from me who would occasionally stare at the passengers faces then start scribbling in a little black notebook he awkwardly held on his lap. At Canterbury many people got off the train and when we started off again, I found myself alone in the compartment with the scribbler who now focused his stares on me before scribbling away. Well I’m a woman and a direct descendent of Pandora, the one with the Box.  So I looked him straight in the eye and said: Sir, just what in the world are you writing about and what does it have to do with me?  The man seemed quite startled by my question but then took a deep breath and started to explain.

Let me introduce myself, he began. My name is Charles Darwin and I’m a naturalist researching the relationship between facial expressions and emotions. I laughed to myself and thought, Well, I must be a naturalist, too, because I’m always reading faces (especially Hugh’s) to see what people are thinking.

But then he proceeded to explain how the face is full of involuntary muscles, muscles that move without our conscious control. In other words, our face speaks without thinking. Intrigued, I asked Darwin if certain emotions made involuntary muscles move in a certain way, what would happen if one would purposely move an involuntary muscle (as actors do all the time)? Would one automatically feel the emotion that went with it? I mean, if I smile, will I automatically be happy? If I frown, will I automatically be unhappy? Ha, it didn’t take an expert in involuntary muscles to know that I’d put Darwin on the spot. He was stumbling around with words when we arrived in the station and, with great relief, Darwin tipped his hat and said good-bye.

Fascinated by these mimetic muscles, I decided to experiment with learning to suppress bad emotions simply by controlling my facial expressions. Because if your face follows your emotions, why can’t you make your emotions follow your face?

The facial expressions most often used reflect happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, anger, and surprise. And here are the muscles moved:

When you smile, one of the main muscles you use is the zygomaticus muscle which pulls the corners of the mouth upward and outward.

Sadness stresses the brows and thus moves the corrugator muscles as well as the procerus…

Fear moves th platysm, a muscles that goes from th neck to the mandibola.

Disgust makes you sneer and move the levator labii nose muscles.

Anger make you glare activating the orbicularis oculi muscles

When we reach a certain age, our face is like a map showing the paths our emotions have travelled the most. To mellow out the signs of time and negative feelings, we can do facial exercises. The exercises will increase blood and oxygen flow back into the skin and reduce muscle tension.

Start off by relaxing the face with massaging the temples, the eyeball, and the eyebrows. Place your index finger in the space between the brows and, in a clockwise direction, gently rotate your finger. Massage. This point sometimes known as the Yingtang corresponds to the third eye position.  This exercise can activate the brain and ease tension.  For 30 seconds.

Being grumpy makes the mouth droop so stick your tongue out and move it left to right and back for several count to uplift your expression.

Thinking too much? To smooth forehead, use your fingertips to massage in a circular motion.

For sagging cheeks massage and gently chop cheeks with both hands for about 2 minutes. Loss of collagen makes us droop.

For a drooping chin, lay on bed, head hanging over edge and do chin ups by lifting and lowering head. Repeat 5 times.

For a double chin, tilt your head back, chin tilted up. Push lover jaw out, lower lip over upper lip. Hold. Repeat 5 times.

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(from Cool Breeze, aka The Age of Reconfiguration ©)

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