Presenting a rich mosaic of embodied contemporary narratives in spirituality and movement studies, this book explicitly studies the relationship between spirituality and the field of Somatic Movement Dance Education. It is the first scholarly text to focus on contemporary spirituality within the domain of dance and somatic movement studies.
Dance, Somatics and Spiritualities brings together prominent authors and practitioners in order to elucidate how a wide range of sacred narratives/spiritualities are informing pedagogy, educational and therapeutic practice. As well as providing new insights and promoting creative/artistic awareness, this seminal text de-mystifies the spiritual/sacred and brings clarity and academic visibility to this largely uncharted and often misrepresented subject.
Divine Signs is the concluding volume of the ethnographic trilogy about the communicative tensions in everyday American cultural life H. L. Goodall, Jr., began with Casing a Promised Land and continued with Living in the Rock n Roll Mystery.
In this final work, the terms for understanding these tensions are found in a historical and mythological drama featuring Power (as the embodiment of the modern), Other (as the embodiment of the postmodern), and Spirit (as the unifying power capable of connecting disparate selves to dangerously fragmented communities). For this study, the localized site of interpretation is in and around Pickens and Oconee Counties, South Carolina, where every day street signs, business advertisements on billboards, signs that announce church themes, Internet postings, and other forms of public communication that invite private meanings are read as rhetorical invitations to participate in these myths and mysteries.
Using themes discoverable in such public forms of communication, Goodall deconstructs a variety of communal experiences—from annual community celebrations to weekly therapy sessions in local beauty salons to the fall audience rituals of Clemson University football games—to gain a deeper appreciation of the unifying symbolic orders that enrich the interpretive possibilities of our lives and that serve as signs of our deeply spiritual connections to each other and to the planet.
In the last sections of the book, the interplays of Power, Other, and Spirit are read into and against a wide variety of everyday interpretive contexts, from Rush Limbaugh and talk radio to narratives about angels and stories about the transformative powers of spiritual practices in organizations. Goodall then asks the important question: Where are the themes of this mythological drama leading us? In the stunning conclusion, Goodall creates communicative, cultural, and spiritual challenges for us all.
"Words,"writes Chuang Tzu, "are for catching ideas; once you've caught the idea, you can forget the words." In Do Nothing, author Siroj Sorajjakool lends us some of his insightful words to help us all "catch" the provocative ideas of one of China's most important literary and philosophical giants—one who emerged at a time when China had several such giants philosophizing on Tao or "the Way."
Though his thinking dates back to the fourth century, Chuang Tzu's Tao has profound implications for our modern lives. He welcomes an existence that is radically removed from the image of normalcy that society often projects, wherein the individual must always strive for more, always seek greater productivity, and always try to better him or herself and his or her place in life. Chuang Tzu would posit that the definitions of normalcy, success, and happiness are arbitrarily assigned and that our rigid and unquestioning adherence to these so-called "norms" leads to existential restlessness and unease. Instead of striving, he would say, be still. Instead of acquiring, embrace nothingness. Instead of seeking to understand the limitlessness of the universe during your brief and extremely limited existence, enjoy the wonder of it.
Siroj Sorajjakool suggests that when we can embrace nothingness, we undergo a spiritual transformation that liberates us to see more clearly and truly find ourselves. He offers a very personal exploration of Chuang Tzu's Tao, first in its historical and literary context, and then in the context of our twenty-first century existence. What emerges is a liberating and highly readable meditation on the many lessons we can "catch" from Chuang Tzu on how we view our aspirations, our joys and sorrows, our successes and failures, and what it means to be a worthwhile person.
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