Have you had moments
Where you have nothing to feed your soul
Except your own listless mind.
Have you experienced days when minutes seem like hours?
When every second drags endlessly
Have u wished you were somewhere else far away from the familiar
Just to see what that might rustle up?
Have you longed to dance with unknown
To sense the spectrum of what lies ahead.
Have you felt the days come and go
Bringing nothing but monotony?
Have you wondered if this is the will of God
That you must endure with no one to share.
Have you wanted to dance in the wind,
Be free as a feather and flow light and easy?
Without freedom we are stifled souls
With nothing to look forward
Suppressed emotions all bottled within
Rebellion bursting at the seams
A breakdown awaiting itself.
Feeding the soul
Begins with freeing the soul
Unshackling it from self limitations.
Of fear and repression.
Freedom is that which frees up the spirit of the soul.
Enthuses enterprise and initiative.
Values expression & creative spirit
To honor the life in the being.
Life is unique and cannot be boxed in frames
We cannot be a confined statement, as we are so much more.
To accept to be defined, is a defeat of possibilities.
As we are unpredictable in spontaneity,
As much as we are disciplined in character.
But we cannot be one without the other.
There is much of everything in us
That is how we are born
As a cosmic expression
Of creation asserting itself as a
being.
Each individual needs space and sound in the right balance.
To each his own
The choice to speak, share
And stay silent
Rests within us.
In every shy person there is a voice and opinion waiting to speak.
In every gregarious person there is a need for quiet and silence.
There are shades and tones hues and gradients in every one.
Every one is best the way they are.
Dance, it feels wonderful when you do.
Dance for your life to feel at ease.
Dance when you feel like and dance often!
Dance makes it all worthwhile.
Your body feels light and easy, as you dance.
The trick is to keep flowing
With the moves and continue dancing
As long as you enjoy the feeling…
Dance is not meant to harm the body.
But to heal your body and mind.
Integrating the spirit within you
So keep dancing …whenever you choose
For the body likes it best when you dance!
How is life well lived asked someone to me recently.
While each of us has an answer that is perfectly tuned for our souls purpose.
Yet life is well lived…
In the letting go
Of the unnecessary
For then we experience life best
In the lightness of being.
When we persevere enough to let go…
Let go of the little niggles along the way
Those that seem to bother for the moment
They will diminish in time
Let go for the need for self importance
Remember our uniqueness
There is truly no one like another.
Let go of over stretching,
to meet up to overcommitment,
And the over expectations of society.
It is a disastrous road not worth taking .
Let go of over perfecting
Every thing said or done.
It can be truly overwhelming .
Let go of unkind and inconsiderate behavior.
One cannot and need not please them all .
We are born to do better than that.
Let of the unnecessary squabbles and arguments.
Leave it for there are others who wish to do so.
In the letting go, gratitude and contentment begin to surface
From the depths of our being.
Let us be drawn by just our vision and dreams.
For they are related to our purpose of being.
Let’s continue on our path in
perseverance..
We will have a journey well done.
Life reflects itself through the things you do, the people you meet as well as in your passions and perseverances, in so many intriguing yet enthralling ways.
One such beautiful reflection I am experiencing is right here happening in France.
A sense of deja vu, a throwback to a decade ago, fond memories of teaching dances to people in the different places, all thanks to the magic of movements.
I am visiting Rennes France currently and last week I went to met my colleague from the world of dance, Celine Maheo who resides here.
Celine is a practicing clinical psychologist and an Argentine tango dancer.
What’s beautiful is that she is a dedicated professional who uses the dance therapy for helping Parkinson’s patients with their movements through Tango dance sessions.
My interest was piqued, as earlier I had been conducting similar dance sessions for Seniors, namely the Dance for Wellness workshops back in India.
So over a beautiful meet and greet sipping cups of hot herbal tea at the Les Grands Gamin at the heart of Rennes, ensued a free flowing conversation where we exchanged notes on each others life. Our passion for dancing was the visible to see as we hardly knew how moments passed by.
And when Celine invited me to her next Tango Therapy Workshop, it was an offer I could not refuse. I was actually keen to understand whether and how the cultural differences change the way of conducting and experiencing workshops here.
Dancing can improve the mobility and balance in senior adults.
Adapting the dance to suit the requirements of the group, like simplifying the steps, the placement of the feet, improves their coordination, mobility and balance.
The dance session was deeply engrossing & truly inspiring to witness and participate as well. The music played that day stayed with me well after the session.
So the next step turned out to be me conducting a Chacha session for them. The challenges of language barriers were surrmounted easily as Celine offered to translate my teaching from English to French.
Everything fell in place beautifully and voila time flew again.We danced a bit of Chacha that day and also some more in the next few sessions as well. I was told later by the learners how much they enjoyed it!
It was an amazing experience sharing the joys of movements and I thank Celine for her inclusivity in requesting me to conduct the dance sessions as well. And I deeply appreciate all her beautiful learners that I met,connected and danced with. It was a truly warm and wonderful time spent with them all.
As dancers, our every endeavour to bring smiles from the heart is a beautiful and creatively fulfilling experience.
Savvy
After the sessions we would gather together and discuss opening many facets of the learning and imbibing. It was a beautiful way of empathising and understanding each other.
Some of the beautiful souls I got to interact with in these few months…
Dance has a way of soothing your entire being and bringing forth and connecting you with the depth of who you are. That is when dance begins to feel meaningful and transforms life.
The dance connects established here in these sessions will be a beautiful memory etched in my heart, that I will take back home with me and cherish forever.
Today is 8th March 2020 and celebrated as Womens Day all over the world.
I dedicate this post to my friend and colleague Celine Maheo and all the women in the world who are making the world a better place, with every step in time.
Have you seen the whales breach
In such confidence they soar upward
They even maneuver a twirl
And fall back in complete trust
In the support of the water below.
How beautiful an example can mother nature give
Of unfolding grace in trust and confidence
Much of our lifes story can be just as beautiful.
When it is in a flow like that
When we rise in success with faith
Being completely confident of our purpose
When we surrender in complete unflinching trust
Knowing there is support and love flowing in the roots.
Why are humans rising and touching the stars?
Why are we progressing phenomenally
Yet why are we crash landing at times?
Why are we failing?
While it is the faith in ourselves that may take us upwards
Bu the lack of trust and support for one another brings us down.
Perhaps we need to learn from water
How to be flexible in its fluidity.
To be adaptable in its buoyancy
And then we too can rise again with every fall.
For inspite of every ability we have …
Support from our family and friends
Matter more than we know!
Wouldn’t you agree?
When you have faith in your roots then every leap of faith is of a trustful knowing
That no matter how far you reach you have a home to come back to!
“A tree nowhere offers a straight line or a regular curve, but who doubts that root, trunk, boughs, and leaves embody geometry?”
~George Iles
The above collage of artworks is based out of one of my photographs of this adorable tree I pass by every time, during my walks in Rennes France. I then enhanced my photo digitally and I am sharing the artworks out of my photography of this tree. I am always amazed how this tree would look different during different times of the day. And the changing weather would make it a treat to capture. While I clicked the pictures I couldn’t help notice the play of light on the tree and how its autumn leaves would shine through.
Sometimes there is no logic,
It is just the nature of being.
It may seem like just any other tree but for me this beautiful tree lives in my heart forever.
We as humans of the so called evolved societies with education and global experiences and connects on our sides are often the ones who take the most time to smile at one another as humans traveling in the same journey of life, let alone share a laugh in the open. I wonder why?
We live within boundaries for our own safety which is good for our protection and yet it robs us of our freedom to live life.
We are always so careful in looking to put our best foot forward that we lose the joy of spontaneity.
Our life is controlled by our own doings that we throw ourselves into little boxes every day and night and we forget what it feels to think feel and sense beyond the box literally.
And sadly those who do are ridiculed for being the odd one out.
True freedom is unshackling the self from these chains of false convictions…of how to be. And just be.
This kind of thinking is what can transform the world.
It is a treat for me to come across this interesting post share on Facebook by Vijay Anand who I personally may not know, but am sharing it with joy!
I have a friend who lives in Finland and works in the education space – she works in the government department that skills immigrants, so that they become productive and assimilate into the society.
During one of our conversations, she mentioned about how in a lot of Scandinavian countries all public transport is free [1] – you can hop into any bus, and go anywhere and even the trains are free. In Finland, you can also study whatever you want – go to school, college, go get a PhD for free – if you want.
I went “hmmm” in my usual, “I am not sure how this works” thought process. And remarked “I guess that works in a socialistic society”
What followed was insightful.
She asked me what I thought was the most important asset in a society. Honestly, that caught me by surprise. Our economy is measured (and GDP seems to be the holy measure) by movement of money, and hence companies?
She remarked, “Well, its People. It should be, isnt it? – atleast in the 21st century”. Her point was that the days of “companies” being valuable is a outdated model. Natural resources, companies being valuable, made sense for the industrial era, not really for the knowledge economy era.
She said, “Most democracies, even so called capitalistic democracies see people as a liability – a bunch that needs to be taken care of. So education is seen as a cost, healthcare is seen as a cost, but in Finland the model is that people are assets”
Her example : If you charge people a “fee” in college, they will pay a one time fee. And because of financial difficulties, they might not even pursue further education. Whose loss is it, she asked? I guessed, it was the individuals. “Nope, cause if someone who has the potential to be a PhD scientist ends up being a librarian because they couldn’t afford to study, it is the loss to the country – in more practical terms, the govt losses 30% of a much higher revenue that they could have made. Instead they have a citizen who hasn’t reached the full potential but still continues to consume the same amount of resources – might even add to the burden.”
If one looks at each individual that way – that everyone has a potential and if the govt helps them achieve the best version of themselves, then for a lifetime (say 40 odd years) they get 30% of everything he/she makes.
How does the free bus and trains work, I asked. If you remove traffic and remove headaches, employees reach offices faster. Companies get employees who aren’t half drained by the time they reach office. The more productive the workforce is, and the more profitable the company is, the government benefits from both – more tax money. A scientist who is able to do his/her best work creates assets for the country.
When people are the assets, the system starts as early as the mother being pregnant itself, to ensure that care is provided to deliver a healthy baby, and when the baby is born, the formative years are provided for to ensure nutrition and a healthy mental faculty, and periodic tests to map out the trajectory of every individual and set them on that path.
“So really Finland is very capitalistic, she said. What the societal model is, is that we value human beings and every human being as an asset. Whereas most “capitalistic” societies see them as liabilities and spend most of the money on welfare schemes and burdening the middle class.”
#Mindblown
The role of the government should be to enable its citizens / institutions / companies to be the best version of themselves and get the heck out of the way.
0. This idea is simple but radical. It took a few months for me to digest it. Give it time. I know the first reaction you might have will be similar to mine – cynical. But it makes sense.
1. India having a bigger population actually makes this even more attractive. People are assets. The more of that you have, the more you win.
2. This is fundamentally flipping the economy on the head. Today there are a few companies that create value (GDP) that is divided by the population. This model empowers individuals that Population x productivity = GDP
3. 90% of a country like India today lives off of 12,000 Rs per month. 5% of the country pays taxes that supports the rest of the country and the aspirations of infrastructure building. That is simply not sustainable.
4. This seems to be one of the few ways to not just get India to the 5trillion economy (as a bi product and not the goal) and beyond. In a day and age where civil liberties violation and environmental abuse will and should not be tolerated, this model paves a way. Most countries that are developed today got there through slavery or burning through the environment, which is a option we dont/cant have.
5. Getting ready for the knowledge economy, not only will get us into the world stage, but will get us far ahead in terms of the future – with being a young country, that is a service to future generations we cannot ignore. As they say, “skate to where the puck is going, not to where it is.”
Savvy Raj 
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