Germany and Rome Travels: Part One

I am having such an INTENSE time!!!Where do I start?

Well, I suppose I should start at the beginning.… My arrival in Strasbourg, France (right across the border from Germany) was at 10:40 AM Europe time, so to me it felt like 4:40 AM. Yet, even after a long flight across the pond, and having to ride two buses to get to my plane in Paris that would take me to Strasbourg, I was wide awake when I arrived.  Upon landing there was a muder of crows on the tarmac. I took this as a very good omen.

At the airport, I was approached by a lovely woman who asked me if I was on my way to the tribal Festival in Offenburg. When I replied that I was, Christine of the Zafira tribal dance company introduced herself to me. (Wave to Christine! Hope to see you again soon!:))

Christine and I were greeted by a very sweet man who was there to pick us up and bring us to our respective hotels. Out the window of his taxi, we could see the farms of Southwest Germany, until we crossed the famous Rhine River. I was really here!

St. Ursula

I was taken to the Hotel Sonne in the heart of Offenburg. Hotel Sonne is one of the oldest hotels in Germany, if not in all of Europe. This hotel dates back to the 1300s, and the stone sculptures on its walls attest to this fact. My room was up high on the third floor; my window overlooking the town square with its patron saint Ursula at the very top of an obelisk, arms open to the residence of this beautiful medieval city. She reminded me of the goddess Mary, and I was glad to see her as I was very deep in mourning for my sister. I've lit many candles for her all over the sacred places in my travels. More about that later.

Add caption

The death of my sister was a great shadowy fact that was a deeply sewn into the fabric of this trip. In fact, today is her birthday. Her death was unexpected and she was very young. My sister had been sick for most of her adult life, but that she should die so suddenly was still a shock to everyone. To add to the devastating impact of this event, my family is not among those fortunate enough to have harmonious relationships. Generations of trouble and trauma have caused many rifts and much heartache. While some of us became closer and more compassionate with one another over this event, others chose to stubbornly reinforce their positions. It is a fact that causes great heartache, though I am glad my sister is finally free from it. I am lucky to have had her beauty and grace in my life, and her love. I am also lucky to have the love of my partner Mike, and all my friends who are my extended family.

Offenburg and the Black Forest

That Germany should be my destination for this trip was a perfect act of divine synchronicity. As it turns out this part of Germany is where my Schaile ancestors most likely originate. That makes me a child of the Swabian tribe , a people that live in or near the Black Forest. My visit to Germany coincided with the sacred holiday of Samhain, the time of connecting to the ancestors.


Surrounded by new friends I was part of a Samhain ritual outdoors, in front of the fire, at the edge of The Black Forest. My sweaters still smells like fire! I can't tell you how powerful this experience was for me of being in the black forest, near the land of my ancestors, asking them to watch over my sister and sending her light and love and peace. There are so much healing to be done, and the grandmothers were there to help. One of the participants brought this song:



Ihr Ahninnen, wir grussen euch

und reichen euch die Hand

wir setzen uns auf Geier's Schwingen

fliegen uber's Land



Die Spinne webt den Lebensfaden,

Perlen schnenkt der Tau.

Die Erde taucht Nebelschwaden

badet sich in grau



Die Blatter fallen auf das Land

ein Bett zur sanften Ruh

Die Dunkelheit hat uns erkannt

Und legt sich mit dazu



Die Erde zeiht sich nun zuruck

sie holt sich neue Kraft

Geschenkt wird uns ein tiefer Blick,

die Alte ruhrt den Saft





Rough English translation: (native German speakers feel free to correct!)



Ancestors, we are greeting you

and unto you extend our hands

we sit on vulture's wings

and fly over the Land



The spider weaves the thread of life,

Leaving pearls of dew.

The earth is shrouded in a mist

bathing in gray



The leaves fall on the Land

a bed of gentle peace

The Darkness has recognized us

And lies down with it



The earth is now calls us Back

she gets a new power

Gives us a deeper look,

The Old Woman stirs the sap





So Mote it Be



But I haven't told you yet about the Black Forest Tribal Festival! Claudia Dufner put on an amazing event and I can't wait to tell you about it! And, about the rest of my travels. But right now I am on my way to a ghost tour of Rome's dark side. More soon about Germany, and about Rome!

Samhain Travels!

I am getting ready. I am simultaneously getting ready for my DVD pre-release party, and for my trip to Europe for two Bellydance festivals.

I am both excited and melancholy. While the DVD did not get packaged in time for the party tonight--or the travels--I am still excited about its pending release. Theatre of the Dark Goddess has been a great labor of love, indeed. I am excited to be surrounded by friends tonight, and to share my work on a big screen. I am sad, too, because as much as I wanted it printed and in-hand for Samhain, the Goddess has willed it otherwise with her unexpected and strange obstacles. Her will is mine.

I am thrilled to be going to Germany. It is the home of my ancestors, and it is a place to which I have never been. I have been studying my family tree and finding out everything I can about the lives my ancestors led. And what better time to be going than Samhain, the time to honor Ancestors! The Black Forest, or Silva Negra as the Romans called it, is a fairy-tale place of magick and beauty. I am so looking forward to walking through its mysterious woods.

I will be in Europe throughout Samhain-tide (the time between Samhain and Yule). Not only will I be visiting Germany for the Black Forest Tribal Festival, but I will also be in Rome for Roma Tribal Meeting. Rome has a dark and juicy history, and I can't wait to explore. It is also home to many of the Greco-Roman Goddesses and Gods for whom I have long held devotion and reverance. I am of course dedicated to a pilgrimage to the home of Proserpina (Persephone) and Hecate.

Back to my preparations!

"Shamanic Bellydance" article

"Shamanic Bellydance" In Belly Dance New England - Featured Articles My article "Shamanic Bellydance" has been published! Please read.

4 years ago, Coda became spirit

Today is a special day. It's the four-year anniversary of Coda's passing into the world of spirit. This is always a very emotionally charged day for me. Coda's passing was difficult. Yet each anniversary I feel in awe of the powers of Nature, the beauty of impermanence, the importance of being here in the Now, like Coda was.

Mike and I spend the night of September 1 with the candles on Coda's altar lit. We tell each other stories about Coda, laughing and crying. I do most of the crying, Mike does a lot of comforting.

Today I spent the afternoon in the woods at the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary. On the day of the anniversary, we spend the day doing things that Coda would've liked to do, like walking the trail and listening to the birds, the wind, and the flow of the river. I invite his spirit to join me if it is as he wishes. Certainly, he was with me today.

Grief and loss are unpredictable in that one can walk through life not feeling grief intensely, and then suddenly something comes along like an anniversary and it hits hard. Coda is never far from my thoughts, but these anniversaries are always very intense. He was my soul-mate. My Cerberus. My wolf-guardian. My child.

I let Coda 's spirit know that he is always loved, never forgotten, and never replaced.

I have resolved that I'm going to invite a new four-legged into our family. After four years, I am ready. We are thinking that we will do this around Yule/Christmas time. No one will ever replace Coda. But, I'm ready to open my heart to loving someone new.

Our time on earth might be finite, but Love is infinite.

The Dead Sea: Butoh

An audience member at a show I once performed at told me that my dance performance remided her of the Japanese art of Butoh.

Knowing little about Butoh, I decided to learn more. A few months back I found this beautiful video of the artist Kazuo Ono who was at least in his 80's at the time.

Info from "bobdena" on YouTube:
A short clip of butoh's co-founder Kazuo Ono dancing. Date unknown, approximately 1980, from the documentary Dance of Darkness by Edin Velez.

Kazuo Ohno passed away June 1, 2010, at the age of 103. We lost a great man and a great light to dancers and performers around the world. May we all be blessed with a life as full and rewarding as his was.

Witch Dance

I love this piece Witch Dance, the one for which Mary Wigman is of course most famous. The German Expressionists certainly knew how to do shadow material!

Spiritual Dance

I was recently asked by a friend over tea: (paraphrased) How does your spirituality influence your bellydancing? 

I answer this question differently every time I'm asked, revealing its complex and fluid nature. And it's a subject that is of great import to me. 

My forthcoming Bellydance DVD, Theatre of the Dark Goddess, deals with many threads involved in the relationship between spirit and dance. But some thoughts after reading this Wikipedia:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality;^[1] an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.”^[2] Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop an individual's inner life; spiritual experience includes that of connectedness with a larger reality, yielding a more comprehensive self; with other individuals or the human community; with nature or the cosmos; or with the divine realm.^[3] Spirituality is often experienced as a source of inspiration or orientation in life.^[4] It can encompass belief in immaterial realities or experiences of the immanent or transcendent nature of the world.

Bellydance does indeed help me discover and rediscover my inner essence. And though its discipline and execution it is a spiritual practice. Drilling can turn into a meditation; the creation of choreography becomes a contemplation of inner archetypes. The act of creation is a ritual and a prayer. I pray to Thee, Great Goddess, that I might be a perfect conduit for your Divine Spirit.

Photo by Peter Paradise

I am most often trying to express what I experience in my inner world. As a shamanic artist I experience Underworld journey with all its shadows; it is my calling to transform the demons though my dance, giving them "voice" by being a medium for their wrath. It is shadow work--personal, yes, but collective as well.

Bellydance is ancient. It's modern form fuses back together the corporeal and the spiritual, as things were in times long ago. This is important to me. Bellydance has powerful healing properties--psychologically, physically, emotionally, spiritually. This healing power goes deeper than "body image" or self-esteem" only--it connects us back to our feminine center, the hara or place of power. I think that all of us hold in our collective unconscious "memories" of divine feminine power; Bellydance can connect us to that.

Bellydance is a great way to raise energy in ritual work! Perhaps this was part of its original purpose--to work as sympathetic magick for healthy childbirth and erotic power.

One of my first workshop teachers, Dunya of NYC, called her dance "Spiritual Bellydance". I love her great work, even--or especially--now. Her work combines the spirituality of Sufism with its whirling, with Bellydance. We were taught "Dancemeditation", a form of moving meditation that has strongly influenced the way I teach my own students the inner work of dance. It was Dunya's video that I watched over and over again to learn how to do her beautiful, graceful, fluid hand and arm work. She is a master who dances with a serenity, power and loveliness that is beyond compare.

The invisible world has much to do with dance; music itself is invisible! So is the spirit that moves us; I use dance to make my inner world visible. Some of it still stays invisible, but perceptible just the same. We have senses that perceive well beyond what the "five senses" can do; it is partly what we perceive with our other senses that gives dance--as experienced as audience and as dancer--its magic, its beauty, its feelings of sacred communion, and glamour. Spirit.