Ecstatic Dance Dallas

Movement, Music + Heart-Centered Community

Find yourself dancing!

Autumnal equinox blessings to you, dear one. I hope this season of transition finds you well, happy, and full of faith. That’s how I’m feeling - it’s my favorite time of year.

I shared an important life update last summer, which you can read HERE for context. Now, during this auspicious equinox and waxing Aries full moon, I want you to know that all of my creative energy, time, and attention have shifted and I’ve stepped away from active involvement with Ecstatic Dance Dallas (EDD).

As a founder I believe success is defined by imagining and creating something of great value that’s sustainable in its succession; it continues serving people exponentially through its dynamic evolution and without continual need for its originator. I’ve put in the work and laid the foundation for this vital force, which now has a life of its own, to soar. I’ve learned over time the Dance also has its own desires and mission to fulfill.

The Ecstatic Dance Dallas Mission Statement (circa 2010): To elevate the health, hope, happiness, humor, and harmony of humanity through the applied medicines of music, movement, and heart-centered creative community.

Since launching, I’ve curated and produced well over a thousand ecstatic dance events, concerts, and conscious dance workshops. I’ve selectively invited and hosted master teachers of many lineages to share their wisdom to nurture and mature the conscious dance community in Dallas. Luminaries such as Lucia Horan, Michael + Anneli Molin-Skelton, Amber Ryan, and Lorca Simons, to name a few. The backstory on how the alchemical fire of Ecstatic Dance Dallas started is HERE for context.

I’ve also had the privilege of recognizing, inviting, and nurturing the creative talents and leadership of many community members of which I’m enormously proud and eternally grateful. These purpose-driven collaborators have fed my soul and made EDD the remarkable force for good it has become. (See Acknowledgements below).

Our unwavering belief in the importance of a thriving, creative, heart-centered community has nourished an ever-widening circle in Dallas dedicated to transformative somatic practices and human evolution. It has been my true honor and pleasure to cultivate this space of belonging, vulnerability, wild creativity, and profound love that has become the heartbeat of the Dallas conscious dance ecosystem.

Passing the torch to Sarah Sampson and the EDD Dream Team a year ago was a natural and easy decision, albeit riddled with mixed emotions. As these things go, the transition was messy in ways, filled with grace and profound beauty in others. It's been a transformative journey, much like a 5Rhythms dance wave: flowing, staccato, chaos, lyrical, and finally stillness.

I wholeheartedly believe in Sarah's vision for the future of the Dance and recognize her as a wise, skilled, collaborative, and committed leader with abundant resources and support. I take immense pride in my contributions since 2009 - the fire-starter vision, dogged determination and grit, inclusive culture, high quality, and sustained service the Dance embodies - and I lovingly support its ongoing growth and success.

I will continue to vote the victory of Sarah, the Collective, this Dance, and this beloved Community, which is you. I will forever be grateful for my extraordinary good fortune to have danced with you with such wild abandon for so long, so bravely, and so deeply, my friend. To witness you in your audacious, sweaty, sacred humanity - the glory of your vulnerable realness, your creative originality, your extraordinary badassery - you have blessed me and you dance in my heart.

To close, as I have said during the Closing Circle of each and every ecstatic dance I’ve facilitated since 2010 - “May love have its way with us all! Aho!”

Oceans of love,

Monica Blossom

:: poem : in Blackwater Woods ::

Look, the trees

are turning

their own bodies

into pillars of light,

are giving off the rich

fragrance of cinnamon

and fulfillment, 

the long tapers

of cattails

are bursting and floating away over

the blue shoulders 

of the ponds,

and every pond,

no matter what its

name is, is 

nameless now.

Every year

everything

I have ever learned 

in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side 

is salvation,

whose meaning

none of us will ever know.

To live in this world 

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it 

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it

go,

to let it go.

-- Mary Oliver, Poet

:: the next evolution of Ecstatic Dance Dallas ::

What’s alive and has emerged brilliantly now is the Dallas Movement Collective and an email will arrive from Sarah tomorrow with all details. All things Ecstatic Dance Dallas have been transferred accordingly to this new entity, including email addresses, social platforms, websites, blessings, teachings, etc. The official launch dance happens this Sunday with the musical maestro herself, Katie Toohil (katiedid) on the decks.

Enjoy, and for the love of all that’s good in this world, KEEP DANCING!

I'll return to dance with you every now and then.

:: feel free to stay in touch with me ::

As my journey continues, I’ve embarked on a softer and quieter new chapter. After living in Dallas for 27 years, I’ve returned and settled into a charming little Midwestern town to enjoy my home rhythm of Family – just minutes from two of my grown children, their spouses, and the brilliant poems they’ve created called children. This is an ever-widening circle of deep connection where I will always belong.

I’m curious about what I might create next, but I’m in no hurry. I’m listening and enjoying the journey. Right now it’s like this.

c: 214.597.6800 | e: [email protected] |Facebook | Instagram

:: acknowledgements ::

Ecstatic Dance Dallas has always been a collaborative collective; by the people, for the people.

To the EDD artists, facilitators, leaders, musicians, greeters, ambassadors, believers: Katie Toohil, Chris Campbell, Amber Michelle, David Sunshine, Sarah Marie, Chelsee Albo, Brian Aldridge, Dr. Jessica Tartaro, Jessica Ball, Daniel Miranda, Seda Bliss, Gracen Lee, Ernesto Ochoa, Ron Bell, Dr. Blake Hestir, Briana Marie, Ron Dyer (the live drums on Sundays - Holy Mother - take us to church!), Stephanie St. John, Aurah Semrad, Danna Pyke Miller, Ana Shoemaker, Jeremy Gregg, the late Johnny Wolf, Aubrey Monk Warren, Peyton Quinn, Mika Earthspirit, Jason Hollis, Rose Bud, Emily Ashley, Michael Foote, and of course, Sarah Sampson, to name a few. There are so many to acknowledge and thank over the past 13 years. What a blessing you are and will continue to be. I bow to each and every one of you named, and unnamed. Please forgive if unnamed.

To everyone who swept floors, moved those heavy-ass tables and chairs, created an altar, draped walls, schlepped stuff to and from storage, hauled sound, engineered sound, served as greeter at front of house, managed check-in, invited a friend, served as street team, welcomed a newcomer, shared vulnerably and honestly during closing circle, stayed when you wanted to leave, kept coming back, and became more of your authentic self through the Dance; I bow to you.

To everyone who responded to my hyper-enthusiastic invitations to join us for a weekend workshop with a new teacher, try a new practice, step into unfamiliar territory, try ecstatic dance for the first time before it was even a widely known thing, to show up and invest in yourself. Thank you for your trust and for your courage.

To my teachers on this path, namely Lucia Horan. To Liz Tucker-Rogers, without you, none of this would have happened. Thank you for asking me to dance with you at Esalen so many years ago.

While this isn't the end of our journey, it's important to me to pause as we stand at this threshold together to say - thank you, I love you, keep going, you matter. - xo Monica Blossom