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photo credits: http://www.interplanetsarah.com/MyArt.html

Blog entry dedicated to JOE WILLIAMS, the visionary teacher evolving Delsarte’s art of life and movement (www.delsarteproject.com) and WILLIAM BRASHEAR, director of yoga teacher training at Cincinnati Yoga School (www.cincyoga.com)

TELL ME… How can you connect so deeply to your body movement that you can feel your inner Being pouring its fluid expression through your every pore?

How do you really know that you are dancing in harmony and beauty merging the energies of body, mind and inner Self?

I spent fifteen plus hours this weekend using my body in exhilarating ways which I haven’t experienced before to such intensity and length of time… Enjoying the whole experience of ‘mystic anatomy’, as Will Brashear calls this module in his yoga teacher training curriculum, I witnessed how the classic yoga postures started my inner energetic movement first, then the flow continued with blissful meditation and awareness, only to take me even further into deconstructing all perception of life so I can experience this Self only as a twirling spinning Art form and Beauty. Will describes this weekend as ‘a holistic experience that leaves you in awe as you experience the divine artistry webbed into the dynamic harmony of mind, body and spirit and as you evolve to a new level of consciousness by seeing with the eyes of a mystic and moving with the form of an artist.’

What happened? I saw us explore Delsarte elements of body expression in a small group setting. It all started with one arm at a time being composed and decomposed several times. As I watched my elbow rise up in the air, curving itself around my head and the forearm being lifted up only to reveal a thing of majestic beauty – the flowering of my hand into the radiance of the Sun, I remembered a dream of Pure Beauty and Presence, a dream I actually had long ago… I was into this same space, with all of my selves and cells there, being aware of my readiness for turning ordinary life events into extraordinary happenings in consciousness.

How could a simple yet conscious arm movement allow me to feel my inner Being pouring its fluid expression through every pore?

And how could it not bring my heart to such ecstasy, same burst of joyful energy as when allowing poetry to find its voice through this life’s expression and presence?

Well, one arm movement was just the beginning, as words will be wasted here trying to express what felt like when my whole body composed and decomposed itself in several parts and then as a whole.  According to Emily Bishop, as she wrote in her book called ‘Americanized Delsarte Culture’ in 1892, “Delsarte observed that when man was swayed by the higher emotions, his movements were not of a thrusting, or an angular, or a jerky order, but they were harmonious being principally in the order of curves and spirals; conclusion – if man in his more exalted moments naturally expresses himself by certain kinds of movements and attitudes, the cultivation of similar physical expressions will tend to establish correspondingly worthy inner states.”  This is only a tiny part of the Law of Correspondence that brought me face to face with my own power of harmony and life this weekend.

Francois Delsarte “has done more than any other man to create a general interest in the subject of the aesthetic cultivation of the body as a means of expression (Anna Morgan, ‘An Hour with Delsarte: A Study of Expression’ -1889) He was a true magician, this I know for I have had a little taste of his work and being-ness… But what is fascinating here is the knowing that his work lives on inside those who resonate with the graceful flow of these expressions and integrate them into yoga teaching and practice, dance, music creation and ultimately into the totality of all life expressions.

I am able to caress my beloved and my cats with the spirit of my hands now, I can relate to all parts of my body with a new sense of inner balance, understanding where mind, body and spirit reside and unveiling deeper connections in the artistic web of life manifestation outside of Self. And as I am sharing the pure creative potential for this art form which inspired Delsarte to be a visionary of his times, I already feel the joy that is being transferred unto you while reading these words.  This joy relates to your own BEING-ness which remembers this dance of inner beauty and harmony. Your BEING-ness doesn’t actually know how to handle being untrue to this inner current of vibrancy and highly intelligent artistic expression.

Do you want to know how it looks like when we are not dancing with our innate harmony? Just take a peek outside of you, see the news, read the paper and you can clearly see the manifestation of disharmony and denial of one’s own truth and being-ness.  Now that you have seen the contrast, go for the true expression of your life as an art form, whatever that might look like for you in this moment.

GO on… BE bold and fearless…

The MAGIC will surely follow you…

Cezarina (www.cezarinatrone.com)


Note: Musician, opera singer, acting and singing teacher, creator of the science of applied aesthetics, catalyst for the birth of modern dance, and an unknown genius and hero, “Francois Delsarte was born on November 11th, 1811 at Solesme, France and died in Paris, July 20th, 1871. Like most men of genius, his boyhood years were full of privation and suffering. His father, who was a physician possessed a very proud and imperious nature, which was greatly irritated by his extreme poverty, in consequence of which he treated Delsarte’s mother, who was a woman of rare abilities, with such injustice and cruelty that she was finally compelled to abandon him and flee with her two sons to Paris, where she died before she could make her talents available. Francois’ little brother soon followed his mother dying of starvation and cold in his brother’s arms. Thus we find Delsarte in 1821, a little boy of ten years, in the utmost destitution and entirely alone in the world. One night he was found in the street by a rag-picker, who took pity on him and carried him to his miserable home. During the next two years, while in this man’s employ, he developed his grand passion for music and invented a system of musical notation in order to preserve the airs which delighted him when he listened to the bands of music and itinerant singers he encountered in the streets. At thirteen years of age, Delsarte was discovered in the garden of the Tuilleries by Bambini, an eminent professor of music who found him writing figures in the sand. When questioned as to the significance of the marks, he replied that he was writing down the music which was being played in the garden. Amazed, Bambini inquired whom had taught him the process; he replied, ‘Nobody, sir. I found it out myself.’ ‘Thus, in the dust of Paris were first written the elements of a system destined to regenerate art.’ Bambini took the boy home and instructed him until the pupil became greater than the master. (from ‘An Hour with Delsarte’, by Anna Morgan-1889)

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