desire is a loaded word.

karl may respond as a scientist and i'll respond as a theologian. perverted, subverted desire leads into all kinds of strange places of self denial and self mortification. when the root desires of being human are squashed, they arise in unhealthy places. you don't have to look far among political or religious leaders to see the wreckage of self mortification. conversely, when the sacred heart of desire leads us, it brings us toward compassion, love, ecstasy, enlightenment. i think we can look all around us and see the perversion of desire manifest in greed and consumption. Tomorrow is Black Friday, our annual American indulgence of perverted desire in the name of a holy cause: Christmas or Consumer Capitalism, your choice. (this is my soap box, apologies for politicizing the topic). i personally experience the tactile arts, dance, yoga, martial arts, meditation, as a remedy to this perversion of our culture. I think this is true for those of us who are kinesthetically-dominant.

one of the gifts of contact is that it gives the self a place to investigate the need and desire for touch that is: playful, sensual, aware, safe, non-sensual, goofy, curious, emotional, and more adjectives that aren't coming to me right now. but we can subvert our desires on the dance floor as easily as we do in life.

i think that inviting students to listen to where their impulse to move arises from is great. one of my colleagues here consistently uses the breath as his impulse. When he teaches he continually asks us: where does the desire of the breath lead you? Can you dance the inhalation? Can you dance the exhalation? Other impulses might arise from weight, from pain, from pleasure, or from a story line in the head. are any of those bad places? whatever the impulse, we must be aware of more than the self. Lynn, was this where you were going with the question: that the impulse, while arising in the self, must always be aware of the other? That our desire is filtered through the sensory awareness of the dance beyond the self.

i experience a magical dance when my verbal brain gets quiet and my dance arises from some place deeper. sometimes it is purely as sensual/sensory/tactile place. sometimes it is a playful gregarious place. puppy piles, otter play, dissolution. sometimes i become unaware of the difference between the self and other, it feels as though i have stepped beyond the self. there are some scientific studies of the brains of meditating monks that are of interest here. in the state of ecstasy, the part of the brain that controls both spatial awareness and the sense of self and other becomes quiet. When that part of the brain is silenced one experiences a sense of unity with all that is. This is a thread that ties mystics together: the sense of universal oneness. Our dance can take us to this same place by taking our awareness beyond the self, by focusing on physical sensation, and by literally playing with the brains capacity for spatial awareness and proprioception. when we reach this mental state, we lose the sense of self versus other and feel a sense of unity.

the most dangerous desire in my own dance, is my desire to experience that magical place of unity again and again. when i am longing and grasping for that, i'll never get there. someone, on another thread, said to treat each dance as if it was the best dance ever. i like what happens when i do that. this is the best dance, this is the best partner, i'm here now in this moment making the most of what is, giving myself fully and completely to this moment. i let go of the desire for an outcome in the dance, surrender to the dance, and i'm on my way....