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We exalt our wealthy, fertile culture with our show of bodily adornments: our costly, beautiful beaded breasts and hips, our expensive silky chiffons and our well kept skin and hair. We communicate robust life forces; our eyes and lips, open and full. With our lush, often rounded bodies, we revel in our flesh! In a culture where bulimia and anorexia -literal denials of the flesh- are quickly becoming the norm, it is healing for others to watch us do so.
Secondly, we reclaim and reconnect with the ancients by understanding our dance as manifesting ecstasy. Artgasms are what my husband who drums for me and I call them. These are those climatic moments when the dancer, musicians and audience are viscerally transported to a heightened awareness that is very satisfying for all. This can be a great taksim, floor work or drum solo in which one can feel the energy shift in the entire room and everyone's breathing changes, usually at once.
Our movement invokes the ecstatic kundalini--the sexual and spiritual life forces symbolized by the coiled serpent asleep at the base of the spine--and the whirling chakras--the seven energy centers that transmit and balance this life force. Our full body undulations, what Tantric practitioners call the dolphin wave 27, connect the lower primal and sexual chakras (#1 & #2) with the higher intuitive and spiritual chakras (#6 & #7) through the center (#4), our hearts. Our vibrations and shimmies display ecstatic intensity as the dancer digs deeper and deeper to sustain them. And the viewers are transformed as they watch and experience the physical law that matter is both solid yet constantly moving 28.
Thirdly, we reclaim and reconnect with the ancients by understanding our dance as an experience of Divine Union 29. Be it Hinduism, Taoism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity or Paganism, all great religions satisfy the innate human need to feel connected to a universal source. As dancers, we are the apex, the pinnacle that connects the individual to him/herself and then to the community. We are at the center of a circle in which the individual is lovingly received, transformed and then united to the whole 30. Our spins create this context along with our gestures to Heaven above and Earth below. The group clapping and verbal soundings are part of the shared experience. Similar to the function of the ancient hieros gamos, we dancers embody the Goddess as her representative and the mystical union of masculine and feminine, spiritual and physical takes place. The personal is transcended and the divine entered in 31.
Fourth, we reclaim and reconnect with the Goddess by understanding ourselves as dispensers of karuna; early motherly love that is transformed in adulthood to embrace all forms of love: touching, tenderness, compassion, mercy, sensual enjoyment and eroticism 32. This is a prevalent feminine image throughout her/history: The Hindu Asparsas who were heavenly erotic angels; the Grecian Three Graces known as Joy, Bloom and Brilliance; the Greek, Persian, and Egyptian Horae who danced the evening zodiacal hours.
When we perform, in essence, we make love to our audience. We enter and say, "I love you, please love me." The audience receives our love and, if they are open, loves us back. We create a love-fest and in this capacity we are Love Goddesses. Our passion helps them feel their own emotions, be they joy, grief or humor. For those whose hearts are armored, this can be a profound, awakening experience.
Karuna is also dispensed through our personal beauty. We are exotic and breathtaking to behold. We create more beauty with our beautiful movement. We extend this beauty in a relationship to the audience who, in turn, are filled and go out into the world to appreciate and create even more beauty.
And why all this beauty, love, passion and compassion? Why all this karuna? We dancing priestesses serve a powerful function. We need to keep spreading karuna, to keep filling our karuna coffers, so to speak, as a shield against pain. Because sometimes life is not beautiful and loving and sometimes things do not go well and the fields are fallow and sometimes sudden misfortune hits. We need to balance the dark side of life with the light that we Goddess representatives bring. In this capacity, we are again all important reconcilers of opposites 33.
In conclusion, I would like to remind all Middle Eastern dancers, regardless of what "style" they adhere to, that we have always administered at important events and rites of passage. We have been there for the weddings, birthdays, barmitsvas, baptisms, solstices and retirement parties. But our presence, although auspicious, has been viewed by others, and sometimes ourselves, as merely fun, secular entertainment. Yet we are so much more than that! We are not there to just "embarrass" Joe on his birthday. We are there to "honor" Joe on the fact that he was born! We are there to "celebrate" Joe for having made it through so many birthdays! We are there to "bless" Joe so that he may have a fertile, forthcoming year! And finally, we are there to "love" Joe--even if we do not like him--so that his heart may be lovingly filled and he can go and have sacred sex with whomever he wants. We do all of this....and for fifty somewhat dollars! What a deal!
It is imperative that we create a vision within ourselves as sexy and holy mediators between Heaven and Earth, body and spirit and male and female. I suggest that we study the varied archetype of the Great Goddess and consciously foster within ourselves those aspects of her we personally resonate with. Furthermore, we must actively make any space we dance in, be it the Holiday Inn or a concert stage, a sacred space, our own temple. I believe that as we understand ourselves as facilitators of profound, transforming and mystical experiences, the depth and potency of who we are and what we do will be more fully appreciated and we will regain the love and respect that our ancient priestess predecessors once enjoyed.
FOOTNOTES
1. Wendy Buonaventura, Serpent of the Nile (Interlink Books, New York, 1994), pp. 32-33.
2. A. T. Mann and Jane Lyle, Sacred Sexuality (Element Books, Rockport, 1995), pp. 38-42.
3. James Hastings, ed., Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (Sculner, 1925), v. 6., "Hierodoulai," pg. 672.
4. Merlin Stone, When God Was a Woman (Harvest/Harcourt Brace, New York 1976), pp. 153-163.
5. Buonaventura, Serpent of the Nile, pg. 30.
6. Marija Gimbutas, The Language of the Goddess (Harper and Row, San Francisco, 1989), pg. XX.
7. Anne L. Barstow, The Book of Goddesses, ed. Carl Olson (Crossroad, New York, 1983), pg. 7.
8. Ibid., pp. 11-12.
9. Gimbutas, The Language of the Goddess, pg. 99.
10. Stone, When God Was a Woman, pg. 67.
11. Ibid., pg. 68.
12. Mircea Eliade, ed., Encyclopedia of Religion (Macmillan, 1987), v.6., pg. 310.
13. Mann and Lyle, Sacred Sexuality pg. 37.
14. Stone, When God Was a Woman, pp. 30-61.
15. Ibid., pg. 179.
16. Starhawk, Truth or Dare (Harper, San Francisco, 1990), pp. 40-64.
17. Diane Wolstein and Samuel Noah Kramer, Inanna (Harper and Row, New York, 1983), pg. 39.
18. Stone, When God Was a Woman, pg. 222.
19. Ibid., pp. 198-223.
20. Amy Peck, "Re-Visioning Adam and Eve," Habibi (Habibi, Santa Barbara, Winter 1995), Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 8-9, 25, Contains detailed account of snake denigration.
21. Stone, When God Was a Woman, pg. 216. 22. Mann and Lyle, Sacred Sexuality, pg. 132.
23. Elizabeth Artemis Mourat, The Illusive Veil (unpublished, 1995), Part 1, Section A.
24. Deena Metzger, "Re-Vamping the World: On the Return of the Holy Prostitute," Utne Reader, Aug, Sept 1985, pg. 122.
25. Buonaventura, Serpent of the Nile, pg. 28.
26. Joan Goodnick Westenholz, "Tamar, Quedesa, Qadistu, and Sacred Prostitution in Mesopotamia," Harvard Theological Review, 82:3, July 1989, pg. 252.
27. Amy Hubert, "Opening the Gates," Habibi (Habibi, Santa Barbara, Spring 1996), Vol. 15, No. 2, pg. 25.
28. Andrea Deagon, "Dance, Body, Universe" Habibi (Habibi, Santa Barbara, Spring 1996), Vol. 15, No. 2, pg. 27.
29. Mann and Lyle, Sacred Sexuality, pg. 182.
30. Kenneth Ray Stubbs, ed., Women of the Light (Secret Garden, Larkspur, 1994), pg. 164.
31. Nancy Qualls-Corbett, The Sacred Prostitute: Eternal Aspect of the Feminine (Inner City, Toronto, 1988), pg. 40.
32. Barbara G. Walker, The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (Harper and Row, San Francisco, 1983), pg. 495.
33. Qualls-Corbett, The Sacred Prostitute: Eternal Aspect of the Feminine, pg. 84.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Barstow, Anne, L. The Book of Goddesses, ed. Carl Olson (Crossroad, New York, 1983).
Buonaventura, Wendy. The Serpent of the Nile (Interlink Books, New York, 1994).
Deagon, Andrea. "Dance, Body, Universe," Habibi (Habibi, Santa Barbara, Spring 1996), Vol. 15, No. 2.
Eliade, Mircea, ed. Encyclopedia of Religion (Macmillan, 1987), V.6.
Gimbutas, Marija. The Language of the Goddess (Harper and Row, San Francisco, 1989).
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Hubert, Amy. "Opening the Gates," Habibi (Habibi, Santa Barbara, Spring 1996), Vol. 15, No. 2.
Mann, A. T. and Lyle, Jane. Sacred Sexuality (Element Books, Rocksport, 1995).
Metzger, Deena. "Re-Vamping the World: On the Return of the Holy Prostitute," (Utne Reader, Aug,/Sept 1985).
Mourat, Elizabeth Artemis. The Illusive Veil (unpublished, 1995).
Peck, Amy. "Re-Visioning Adam and Eve," Habibi (Habibi, Santa Barbara, Winter 1995), Vol.14, No. 1.
Qualls-Corbett, Nancy. The Sacred Prostitute: Eternal Aspect of the Feminine (Inner City, Toronto, 1988).
Stone, Merlin. When God Was a Woman(Harvest/Harcourt Brace, 1976).
Starhawk. Truth or Dare(Harper, San Francisco, 1990).
Stubbs, Kenneth Ray, ed. Women of the Light (Secret Garden, Larkspur, 1994).
Walker, Barbara G. The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (Harper and Row, San Francisco, 1983).
Westenholz, Joan Goodnick. "Tamar, Quedesa, Qadistu, and Sacred Prostitution in Mesopotamia," Harvard Theological Review, 82:3, July 1989.
Wolkstein, Diane and Kramer, Samuel Noah. Inanna (Harper and Row, New York, 1983).
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