I’ve been thinking alot about influences and what I learn from others. It was a theme for the March D-Quad for my enewsletter, Caravan Trails. I wrote this awhile back and wanted to share it with you, in a few installments (it is long!).

Do send me your comments, and think about continuing this theme for April D-Quad…

Heroes and Gods

(part 1)

By Paulette Rees-Denis

 Anais Nin, Henry MIller, Tom Waits, Dalia, my father, Gypsy Caravan, Elvis Costello, Ruth St. Denis, Diane Ackerman, Anne Rice, Rumi, Anthony Bourdain, Robert Parke-Harrison, Beatrice Wood, Nick Bantok, Deborah Turberville, Olivia Parker, Man Ray, Tasha Tudor, Alice Waters, Emeril Lagasse, Edward Espe Brown, Susan Albert, Janet Evanovich, Suhaila, Baron Baptiste, David Bowie, Collette, Omar Faruk Tekbilek,  D. H. Lawrence, Isabel Allende….

            I say everyone needs a few heroes or gods to look up to.  Me, I’ve got an abundance of them. Some change constantly. Some have been revered for decades.

            Who is a god? For me it is someone I honor, one who can lead the blind, one with more than natural attributes who demands my human worship, a person of supreme power and influence. A hero? A legendary figure of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability, an illustrious warrior, a man or woman admired for their achievements and noble qualities, a person of extreme admiration and devotion. My gods or heroes include anyone who’s influenced me in some huge way, wowed me, changed me, made me stop, think, and look hard around me. Heroes, legendary figures, gods, goddesses, illustrious warriors, idols. I use the words interchangeably. I didn’t originally mean a hero as in one who saves lives, but I guess in some ways, many of mine have saved me at one time or another. 

            How do people get on my god list? I am seduced and inspired by my gods and their work. Music, words, photographs, dance, poems, gardens, food, kind deeds.  They have done something deserving to entitle honor from me, that has been life altering or affirming, in my process of learning and searching and living. Sometimes they get put on a pedestal, or have a temporary altar made for them. Cher, for example, definitely the temporary altar type, although I had much admiration for her, it wasn’t long lived enough for godhood. But Henry Miller and Anais Nin, ah, they are way up there on my pedestal. Life transforming they were for me when I was going through one of my many and always relentless times of life inquisition.

            I remember reading Henry and Anais while in art school, San Francisco, 1981, in my early twenties. I was devouring life through words, photography, art, drugs, alternative rock n’ roll, sex, late night conversations, eccentric wild youth. Through their books I found out about other ways of living that I was never exposed to growing up, not that I was a deprived child. I knew there had to be more out there, although not knowing what “more” was, I wanted and needed to find it. With Henry and Anais I did. I traveled with them, from the streets to the cafes, the bordellos to the parties, eavesdropping on their explorative conversations with psychiatrists to poets. Sex, hunger, thirst, people. Their lust for life was infectious. Henry and Anais made me want to run out in the street and do cartwheels, their words were so invigorating. 

            Being pioneers into my new life quest, I devoured almost every book written by them. Anais’s diaries filled me with questions and answers, giving me permission to experience life in a different way, through her words and her experiences. To live with freedom and beauty, I worshipped her. She went up on my pedestal.

            Reading first Sexus, Plexus, and Nexus-The Rosy Crucifixion trilogy by Henry Miller, and delving, or diving, into most of his other books, his writing did the same thing to me. His boldness and curiosity took hold as no other had up to this point in my life. He was almost savage in that he wasn’t afraid to live and went after what he wanted. He looked around him and saw and took everything he wanted. People I knew who also read  him thought he was sexist in his sometimes degrading words for women, but I thought it was because he was obsessive and infatuated with women, he adored them. He wrote about his travels, his writing, his sex. I wanted to be able to experience life like he had. A different book of his, published later on in  his life, was Paint as You Like and Die Happy, a book on his paintings. Although never quite as well known for his paintings compared to his writing, his work impressed me because  he painted with childlike innocence and adventure, the same way he lived. He painted with freedom, no rules except  his own imposed discipline. His philosophies taught me to go deep, to not settle, and experience what I honestly wanted. He was my god.

to be continued…

A Dancer’s and Writer’s Forum!
D-Quad,
or
Delicious Divas Dancing Dreams!

Enter your words in the monthly newsletter,

In the cyber pages of my monthly e-newsletter, Caravan Trails, I am extending an invitation to you to write about your dance. I’m dreaming about publishing a yearly dancer’s anthology, a tribute to you and our dance, and this is our starting gate.
Each month we will write about a chosen topic, so that you can visualize and verbalize something about your tribal dance. You may be chosen to be published, either in edited or full form, in this newsletter or my new blog, and awarded a token gift from Gypsy Caravan. Let’s share our tribal vision. And if you have art to share, send it in.

MARCH D-QUAD
**Who are your heroes?
People of wisdom, leaders, gurus—people who help light your path.

For the March D-Quad, send me your words on those who inspire you, and why. 800-1000 words.
Deadline for that will be February 20th please.
Email your submissions to

dance@gypsycaravan.us

Include  a short bio, a photo, and your mailing address so I can send you a token gift for writing!

I look forward to reading and sharing your words.
February writers included Myla Stauber, Hilary Giovale, and Miriam Garcia! Thanks for taking the time to share with all of us! See Caravan Trails, the enewsletter….

A Dancer’s and Writer’s Forum!
D-Quad,
or
Delicious Divas Dancing Dreams!

Enter your words in the monthly newsletter,

In the cyber pages of my monthly e-newsletter, Caravan Trails, I am extending an invitation to you to write about your dance. I’m dreaming about publishing a yearly dancer’s anthology, a tribute to you and our dance, and this is our starting gate.
Each month we will write about a chosen topic, so that you can visualize and verbalize something about your tribal dance. You may be chosen to be published, either in edited or full form, in this newsletter or my new blog, and awarded a token gift from Gypsy Caravan. Let’s share our tribal vision. And if you have art to share, send it in.

**The next D-Quad, which is due January 20th, write about “Intention in our Dance,” 800-1000 words. 
Submit to D-Quad, at dance@gypsycaravan.us. And please include a short bio, a photo if you have one, and your mailing address to receive my gift for writing!

Thanks for taking the time to share with all of us!

The January enewsletter will be out any day now, and for D-Quad, we have writers Brandy Slagle and Sun Fyre sharing their words with us. Watch for the new issue, or subscribe up here if you haven’t already!

Happy Solstice. On this longest night, shortest day, I am surronded by snow and time to reflect, write, read, and relax. How divine…

A while back a friend of mine, Laurie, lent me a beautiful book of her’s, Coyote’s Canyon, full of gorgeous desert photos and insightful words from different authors. I was quite taken with a story from Terry Tempest Williams. I have not read any other writing by her. I thought this blog would be a good place to share some excerpts with you. It also goes along with the idea of January’s D-Quad theme, Change as a Catalyst. You still have time to write a short piece for me to include in the January issue of Caravan Trails (my monthly newsletter).

“She came to the desert to dance…Movement surrounded her. The wind, clouds, grasses and birds—all reminded her that nothing stands still…Her long spirited stride broke into short leaps with extended arms as she entered the circle dancing, without guilt, without notice, without any thought of herself. She danced from the joy of all she was…she danced to ignite the moon. She danced until gravity pulled her down, and then she rested, her eyes closed, with nothing moving but her heart and lungs, beating, breathing, against the hot, dry desert.

…her hands, like serpents, encouraged primal sounds as she arched forward and back with the grasses. She was the wind that inspired change.

The light deepened, shadows lengthened, and the woman began to turn. Her turns widened with each rotation until she stopped, perfectly balanced. The woman stepped outside the circle and kissed the palms of her hands and placed them on the earth. The dance was over.

…And the woman who came to the desert to dance simply ran her fingers through her long, black hair and smiled.

Isn’t that exquisite? I can really see this woman dancing, what a vision. What do you think? Have you read any of her other stories?

D-Quad, Delicious Divas Dancing Dreams, a writer’s forum to share your words with us!

In the December issue of my enewsletter, Caravan Trails, you can read short stories from several dancers around the globe who reached in to share a past memory about a performance that inspired them.

Join us by sending me your words for our next months D-quad writing forum. Write about Change as a creative catalyst, in your dance or in you life, whatever experiences you may have had with that, 800-1000 words

Email it to me at dance@gypsycaravan.us. I look forward to reading your words on the subject of change.

Deadline for January has been extended to December 21^st, Winter Solstice.

Subscribe to the enewsletter by going to www.gypsycaravan.us, and read the exciting entrees for December!