Dancing in the Muddy Temple

Eline Kieft

doi:10.5771/9780739189030

Summary

Drawing from nature experience, dance, anthropology, and shamanism, Dr. Eline Kieft explores improvised movement as a pathway to insight, healing, transformation, and direct interaction with source. Dancing in the Muddy Temple takes the reader on a journey through multiple layers of embodied spirituality based in movement and embedded in the land.

Addressing existential questions outside of mainstream religions, the book seeks possibilities for a spirituality that dances with the sacred life force within and all around us. Starting within the body, and always using movement as a way of knowing, Kieft expands on further concrete and subtle layers of connection. A sensorial immersion in the land develops into an expansion of consciousness and meeting intangible aspects of nature. After exploring the role of ceremony in contemporary times, the book concludes with an unexpected chapter on healing, drawing together insights for a dynamic approach to health and wholeness as innate part of an embodied spirituality.

Moving seamlessly between her personal, professional, and academic background, Kieft creates an unusual scholarship in which bodily and autobiographical narrative are neatly interwoven with interdisciplinary literature. Its uniqueness lies in a radical integration of theory and practice, which brings an aliveness to the material that stirs an inquisitive desire to move, rooted in language that inspires confidence for personal inquiry into a rich and complex territory. This inspiring book offers an intricate road map to explore and strengthen the interwovenness of various layers of self, surroundings and the sacred, distilling tools for a practical, moving spirituality of the everyday.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2022
ISBN-Print: 978-0-7391-8902-3
ISBN-Online: 978-0-7391-8903-0
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 194
Product type: Book Titles

1. Dedication No access
2. Contents No access
3. Gratitudes No access
4. 1. Notes No access
  2. I use the word ‘sacred’ to refer to all things that are in alignment with that ‘mysterious’ force and the natural laws of life, and which need to be respected and protected. Sacred to me is synonym with numinous, holy and divine. No access
1. Reflexivity and the Dancing Scholar No access
2. Writing about Dance No access
3. Writing about Spirituality No access
4. Map for the Book No access
5. Notes No access
1. Hearing a Murmur No access
2. Culture as a River No access
3. Currents of Alternative Spirituality No access
4. Critique on Postmodern Spirituality No access
5. Nature-based Spiritualities and (Neo-) Shamanism No access
6. West European Indigenous Knowledge No access
7. Notes No access
1. WELL of Inspiration No access
2. Many Dances No access
3. Sacred and Conscious Expressions No access
4. 1. Mobile Connections No access
  2. Emotionally Evocative No access
  3. Fluid Consciousness No access
  4. Direct Action No access
5. Notes No access
1. Becoming (Un)Divided No access
2. The Multi-Layered Body No access
3. Expressions of Embodiment No access
4. Interoceptive Awareness No access
5. Alignment of Body, Heart, Mind No access
6. Soulful Presence No access
7. Weaving Interconnection No access
8. Re-Anointing the Body No access
9. Notes No access
1. Lines and Circles No access
2. Expanding Cognition No access
3. Embodied Intelligence No access
4. Improvisation as a Technique No access
5. Exploration Prompts No access
6. Notes No access
1. Nature, My Lover of Lifetimes No access
2. Body ∞ Environment No access
3. We Are Nature No access
4. Reconnecting with the Natural World No access
5. Immersive Practices No access
6. And of Course, We Dance . . . No access
7. Qualities of the Land No access
8. Mimicking No access
9. Notes No access
1. Into the Stone No access
2. Consciousness beyond the Skin No access
3. Information Fields No access
4. Participation Consciousness No access
5. Changing the Frequency No access
6. A Safe Container No access
7. Expanded Consciousness, Trance and Embodied Ecstasy No access
8. A Collective Pathway No access
9. Notes No access
1. Snake Trails No access
2. Essence Sparks No access
3. 1. Spirit Etiquette No access
  2. Dancing With No access
  3. Dancing As No access
  4. Being Danced No access
  5. Across Time No access
4. Notes No access
1. Dreaming with the Ancestors No access
2. Ritual and Ceremony No access
3. Maps of Sacred Space No access
4. Preparation No access
5. Into the Unknown No access
6. Return and Integration No access
7. Meaning and Efficacy of Contemporary Reinventions No access
8. Notes No access
1. East Wind No access
2. Health as a Process No access
3. Life Force and Soul Essence No access
4. Medicine and the Golden Shadow No access
5. Four Healer Archetypes No access
6. Orientations for Dynamic Well-Being No access
7. Notes No access
1. The Journey No access
2. Towards Sustainable and Empowering Narratives No access
3. Circular Inclusivity No access
4. Life, Death and Rebirth No access
5. Sacred Sexuality No access
6. The Role of Community No access
7. Widening Horizons No access
8. Notes No access
1. Acknowledge No access
2. Activate No access
3. Release No access
4. Retrieve No access
5. CULTIVATE No access
6. CELEBRATE No access
7. Notes No access
Bibliography No access Pages 153 - 174
Index No access Pages 175 - 192
1. Relevant Publications No access