Trance Dance

by Jillian Leslie

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Last autumn I suffered a raging case of writer’s block. Nefarious mind bandits performed stealth larceny on the right half of my brain, kidnapping my characters, handcuffing my metaphors and smashing any hope of creative flow. I spent long, fruitless hours at the keyboard, feeling increasingly inept with every mouse click. Every word was an effort, a punishment, a joke.

Funny, isn’t it, when things seem low, an angel can tap you on the shoulder, getting you back on track. My angels arrived in the form of two colleagues from One Woman’s Writing Retreat: Webmaster Cathy Atherton and columnist Lisa Mahon. This time we’re not talking about writing, though: we’re talking about dancing. Besides being excellent writers, both women have a dance background.

Cathy, a former choreographer, told me about the magic of trance/dance, a combination of modern and shamanistic dance, for all skill levels, set to Gabrielle Roth's 5 Rhythms,™ which free the mind, the body and the spirit. At Cathy's suggestion, I tried the tape, The Wave, by Gabrielle Roth, and to this day, find it addictive and liberating. What does it have to do with writing? Everything. The physical play--the dance--liberated the mental blocks and freed me to create once again.

Ms. Roth has a variety of CDs and trance/dance tapes. You can find her products at http://www.ravenrecording.com/ Feel free, though, to pop a CD from your current collection, let the music take you where it may and dance with abandon. As Gabrielle Roth says, "If you don’t do your dance, who will?" So, writers, if you don't write your stories, who will?

Jillian Leslie's articles have appeared in Family Circle Magazine, Bed and Breakfast Journal, Oregon Coast Magazine, Oregon Parks Magazine and Northwest Travel Magazine. She is the webmaster of EverydayWarriors.com. Read more about her here.

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