Presenting the Body: A Rallying Cry
09/06/2011 - By Cara H. Cadwallader
With Joy & Affinity, We Celebrate at the Hive!
Dance Philosopher Cara H. Cadwallader expounds upon the potency of this now and how it requires a great balancing act between the Earth and our human created technologies, as well as between our analytical and meditative thinking.
Presenting the Body:
A Rallying Cry
By Cara H. Cadwallader, Dance Philosopher
“I feel. Therefore, I am here, I am now.”
We are on the brink. Walking a fine tightrope, we now precariously teeter above a deep chasm that lay between the modern, 20th century and an increasingly machinated, new era. The brilliance of this now is the balance that we can endeavor to walk – with one foot sinking into a moist, dank Earth, we can also dance with our neighbors found across thousands of miles of invisible frequencies with the other. It is an exciting moment, rife with potent opportunities. However, this balancing act requires a great awareness, for there is a silent war being waged.
Just days after 9/11, moved by irrational fear, propaganda and hatemongering, the American public willingly gave up its constitutional right to “Habeas Corpus.” Literally meaning to “Present the Body,” the Patriot Act eradicated hundreds of years of democracy in one swift motion. It was no longer necessary for anyone, including American citizens, either remotely accused or even wrongly associated with terrorism to be granted the due process of law. Rather, our presence before a body of government or a jury of the court was rendered obsolete. Thrown into a cell for years on end, totalitarianism triumphed.
Then, in 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected our Bill of Rights by granting personhood to corporations. Corporate entities, fictional in nature and lacking a physical body, were given a disembodied voice with which to vote in presidential elections. In just one, short decade, life as we have known it was overturned. And, now, our access to fresh, healthy foods grown and raised on local, family farms is under attack. Forced to stop by new FDA regulations , and even sometimes violently acted upon by misguided government bureaucracies, thousands of dollars as well as gallons of raw products – such as milk and produce – have been thrown down the drain. In a time period when we have reached socially alarming rates of physical and emotional dis-ease - cancer affects 1 in 4 Americans; heart disease is our nation’s leading killer; obesity and diabetes are chronic illnesses for children and teens; and we’re popping pills like they’re candy in our subscriptions for depression and anxiety - can we really afford to further diminish our relationship with the very real Earth under our feet, livestock that surrounds us and, even, the >2% of remaining U.S. farmers left tending to our organic, micro-farms?
This is not by any means a recent campaign. It stems from our millennia-old, left-brained, masculine dominated approach to life. Although our analytical thinking has led to continual leaps and bounds in our technological advancement, what we have not realized is that, like our human population, these evolutions are exponential in growth. Thus, far from new, it has been an ongoing onslaught found throughout human story. What is different about this now is that our level of distraction has reached such a fervent pitch that we no longer hear the army’s trumpeting call. Like sheep to the slaughter, we absent-mindedly chase after the dangling carrots leading us to the shimmering mirages of iPads, breast implants and Genetically Modified Organisms . Unfortunately, what the horse really craves – true, tactile connection in real time – it cannot be forced to drink, especially if it does not recognize its own deep desire.
Almost four-hundred-years ago, Rene Descartes penned his now famous words. In his Discourse of Method (1637), he wrote – in French, not Latin - "Je pense donc je suis,” and, ever since, our western institutions have been ruled by Cartesian Thought - by a worshipping of the mind over the body. Centuries later, we - as a people - have forgotten how to listen to the stirrings of our heart song. We have willingly accepted mindless work that does not feed our Spirits as par for course. And, we can no longer sense the ancient wisdom of the Earth nor intuit the deep psyche of our collective consciousness. What’s more is that we do not know how to be in stillness and silence. Daily, we negate the immense power and deep well of meditative thinking. We have become numb, the walking dead - Zombies pulled towards the external call of media and mayhem.
Today, as dance educators and practitioners, our dire responsibility is to help each other remember. Our movement must hold at its core a fundamental belief in: the necessity of touch; our souls’ meeting in real time and fluid space; the strength of vulnerability in our mutual surrender; and in the sweet taste of sensuality. Our moving metaphors must frolic in a flourishing garden where our real, human toes dig into a replenished soil. There is no other recourse. This is a rallying cry for it is these human bodies that are at stake in the future that is soon to come. As dancers, we are the creative solution for maintaining our EarthBody connection. It is up to us to remember, to teach and to pass on our human legacy. Breathe. Be. And, Flow.
Cara H. Cadwallader, MFA is a Dance Philosopher who is the Founding Director of the Prosperity Hive, San Diego’s Sweet Spot for Whole Being Sustainability. You can learn more about her and her work at www.themetaphorofmovement.com.
