InterPlay Lift: Taking off into the mystery of play in community with you

INTERPLAY LIFT. Imagine playing on a Friday night and finding the unexpected in yourself, a release, a light-heartedness, something fun. These hot air balloons are what I imagined when thinking about creating a new InterPlay Atlanta drop-in class. I began with the image, explored it through artmaking, and then developed the words to accompany the idea of "take-off" and "lift" and "perspective." (image by Ruth Schowalter, aka Hallelujah Truth)

Hallelujah for the MYSTERY and bowing before it! Launching a boat into the unknown and sailing off into the golden seas of our lives. Hallelujah for faith and spirit to journey into one's life. This is my practice. This is my life. I am a Spiritual Art Pilgrim!

InterPlay Lift

Yet here, instead of my pilgrim's boat, is a hot air balloon lifting off into the skies of opportunity, the lightness in the way of being, the place where birds fly and the spirit soars. 

This is my concept for my new InterPlay class--InterPlay Lift: Taking off into the adventure of your body, mind, heart, & spirit

Get the big view from play, seeing and finding more ease and joy in your life.

It is my desire to offer an InterPlay evening class once a month on Fridays that will give participants a chance to rest and re-imagine their weekends!

 

TAKE-OFF to LIGHT HEARTEDNESS. Engaging in play with others in our community allows us the opportunity to relax and practice release from being a serious person.

Here is the description that I crafted to announce "InterPlay Lift"

Are you craving a different way of being in your life? Need a different perspective? Why not try laughing, moving, telling stories, experimenting with your voice, finding stillness, and connecting with yourself and others? Even if you are tired, come to rest, play, and find a new outlook in community. Everyone can do InterPlay!

Once a month on a Friday night, “InterPlay Lift” – led by Ruth Schowalter – offers you the opportunity to explore “having it all.” InterPlay is an improvisational system that uses all of your physical information while including your spirit, intellect, and feelings. Part of having it all is reclaiming your inner authority, the part of you that knows who you are, what you like, what you want, and what you know, in ways that honor your own life and experiences.

Guided gently and respectfully, you will be given choices about moving, topics to talk about, how to play, and when to stop and be still. No previous experience is required. You will witness and be witnessed, practice noticing and affirming the good, and think about how to find more peace and less stress in your life.

The InterPlay system accepts who you are right now—that you are enough! In this way, you are invited to experiment and play with expanding your range and seeing what you might discover. Even if you discover nothing, that’s OK, too.

PATH WAY TO TAKE OFF--InterPlay Lift

InterPlay Lift is about gaining perspective easefully and joyfully. To understand InterPlay, you must do InterPlay. Come and find out how InterPlay might lift you up and give you a new outlook on life.

Cost: $12 to $15, but please pay what you can afford. No one will be turned away because of a lack of funds

Decatur First Christian Church, 601 West Ponce De Leon Avenue, Decatur, Georgia, 30030

Friday 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm on the following dates: July 24^th, August 28^th, September 25^th, October 23^rd, November 20^th, and December 18^th.

Parking is available in the church parking lot or across the street at the Decatur Post Office. Come in the first door from the parking lot (where the InterPlay sign is located) and go to the second floor to the Jerusalem Room.

Contact Ruth Schowalter at ruthtruth@mindspring.com or 404/580-2392. 

That's Coffee with Hallelujah. Taking off into my life. Seeing what I can discover. Will you join me and SOUL BLOG with me about what you are willing to do to find play and light-heartedness in your life?

I FALL DOWN, I GET BACK UP: Embodying the Rise-n-Fall of Life!

GROWING THE SOUL. The Rise-n-Fall of Life, the daily resurrections can be embodied. (art by Hallelujah Truth)

Hallelujah for spiritual practices! Hallelujah for practicing FALLING…and GETTING BACK UP again, again, and again! Hallelujah for finding a “kinesthetic” way to embody the perpetual Rise-n-Fall of Life.

Like breathing—breathe in and breathe out—the Rise-n-Fall of Life is an integral part of our being alive. Consider all of the mini-deaths we experience daily. We fail at communicating our intent. We don’t succeed in cleaning out any of that closet. The enterprise we envision is not manifesting.  We go over our calorie count, consume too much sodium and fat, and do not execute doctors’ orders. Over and over again, we seem to exhaust possibilities, to malinger, to die, to

F

A

L

L

D

O

W

N

And all we need to do is practice, getting back up! Yes, we can practice falling and getting back up with a dance—a physical movement!

Practicing falling and getting back is one of the many dances that Cynthia Winton-Henry offers us in her book, Dance—the Sacred Art: The Joy of Movement as a Spiritual Practice. I had the surprising experience of this rising-n-falling dance with Cynthia during her online Monday night class, Dancing the Ruby Way.

Consider these beginning instructions from Cynthia’s book on the restorative movement of Rising-n-Falling:

Find a “friendly” floor, soft couch, or bed. Seated, gently fall in different ways, slowly to the side, to the back, using your arms in different ways. (Do this exercise where you will be safe. You don’t want to add to your fear of falling.)

Having fallen, lie on the floor, couch, or bed for a minute, noticing how it holds you. Notice what it’s like to get up, to rise again….

Now put on music and practice falling, resting, rising to honor—instead of trying to resist—gravity. (p 76, Dance the Sacred Art)

I was delighted with this physical practice of repeated Falling-n-Rising! And, I also got to witness Cynthia doing it with me in California from the small screen of my Ipad, next to me on the floor in Georgia. Having a community of others falling-n-rising expands the effectiveness of this exercise!

My discovery? Finding out that my body knows how to fall, and it knows how to get back up! Hurray!

So here is a list of a few of my falls and my recoveries:

FALLING

For a handful of weeks, I stopped exercising my persona, Hallelujah Truth, on my blog, “Coffee with Hallelujah.” I thought, “I will never blog again. It’s over.”

GETTING BACK UP

I’m blogging today. Right now.

FALLING

I am attempting to be an entrepreneur now for the third time. The previous two times came to nought. Wah! I failed. I will fail again. I keep getting stymied, befuddled, delayed, and detoured by the details.

GETTING BACK UP

I made a phone call to paypal to find out how clients can pay me online (my paypal account is already established). Yay! I created a Facebook page to offer my services: InterPlay Art & Soul Creativity Coaching. I met with my website builder to discuss where we were and what I needed to do resulting in making an InterPlay logo for part of my business. Yay! Thus far, I have attended each two-hour online InterPlay Entrepreneur course and done most of my assignments. I “get up” each morning prepared to take an incremental step toward establishing my business. The InterPlay Entrepreneur course encourages to perform three tasks a day towards our business.

FALLING

I struggle to eat correctly and to exercise regularly so I can keep a weight that is right for my health, including maintaining a low blood pressure.

GETTING BACK UP

Today, I ate a salad for lunch. I walked almost two miles this morning while I conducted business on the phone. I’m reading the labels on packages and drinks now for sodium content.

EMBODIED RISING-n-FALLING

Now, instead of just keeping and storing disappointed thoughts in my head and in my body of my “falls” or failures, I move them out of my body, mind, heart, and spirit by physically “getting up”! What a relief!

Getting up is such a relief, I feel that all of us can celebrate our Rise-n-Falls in Life by embodying them. My body now feels the connection between the physical experience of falling and rising and the other events in my life where I fail and need to begin over again. If I can pick myself up from the ground, I can surely pick myself up from this disappointment! Yes! Happy Day! This rising-falling dance is Life!

“It is liberating to breathe, shake, move, balance, fall off balance, tense and release, liberate our wholeness. We don’t have to hide the truth. We can dance it!” –Cynthia Winton-Henry

That’s Coffee with Hallelujah! Soul blog with me about your Rise-n-Falls. Do you dance them out? 

RISING-N-FALLING at INTERPLAY ALCHEMY.  During the four months of Tuesdays that I taught my first series of InterPlay Alchemy classes embodying the magic of the soul, I was able to implement content from Cynthia's online course, "Dancing the Ruby Way. Here the class is celebrating the Rise-n-Fall of Life at the conclusion of embodying falling and rising. It was particularly significant because we did this dance at the Spring Solstice when all that sap was rising from the Earth! Yay!

ENDINGS and AWAKENINGS: Coffee with Hallelujah considering the mystery

BROKEN CUP--AN ENDING?  (photo by Hallelujah Truth, aka Ruth Schowalter)

Hallelujah for AWAKENINGS! Hallelujah for ENDINGS! Hallelujah for the MYSTERY of being alive!

As I approach my 57^th birthday this coming September, I have been experiencing the “ending” of an era and the “awakening” of a new one. What a mysterious process!

The breaking of this clay cup triggered today’s acknowledgement of CHANGE! I purchased this substantial brown-and-blue striped vessel 25 years ago at the family-owned Miller Pottery nestled down the road from the city of Brent, Alabama. It was 1990, and I was the manager of The Village Arbors, a plant nursery in Auburn, Alabama, which grew over 100 herbs and perennials. The two female owners and the rest of us took pride in finding unique pottery for our nursery gift store where we served herbal tea and freshly baked bread with herbed butters to our customers. So I had traveled a distance to visit and purchase clay pots from the Miller family, whose pottery had weight and heft to it due to the Alabama clay that was mined and purified right there on their premises (read about this family of clay artisans here). I succeeded in returning with treasures, some of which became mine.

By 2015, many of the pots I had purchased for myself from the Millers have long since broken.  And now this brown-and-blue striped coffee cup which held pens, markers, and pencils for me during my two decades of ESL teaching at Georgia Tech has rendered itself unusable. 

Before today, I could tell that the handle was gradually pulling away from the cup. Perhaps, I should have squeezed glue into the crevices that were emerging where a potter’s finger had smoothed the handle into the cup’s body. Surely that attention would have prevented its demise this morning when the cup took an audible sigh, heaved itself away from the handle clasped in my hand, and just laid back down on the kitchen counter, splashing some coffee over its side.

This separation of handle from cup symbolized an ENDING for me. Since clearing out my office almost two years ago, I have used this cup—really bowl—for my morning coffee. And over the days and months, this clay vessel has begun to represent a myriad of things to me:

Return to another time (pre-ESL teacher)

In the late 80’s, I was turning 30. I wasn’t married and didn’t have a clear idea of what my vocation was going to be. I had dropped out of my second graduate school program. Even though I was a successful graduate student in both English Literature and Journalism with a proclivity for writing and an adoration of ideas, I wasn’t happy in my endeavors. Jumping from job to job, I possessed a life that was interesting and stimulating but quite chaotic. I continuously met new people and kept acquiring skills that enhanced and broadened my worldview.

Once I graduated successfully from my third graduate program and began the treadmill of teaching ESL day-in-and-day-out and year-after-year, I developed a hard focus on getting my classes prepared and taught and papers graded and returned. My colleagues were respected friends, and I adored the ever-changing flow of international students who came through my classroom. Yet somehow I failed to go deeper and wider in my profession, to keep growing. It was time in 2013 to leave to cultivate the self and develop new skills.

But who was I after twenty years? This brown-and-blue striped cup held some memories of that thirty-year-old for me. Such mysteries in this revery of endings and awakenings.

Time for morning reflection

In my mornings of drawing daily, this cup has sat beside me, stalwart and obliging. It is going nowhere and loves to supervise my artistry. I have time to sip coffee and draw. It has relished its role in the life of "Coffee with Hallelujah." What a mystery!

One cup of coffee is enough

Learning to live and make choices from a place of relaxation—and not stress—has been one of my goals since I left my teaching job. I reduced my coffee drinking from one pot a day to one cup a day….yes one BIG cup! Often, I don’t drink all of it, but this wonderful cup loyally guards the remaining coffee, positioned by the kitchen sink until dinner time should I want a sip or two.

Trust in finding what task/employment is next

What a wonderful adventure I had in those years of the great UNKNOWN. I worked for Jeannette and Betty at the Village Arbors for three growing seasons! During that time, I also started my own business teaching English to internationals in an office I rented over a realtor’s office next to the train tracks. I made regular trips out to Sandhill, Alabama, to Buddha Heart Village to edit a book on Buddhism by Dr. James Yhu, an engineering professor at Auburn University and someone I was studying with. Oh! I had the most wonderful friends!

During that time, I struggled to discover what was next in my life. I almost giggle now as I reflect on these years! LIFE was right there happening to me the entire time! LIFE happens every moment! Even now as I work and play to transition to the next stage in my life, I am reminded to TRUST in what is NOW. NOW is next….what a mystery!

 

AN IMAGE OF A NEWBORN--AWAKENINGS? (art by Hallelujah Truth)

….Thus leading to the AWAKENING. Something is over (the cup that runneth over has broken). Something has begun (the child has been born). This image of a newborn baby appeared to me in May. Did she appear because of my performance work with “Embody the Mother”? Or because I was drawing and painting daily? Did she appear because I was dancing every morning and teaching InterPlay Alchemy? Or as a result of this discussion or that discussion? A walk? An embrace? What a mystery!

YES! YES TO ALL of the above! YES! Yes to life! Yes to endings and awakenings! And all that they hold. I am considering repairing the cup….but am also ready to move broken things out of my life and see what may appear next. As Cynthia Winton-Henry says, "more shall be revealed."

That’s Coffee with Hallelujah! What ENDINGS and AWAKENINGS have you experienced recently?

ME BEING ME: Thank you everyone at the InterPlay Asheville Untensive!

INTERPLAY ASHEVILLE SPRING UNTENSIVE 2015. (photos by Ruth Schowalter)

Hallelujah for INTERPLAY and its principles and forms that allow ME-to-BE-ME during the process of play in community!

Journey to Asheville, NC, from Atlanta

Last weekend on a rainy Friday afternoon (April 17, 2015), my Chiboogamoo and I drove 210 miles from our home in Decatur, Georgia, to the quaint town of Asheville nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, so that I could attend the third annual collaborative untensive hosted by InterPlay Asheville's leaders. After attending InterPlay Asheville's second annual collaborative last year (see this blog entry:Asking youself what you need and doing that: Untensive InterPlay Asheville), I knew I was in for a meaningful week of playful transformation.

As a person who dove headfirst into InterPlay upon finding it in February 2013, I am now a certified InterPlay leader, and this Asheville InterPlay "Untensive" is my fourth weekend long InterPlay event. I LOVE THE MAGIC THAT HAPPENS throughout the accumulative hours of Friday evening (7:00 to 9:00), Saturday (9:00 to 9:00), and Sunday (9:30 to 1:00)! 

We had a beautiful and spacious place to play in!

Of course the MAGIC THAT HAPPENS in InterPlay is experiential and eludes crystalized explanation. To truly understand InterPlay, dear reader, you must DO InterPlay! However, I will share with you the highlights of my PLAY with the Asheville InterPlayers!

HIGHLIGHTS FOR ME AT THE INTERPLAY ASHEVILLE UNTENSIVE

Friday Night
Greeting community--How wonderful to become acquainted with a body of InterPlayers over time through weekend Untensives. Seeing familiar faces as everyone assembled was exciting and heartwarming despite the cool rainy spring evening. 

Warm Up--Reconnecting with one another through introductions and movement magically brought together and created the new "group body" or community of InterPlayers for the weekend.

Deep Play--Going into the last hour of evening, we went deep into play with an activity crafted by two Asheville InterPlayers using InterPlay principles and forms of "dancing on behalf of," "being witnessed," "noticing," and "movement patterns". The beauty of InterPlay? Even first time InterPlayers can go into deep play without knowing the depth to which they are playing! That is "sneaky deep"! InterPlay always invites each and everyone of us to be true to ourselves. Listening to our bodyspirit and doing what we need and want to do.

Saturday
Face and Hand Dance--The creative assembling of InterPlay forms by certified InterPlay leaders is a joy not only to witness but also to engage in. While I truly appreciated all of the offerings of the weekend, my favorite Saturday activity was a sequence developed by Duke Ramuten using "following and leading" with a special emphasis on engaging our faces and hands. His incremental steps wound us through group play several times, solo face dancing, paired leading and following, and groups of eight with four InterPlayers following and leading with four witnesses. WOW! I can't remember the last time that I laughed so hard! I discovered new face making possibilities in myself and a way of playing intensely with my partner(s). I'm still in awe of what took place!

Lunch time is a time for sharing information.

Food--Thanks again to the hospitality of the InterPlay Asheville folks for providing such an abundant table laden with snacks and lunch for all of us. Out-of-towners like me were hosted and deeply appreciate that nuturance. 

Performance Jam--Such a delight is the InterPlay Performance Jam! The offerings of more than 30 InterPlayers plus some spouses who attended, was entertaining. The movement, singing, music, and play that occur during one of these evenings never fails to surprise and move me. One wonderful moment was when Melissa's husband, who was not attending the Untensive, stood up and sang an improvised birthday song for her to celebrate her 60th birthday.

During the Friday night performance jam, we celebrated the Asheville InterPlay Leaders who had made the third annual collaborative possible.

Sunday
The Power of Storytelling--Incremental steps, one of the InterPlay principles, are profoundly powerful. On Sunday morning, we were taken step by step into telling our stories, slowly engaging our entire bodies, culminating in a DT3 (code for dance-talk three times). We were witnessed, witnessed, witnessed. We leaned into ourselves and "had the experience." We "noticed."  

MY DT3 GROUP. We shared meaningful stories and noticings.

RETURNING HOME AND REFLECTING.
What a warm welcoming experience of BEING. The more I am giving permission to own my own experiences, to be in my body, to play and try new ways of BEING on, the more alive I become. For me, these experiences are the LIFE I have been seeking.

That's Coffee with Hallelujah! SOUL BLOG with me and tell me when you feel most yourself. When do you proclaim "I am me being me"?

FIERCE MOTHER: Embodying an aspect of the archetypal feminine

FIERCE MOTHER. "If an alligator or crocodile has shown up, look for an opportunity to touch very primal energies. There is going to be an opportunity for strong birth and/or initiation that will open new knowledge and wisdom in some area of your life." --Ted Andrews in Animal Speak (image (c) by Hallelujah Truth

-->I am the fierce mother.

I am of everywhere and in everything.

I do not cover my head.

Or hide my tattoos or scars.

--Excerpt from “Embody the Mother” by Lynn Tharp Hesse

Hallelujah for the IMAGINATION! Hallelujah for COMPANIONSHIP and for COLLABORATION! Hallelujah for the playfulness of CREATING our realities through dance, poetry, and image.

Thus is the magic of the daily creative practice! In a month’s time or less, I have danced and painted almost every day as I collaborate with poet and dancer Lynn Hesse in Field to co-create the performance, “Embody the Mother.”  Here are the blog posts I have written about this collaboration and some of the visual images I have generated in the process:

March 26, 2015

SPRINGING INTO "Embodying the Mother" in collaboration with another who sees, hears, and meets me where I am

March 27, 2015

LISTENING TO THE WIND IN MY VEINS: Finding other places from which to speak and act

March 29, 2015

BEING A GENUINE CREATIVE FORCE: Dance the dance YOU dance!

April 6, 2015

BEGINNING THE DANCE: Embodying the Mother through performance with community as our witness  

This past Tuesday on April 21, was our last Field workshop before our formal presentation on Saturday, May 2, to another audience (with the Pine Lake Art Salon having been our first). I have loved the feedback from Field participants and the informal rehearsals Lynn and I have done together in our homes. Each of us has also practiced separately from one another—Lynn memorizing the lines from her poem and the steps of the dance that she choreographed and me painting three to four images each day speedily while dancing.

And when I wasn’t painting for my daily creative practice, I was drawing. Now, when I return to drawing, I discover that my drawing has changed. There is a greater fluency, the line feels happier to move into ideas, and I see a slight shift in imagery.

ALLIGATOR FORTUNE. Here I have drawn the MOTHER who does cover her head. Lynn Hesse's version has the Fierce Mother declare she does not cover her head. Four images of importance exist in this image: 1) Mother Mystery with the blue head covering 2) Fierce Mother Alligator 3) Hallelujah represented by the the diadem of three flowers 4) Wandjina, the Aboriginal Creation God representing my animus. I call this image, "Alligator Fortune" because I see that SHE has appeared in my life bringing courage for change. (image (c) by Hallelujah Truth)

In the past two days, the MOTHER has come to me in the form of the ALLIGATOR. I welcome this FIERCE MOTHER. Her lineage has survived 100 million years navigating both on land and in water. She is a symbol of the GREAT MOTHER and represents fertility and power. Alligator has been my totem for almost two decades, coming to me in dreams. (Here are some of my blog entries about the significance of alligators in my life: Alligator Dreaming, I’m a Little Body Spirit, Investigating Alligator Burrows.)

Just imagine what will emerge in the days to come! I will practice opening my arms to the GREAT MYSTERY, inviting the MOTHER to visit my images in whatever form she chooses to appear in. More shall be revealed—so stay tuned!

Meanwhile, that’s Coffee with Hallelujah! SOUL BLOG with me and share what you are learning in the process of your daily creative practice. What is one or more of your totems?

ALLIGATOR ENERGY. Mother Alligator emerged from greens and blues. (image (C) Hallelujah Truth.)

BEGINNING THE DANCE: Embodying the Mother through performance with community as our witness

PLAYING WITH THE MOTHER. On Easter Sunday 2015, Lynn Hesse and I had the wonderful opportunity to perform our work-in-progress, "Embody the Mother," at the Pine Lake Art Salon in Pine Lake, Georgia. (photo by Chiboodamoo, aka Tony Martin)

Hallelujah for the DANCE. Hallelujah for the OTHER. Hallelujah for all of the OTHERS--you, and you, and you--MY COMMUNITY--who bear witness and offer your diversity!

My life and art are transforming through the gorgeous entanglement of dance both sacred and playful and with another--Lynn Hesse! I am so grateful to Lynn for creating and holding the space for me to play, dance, and embody the mother with her.

BEGINNING THE DANCE. We begin our performance with me going onstage and painting. I begin with a ritual of lighting a candle and two InterPlay moves. Here my arms are open wide to experience the "big body" and spacious embrace of the great mystery of life. Before I begin painting, I also bow to the "little body," the finite me. (photo by Chiboodamoo, aka Tony Martin)

Yes! EMBODY THE MOTHER!

Collaboration with ANOTHER CREATIVE is supportive, comforting, engaging, expanding, challenging, and sacred.

What does that word mean--sacred?

WORDS FROM THE ARCHETYPAL MOTHER. My collaborator Lynn Hesse has adapted a poem of hers to merge with my images of THE MOTHER, both fierce and nurturing, both archetypal and real in addition to a choreographed sacred dance. (photos by Chiboodamoo, aka Tony Martin)

What is sacred?

I'm using the word to mean "spiritual," "holy," "blessed," "untouchable," and "protected." Sacred, for me, has the meaning of something that is respected and held with reverence.

Then, you might ask what are we doing, when Lynn and I say that we are creating a performance using elements of the SACRED?  We are creating a sacred dance (using dance phrases that embody the real and symbolic snake, the turtle, the eye, and the world), sacred practice (performing ritual--like lighting a candle and bowing--for example), and sacred friendship (one friend playing the role of the archetypal mother and the other being the novice daughter). 

How wondersome is it that we are collaborating with all of this use of SACRED so that I might "embody the mother" through our performance as we re-enact it over and over again throughout the upcoming months into August? On two more Tuesdays, we will repeat this ritual of embodying the mother at our Field Work and get feedback. There will be the rehearsals with Lynn and my solo painting each day as practice for being open to the archetypal mother through dance and thought.

Then we will perform for an audience again on the first Sunday of May for Field at Core Dance Studio in Decatur, Georgia, and again at the Decatur Arts Festival twice at the end of the month. We plan to take this performance to the Alternate Roots meeting in August if it is accepted.

I am grateful for the opportunity to transform through movement and thought. There is so much more to this story, but I will leave you with kisses and a warm embrace for now.

That's Coffee with Hallelujah. Soul Blog with me. What are you dancing with today? Is your dance transformational?

PAINTING AS PART OF THE PERFORMANCE.

DANCING AS PART OF THE PERFORMANCE, TOO.

CONNECTING WITH THE MOTHER.

THE CROWNING.

PLAYING MOMMY SAYS

GETTING AND RESPONDING TO FEEDBACK.

Acknowledgments: Great appreciation to Alice Teeter and Kathie DeNobriga for their dedication to the Pine Lake Art Salon that they have been conducting for 8 years! This performance on April 5, 2015 is the sixth time that I have had the good fortune to be a guest performer (Two times to lead a community HOWL and sell HOWL artwork; once to present this blog, Coffee With Hallelujah; another time to perform a two-voiced poem with my Chiboogamoo; and then to present the illustrations that I created for the children's book, The Misadventures of Maria the Hutia. Sincere thanks to my Chiboogamoo, aka Tony Martin, who documented this event with his amazing photos. Thank you!

CREATING ALCHEMY THROUGH INTERPLAY: Embodying the soul, experiencing joy and creating a group body in your community can be magical

Hallelujah for ALCHEMY! Hallelujah for the BODYSPIRIT! Hallelujah for INTERPLAY and for creating that magic in the presence of one another! I call this InterPlay Alchemy! And we can have an "ecstatic community" here in the metro-Atlanta area!


What is an "Ecstatic Community: The Group Body" as one of the chapters in the InterPlay book, What the Body Wants, is titled? To understand this, perhaps, you must experience it for yourself at InterPlay Alchemy with me or one of the other offerings of InterPlay Atlanta (see our blog).

However, to give you a little better idea of what I am talking about when I cheer on the idea of creating a "group body" and one that is celebratory or "ecstatic", I will offer you just a few choice tidbits from the chapter mentioned above in What the Body Wants: 

“A group that plays together often stays together.”

“A thriving group consists of thriving individuals. The more we can claim our individual physical style, energy, and truth, the more fullness and fun the group can have.”

FINDING REST IN COMMUNITY. You are invited to embody what you need. (photo by Ruth Schowalter, aka Hallelujah Truth)

“The group body wants play, creative challenge, rest, and communion. The body does not want to suffer. Dreams, visions, religion, education, and the body politic are born from our desire for grace. We are here not just to put an end to suffering, but to have true grace.”

“Each body in community has potential to change history for better and for worse. Since health is contagious, then bodies that move freely, breathe deeply, and play fully can change the world for the better.”

What wisdom and magic there is in playing together and experiencing our entire selves--in having it all--body, mind, heart and spirit all together! For me, I am learning so much as I facilitate InterPlay Alchemy on Tuesday mornings from 10:00 to noon. I trust that those who long for this kind of "ecstatic community" experience will find me and join these play shops.

That's Coffee with Hallelujah! Soul Blog with me and share your alchemical wanderings and experiences. Do you dance in community? When? Where? With whom? How long? What do you notice?

TESTIMONIAL FROM AN INTERPLAY ALCHEMY PARTICIPANT:

"As a teacher (of improvisation), I relish opportunities to be a student. In Ruth's class, InterPlay Alchemy, the thrill of discovery and the awakening of the mind and the senses that come with learning, were present for me from the very first moment. Under Ruth's tutelage, the class became a gathering place where we could each attend to our individual needs and desires and engage trustfully and joyfully with each other. From her place of deep knowing and love of InterPlay (as well as years of artful teaching), Ruth excelled at synthesizing all the elements of material and meaning."

 –Lesly Fredman, Director, Performer, Creativity Coach, Laughter Yoga Leader, Teacher