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A field of balsam root joyfully receiving the nourishment of the sun
 in the foothills of Boise, ID

Joy can be defined as "Intense and especially ecstatic or exultant happiness" (Free Online Dictionary), and we all recognize the feeling. It fills us until we feel as though we are as bright as the sun. It nourishes us, and it brings smiles to the people we share it with.

It is, of course, a transient state, one that cannot be endlessly sustained, and an attempt to try would be exhausting: joy is a high-energy state, balanced by moments of quiet contemplation, or perhaps even grief and sadness. They're all part of the human experience, and our work is to let them all flow through us without becoming attached to any of them.

In a Dance circle, joy is often found when a heart full to bursting reaches the completion of the Dance. Our tendency is to want to whoop and holler, jump up and down, clap and make noise, hug somebody - anything to dissipate the intensity of the feeling within us and to reach out to share this exuberance.

One of the practices in the Dances is to learn to make ourselves large enough to hold all emotions and feelings as they move through us, including joy. This is what the stillness at the end of the Dance helps us practice. Can we hold our joy, radiating it out to the world, without becoming uncentered?

 

"In the promise of the dawn, in the breaking of the morn, in the smiles of the rose, Beloved, I see thy joy at my homecoming."
 
~*~ Hazrat Inayat Khan ~*~
 
Gratitude for Donations
 
DUPNA would like to thank the following circles and events for their dana from their events and gatherings to help further the work of DUPNA and outreach of the Dances. May you be blessed in return!

Canyonlands Dance Camp (UT) 
Cleveland OH Dance Circle 
 
Although no longer requiring memberships, the organization still accepts voluntary memberships and donations of any kind, which enable us to continue providing services such as the extensive website and these monthly newsletters. 
 
Please click here to make a donation to support and further enliven the work of DUPNA. Thank you! 
Joyful companions at Wilderness Dance Camp, 
Flathead Lake, MT 2013
 
How the Dances Have Changed My Life
by Elizabeth Santero
 
When we dance
the sun sails safely through the night
When we dance
the future is formed by our feet
When we dance
the stars move through the heavens...
When we dance
Venus shimmers the desert
When we dance
dust becomes silver
stones are made of gold


A year ago I had never heard of the Dances of Universal Peace. That all changed when I attended the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly (GA) in Louisville, Kentucky, last June. GA is the annual meeting of the Unitarian Universalist Association of congregations. While there we worship, witness, learn, connect, and make policy through the democratic process for the Association. Anyone may attend; while Unitarian Universalist congregations must certify annually to send voting delegates. I was attending my second GA as a delegate from my congregation in Madison, Connecticut.

GA represents everything I love about Unitarian Universalism -- the excitement of the sermons, the energy of the services, and the enthusiasm in the workshops that provide the chance to immerse yourself in something completely new. This is what happened to me, and it changed my life.

The program description for the Dances of Universal Peace sounded appealing. "Got Spirit? Got Inspiration? Got Peace? Embody your commitment to peace and justice with this contemplative, yet rejuvenating moving meditation experience. We will sing and dance together using simple, easy to learn melodies and movements from the world's wisdom traditions..." Jennifer Friedman, who led the workshop, is a Dances of Universal Peace leader from Longmont, Colorado; she was sponsored by the DUPNA. Her joyful presentation created a sense of hope, love, compassion, and peace.

What I experienced was a moment of deep clarity and sychronicity that the Dances could be what I'd been preparing for my whole life! All the years of singing and dancing, movement and body awareness, teaching and building community connections, had been leading up to this moment. And, in that moment, the individual strands of my life came together to form a new whole that is greater than the sum of the parts. The experience has pointed me in a new direction and moved me to a new level of commitment.

Click here to read the complete article.

Moment of ecstatic joy at the Sufi Youth Jam in Bailey, CO 2014

 News from the Sufi Youth Jam
 
The first report is in from Anael Surya!

There were so many areas of the world represented, so many new dances we exchanged, so little time to learn them! Delegations from Germany, Czech Republic, Latvia, Colombia, Ecuador, North America, and Mexico were present; all brought new information about camps in their own regions.

The unification which birthed through the Ruhaniat Youth Council, had representation of all Sufi order youths and DUP kidlings. There was vast discussion among all of us of new ways to unify and visit other Sufi communities, suggestions of best places on earth to dance (New Zealand and Hawaii being contenders).
A strong Murshid SAM core was carried throughout the camp, with first time dance leaders practicing and gaining wisdom in dance leadership (yay!) under the sage advice of dance mentors.

Want to encourage this? Click here to visit the Sufi Ruhaniat Youth Scholarship page to donate to the scholarship fund or visit www.sufiyouth.com OR www.ruhaniat.org/index.php/youth-about to learn more about how the Ruhaniat encourages youth and young adult participation in the practices of Murshid SAM and Pir-O-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan

To learn more about how you might become involved with the organization of a national young adult Dance gathering in 2015, click here to email Jen Friedman.

And click here to download, print, and share a document detailing volunteer opportunities for youth and young adults with Dance organizations in North America. We are looking for the voices of the next generations to help guide us toward the future. Please encourage those young ones in your lives to get involved!
 

  

Akhlak Allah and Joy

 

In the teleconference titled "The Walking Practices initiated by Murshid Samuel L. Lewis," recorded on July 26, 2012, Murshid Wali Ali Meyer talks about the joy that accompanies "Akhlak Allah," the practice of experiencing the presence of God.  
 
Listen to the full conversation by clicking here: 

 

 

 
I am happy even 
before I have a reason. 
I am full of Light even before the sky 
Can greet the sun or the moon. 
Dear companions, 
We have been in love with God 
For so very, very long 
What can Hafiz now do but forever 
Dance? 
 
 ~*~ Hafiz (Daniel Ladinsky, trans.)  ~*~
 
Poem on Joy
 

We have no haikus to share this month, so we share this poem and comments from a fairly new northern CA Dancer.

 

Next month's theme is Tending the Garden. Send your haikus to dupnamail@gmail.com

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

Gratitude abounds for each and all of you for holding space and guiding the flow of the Sunday Dances of Universal Peace.  After many years of Spiritual searching by means of mental and subtle mind enquiry these Dances have opened all the human faculties for the purpose of Divine acknowledgement. Sight, sound, sensation, human interaction, emotional, mental and physical...all in devotional surrender.  Thanks to each of you for your part, you each have enriched my life.

 

Here is something I wrote about the Dances:

 

My voice rises along with other voices
until this is felt to be One voice 
 
My body moves among other body's 
until it seen to be One body 
 
Around in a circle we move 
until it is known that all space is One

When my hand touches another it is felt as One 
When our eyes meet it is Self looking into Self 
When the circle seems to move..
it seems to be the room moving  
Gratitude overwhelms each and all 
as we feast on these Dances of Universal Peace.  
   

 

Be at Peace,

Sage Lee One

Newly Certified Dance Leaders 
 

We send blessings to the newly certified leaders within our region. We bow in gratitude to their service and devotion, and in joy at their stepping forward to do this work!  

 

This month we bless...

 

Joy Jencuyah (CA)

Kathy Kochevar (NC)
Jessica Noe (MI)
Bhavani Judith Tucker (CA)

Diana Shemaya Haqq Pelletier (PA)  

 

 

Return to the Top 

 
"One of the reasons I am teaching this music and dancing is to increase Joy, not awe towards another person, but bliss in our own self. This is finding God within, through experience." 
 

~*~ Murshid Samuel L. Lewis ~*~

 

Sincerely,
The board and staff
Dances of Universal Peace North America
In This Issue
Gratitude for Donations
How the Dances Have Changed My Life
Report from the Sufi Youth Jam
Akhlak Allah and Joy
Poem on Joy
Newly Certified Dance Leaders
Featured Song of the Month: Ecstatic Zikr
Featured Video of the Month: The Kalama
Dances on Joy
Upcoming Dance Camps & Events Around the Region
Quick Links
********************
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Artistic rendering of ecstatic joy in Split Top Cave, 
Canyonlands Dance Camp;
drawing by Clint

 

Featured Song  
of the Month:


 Ecstatic Zikr


 originated by  

Munir Peter Reynolds
who writes: 

 

"I find that dissonance and tension in music helps me to feel the intensity of letting go. It's not always easy to let go and to face the truth, what must be confronted. But when that finally happens, consonance and harmony in music represent the ecstasy of coming out the other side." 
 
 ~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Featured Video 
of the Month:

The Kalama
The Kalama

 

  The Kalama, the closing Dance at the Spring Renewal Retreat with Allaudin Ottinger and Leilah Be, 

April 2014, in Prescott AZ, with video enhancements. 

Video by Dennis Roshay.

 

 

~*~

 

There are some great DUP videos out there, so if you have a good-quality Dance video you would like to share with the community, please send the links to dupnamail@gmail.com to be shared in upcoming newsletters. 

  

~*~ ~*~ ~*~
 
"The spiritual dance has no other purpose, no other aim than to elevate humankind beyond self thought, to joy, to bliss, to realization and to peace. The sincere dancer is one of the best workers for universal harmony, and so for universal peace."  
 

~*~Murshid SAM~*~

 

 
~*~ ~*~ ~*~ 
 
A Few Dances with an Attunement to Joy    

   

Softening 


Ecstatic Zikr   

 

Light of this World 


Haida

I Am Alive

Ivdu HaShem B'Simcha

"Now, I am not running a fun club, and I am not running a dramatic show. I believe we can learn through exaltation, through ecstasy, through joy and through love. At the same time we must also keep one eye open, so to speak, on our peace, if we want strength, because strength comes out of our inner peace. A lot of people go and speak against ecstasy and they don't know what it is. A lot of people speak for it and they don't know what it is. So I find love should produce a certain kind of ecstasy and ecstasy if it is real will produce a certain kind of love."
 
~*~Murshid SAM~*~
 
~*~

Upcoming Dance Camps & Events submitted to the DUPNA website from around our Region:
 

 

~*~
 
Dance Deepening
May 24-26
north of Boston, MA
with Abraham & Halima Sussman, Jon Maitreya Stevens, and Malika Salazar and friends
617-876-5272
 
 
~*~ 

Northern Colorado Dances of Universal Peace and Sufi Camp
May 29-June 1
Berthoud, CO
with Grace Marie & Gregory Gayan Long
Contact:
970-498-8422


~*~

June 6-7
Durham, NC
Contact:
919-361-2383


~*~

Wilderness Dance Camp
June 22-28
Flathead Lake, MT
with Allaudin Ottinger and Lila Flood
Contact:
406-209-3857
 

~*~

24th Annual Ithaca Dances of Universal Peace Camp
June 26-29
Ithaca, NY
Contact:
OR
607-351-3000


~*~

Dances Video Project with Anahata Iradah
June 28-29
Aptos, CA
Contact:
831-662-0534


~*~


Every Wave of the Sea: Higher and Higher!
with Mariam Baker & Allaudin Ottinger
July 10-13
Trinity Center at the NC coast
Contact:
252-756-6088


~*~


Ecstasy of Infinity: 6th Annual Retreat with the Fort Wayne Dance Collective
with Munir Peter Reynolds
July 25-27
Fort Wayne, IN
Contact:
260-424-6574


~*~


Eat, Dance, and Pray Together: 14th Annual Sufi Dance Community  Retreat Camp
July 31-August 3
MA
Contact:
617-876-5272


~*~


Circling Around the Earth
with
Murshid Saadi Neil Douglas-Klotz, Murshid Tansen O'Donohoe and Murshida Sophia 
Gita Onnen
Aug. 29-31
Silver City, NM
Contact:
575-534-1441


~*~



to view a complete and detailed listing of Dance Camps and Events submitted to our website from around our region

 

Our newsletter is now being archived on the website!  

 

Click here if you recently missed a month.

 
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