Here I am taking it all in, trying not to cry with the overdrive of emotion
We are the pink flamingos leading the parade! BRIGHTON PRIDE PARADE 2017
Yesterday will certainly go down as one of the most memorable days of my life…
I was fortunate enough to be part of the Brighton Pride Parade, samba dancing with Brighton School of Samba. The story of how i got to be there is another blog in itself as I’ve had some mild health challenges that had made it difficult to dance for a few years up until now. I am writing this as I soak my still throbbing feet in an epsom-salt foot bath (excellent suggestion from my mother-in-law!).
And yesterday saw a rite of passage of a whole healing cycle complete. I am now fit and well enough to dance, play, sing and celebrate - and my goodness what a celebration it was.
I was so excited the night before I could hardly sleep! I get like that when there’s a big thing on the next day. I worry that I’ll miss it all and oversleep (not that I ever oversleep but you know how the worry monster loves to visit in the midnight hour!). Everything had been stitched up and ready to go, I bounced out of bed, put on the fantastic fuchsia pink flamingo outfit and was glamorously escorted to our meeting place by my kinder than kind husband. I felt like a 4-year-old little girl about to do her first ballet performance (pink tutu included!). I was so excited I bounced out of the car and met with the other pink flamingos and samba band of the Brighton School of Samba on a sunny Saturday morning.
What touched me so much was the beautiful, loving family atmosphere with the group. Everyone looking after everyone else, helping each other so lovingly. I am fascinated by the energy of groups and my work is centred around this phenomenon, of how as a group, a team, a family we join in our humanity and collectively create magical wonder - every time. This surely has to be our most endearing quality as human beings…
Everyone safety pinned up and banana-breakfasted and we we were good to go!
We descended onto the meeting point on Hove Lawns near the Peace Statue and the party was UP AND RUNNING! Everyone was dressed up, posing for photos and just having a fabulous time. I think the pre-parade part is just so much fun, everyone is bursting with excitement and that latent energy is just delicious! My fellow dancer friend told me that that was her favourite bit and I can see why. Did you ever have the experience of getting ready for a night out, music blearing, make-up, hair, outfit, drink and dancing as you get ready to go out and party? That’s what it’s like multiplied by about a thousand! It was as exciting as my wedding day but without the stress of getting to the church on time (which I didn’t).
When we were at the place where we all start from people kept stopping us asking for photos, I now know what it may be like to be a celeb!
The emotion built as the start time of 11am was near approaching. I prayed that my shoes would hold me up and that my ankles, knees and entire body would take all the hours and miles of dancing in the hot beating sun.
Soon the moment was upon us and it was time to GO! I was flooded with excited emotion as the loud samba band played their ancient earthy ancestral rhythms - the sound reverberating through all of my bones and having such a profound effect that I can only describe as an altered state of awareness. This must be of course why people go dancing to loud music so much - it is a tremendously powerful physical-emotional experience on all levels of existence no less.
I was overcome with emotive feeling when we began to parade and there were just hundreds and thousands of people lining the edges of the roads. All of those faces, all of those happy hearts, those dancing eyes and uplifted spirits - all looking at us! Everyone in celebration, everyone smiling beyond the containment of their faces. Absolutely extraordinary feelings of bliss and ecstasy from a natural fountain within and without. Just think, we all have this capacity...
It takes a lot of personal power to be able to receive so much joy and love - all of that powerful positive energy directed at us, at me. My eyes would well up with tears when I allowed myself to really fully feel it. When it got too much I’d look ahead and focus on moving forward. Sometimes I’d turn around and see the wonderful smiling joyful band playing away and all the thousands of people in the procession behind. A photo taken from a tall building really shows the enormity of it and in terms of leadership - we were second or maybe third from the front! So that was quite something!
Talking of receiving love, a very interesting phenomenon can occur. Take a famous football player or a rock star for example. That person receives so much love and adoration as well as enormous financial remuneration. That's a lot of receiving isn't it? So what can happen? Often the aspect of themselves which feels unworthy to receive can trigger a sabotage mechanism that can cause a person to...
Back to the parade, all along the way I’d see so many beautiful faces and make eye contact, blow kisses and wave at them. There was one beautiful being in particular whom I’ll never forget. An elderly man with Down’s Syndrome was looking at me and emanating so much love that I almost fainted. I danced over to him and blew him a kiss and then went right up to him and said I LOVE YOU. His face and his whole being was of total love. I cannot actually find words to describe this but luckily my dancing buddy saw it and she’d felt the same.
What an incredible opportunity to be in such a privileged position to receive so much love from so many hundreds and thousands of people and children, babies and dogs!
Today, although my feet, legs and hips are still throbbing - it was all totally worth it and I just can’t wait till the next one. It is more than a carnival parade, for me it was a joining of hearts in celebration of our wonderful true divine nature.
My work of Body Intelligence is centred around the oneness of dancing as a group and the celebration of our humanity. The act of joining together and moving, dancing, singing and being is by far the most powerful of human experiences I’ve ever had and this beautiful and sacred experience that I was so generously gifted with yesterday was yet another example of our infinite potential for sharing love.
Yesterday will certainly go down as one of the most memorable days of my life…
I was fortunate enough to be part of the Brighton Pride Parade, samba dancing with Brighton School of Samba. The story of how i got to be there is another blog in itself as I’ve had some mild health challenges that had made it difficult to dance for a few years up until now. I am writing this as I soak my still throbbing feet in an epsom-salt foot bath (excellent suggestion from my mother-in-law!).
And yesterday saw a rite of passage of a whole healing cycle complete. I am now fit and well enough to dance, play, sing and celebrate - and my goodness what a celebration it was.
I was so excited the night before I could hardly sleep! I get like that when there’s a big thing on the next day. I worry that I’ll miss it all and oversleep (not that I ever oversleep but you know how the worry monster loves to visit in the midnight hour!). Everything had been stitched up and ready to go, I bounced out of bed, put on the fantastic fuchsia pink flamingo outfit and was glamorously escorted to our meeting place by my kinder than kind husband. I felt like a 4-year-old little girl about to do her first ballet performance (pink tutu included!). I was so excited I bounced out of the car and met with the other pink flamingos and samba band of the Brighton School of Samba on a sunny Saturday morning.
What touched me so much was the beautiful, loving family atmosphere with the group. Everyone looking after everyone else, helping each other so lovingly. I am fascinated by the energy of groups and my work is centred around this phenomenon, of how as a group, a team, a family we join in our humanity and collectively create magical wonder - every time. This surely has to be our most endearing quality as human beings…
Everyone safety pinned up and banana-breakfasted and we we were good to go!
We descended onto the meeting point on Hove Lawns near the Peace Statue and the party was UP AND RUNNING! Everyone was dressed up, posing for photos and just having a fabulous time. I think the pre-parade part is just so much fun, everyone is bursting with excitement and that latent energy is just delicious! My fellow dancer friend told me that that was her favourite bit and I can see why. Did you ever have the experience of getting ready for a night out, music blearing, make-up, hair, outfit, drink and dancing as you get ready to go out and party? That’s what it’s like multiplied by about a thousand! It was as exciting as my wedding day but without the stress of getting to the church on time (which I didn’t).
When we were at the place where we all start from people kept stopping us asking for photos, I now know what it may be like to be a celeb!
The emotion built as the start time of 11am was near approaching. I prayed that my shoes would hold me up and that my ankles, knees and entire body would take all the hours and miles of dancing in the hot beating sun.
Soon the moment was upon us and it was time to GO! I was flooded with excited emotion as the loud samba band played their ancient earthy ancestral rhythms - the sound reverberating through all of my bones and having such a profound effect that I can only describe as an altered state of awareness. This must be of course why people go dancing to loud music so much - it is a tremendously powerful physical-emotional experience on all levels of existence no less.
I was overcome with emotive feeling when we began to parade and there were just hundreds and thousands of people lining the edges of the roads. All of those faces, all of those happy hearts, those dancing eyes and uplifted spirits - all looking at us! Everyone in celebration, everyone smiling beyond the containment of their faces. Absolutely extraordinary feelings of bliss and ecstasy from a natural fountain within and without. Just think, we all have this capacity...
It takes a lot of personal power to be able to receive so much joy and love - all of that powerful positive energy directed at us, at me. My eyes would well up with tears when I allowed myself to really fully feel it. When it got too much I’d look ahead and focus on moving forward. Sometimes I’d turn around and see the wonderful smiling joyful band playing away and all the thousands of people in the procession behind. A photo taken from a tall building really shows the enormity of it and in terms of leadership - we were second or maybe third from the front! So that was quite something!
Talking of receiving love, a very interesting phenomenon can occur. Take a famous football player or a rock star for example. That person receives so much love and adoration as well as enormous financial remuneration. That's a lot of receiving isn't it? So what can happen? Often the aspect of themselves which feels unworthy to receive can trigger a sabotage mechanism that can cause a person to...
Back to the parade, all along the way I’d see so many beautiful faces and make eye contact, blow kisses and wave at them. There was one beautiful being in particular whom I’ll never forget. An elderly man with Down’s Syndrome was looking at me and emanating so much love that I almost fainted. I danced over to him and blew him a kiss and then went right up to him and said I LOVE YOU. His face and his whole being was of total love. I cannot actually find words to describe this but luckily my dancing buddy saw it and she’d felt the same.
What an incredible opportunity to be in such a privileged position to receive so much love from so many hundreds and thousands of people and children, babies and dogs!
Today, although my feet, legs and hips are still throbbing - it was all totally worth it and I just can’t wait till the next one. It is more than a carnival parade, for me it was a joining of hearts in celebration of our wonderful true divine nature.
My work of Body Intelligence is centred around the oneness of dancing as a group and the celebration of our humanity. The act of joining together and moving, dancing, singing and being is by far the most powerful of human experiences I’ve ever had and this beautiful and sacred experience that I was so generously gifted with yesterday was yet another example of our infinite potential for sharing love.
>> Also in the news: 300,000 people have joined together in Brighton for one of the UK’s biggest summer Pride celebrations.
Brighton School of Samba
>> Brighton School of Samba, everyone welcome, every level
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