For the past 8 years, I’ve been leading the Dancing with Life retreat at the Kalikalos Holistic Education Centre – Alexandros Campus Mt Pelion.
Leading this event has been an incredible joy and learning experience – meeting people who travel from different countries to join us in Greece for this one week journey of personal development has enriched my own experience of life.
Each time I teach anywhere in the world, I am in awe of the way the Biodanza system facilitates the human encounter of people who have just met for the first time, in an authentic relationship beyond words.
This is what a few people have shared with me about their experience.
During this week we share verbally too, through Nonviolent Communication. I find this supports the integration of the embodied experience for people.
Maybe emotions have become blocked in ways that release themselves through the dance and there is a liberation, a sense of newfound freedom that is experienced. Gently we embrace more of who we are during our time together and develop the language of words that are absolutely in sync with what the body tells us – creating a movement that supports you to move forward in ways that mean you can embrace more of your unique potential for living a full and happy life.
Pelion – Dancing with Life – Participant’s Poem
Fleeing the English rain
in a powerful metal machine,
I transverse rivers, mountains, seas,
descend into snuggling, swaddling warmth,
gather myself in for a journey.
A journey first fast, splashing, jumping,
then curving, winding, swaying –
stuck rigid between two seats –
I ascend, ascend this Pelion,
home to Chiron, Wounded Healer.
Homeward I bring this part of me,
to this green, serene mountain;
peach-rose sun, red-gold full moon;
soft winds; waves lapping white stones;
torrential rain; thunder bangs.
Clangs of discomfort, uncertainty;
feeling feebly forwards; toes, hands
in contact with surrounding elements;
body, head, heart-searching out
nourishment, harmony, balance.
Yin yang dancing my inner feelings, needs
How long I’ve needed to arrive here
to this place of guiding, learning;
safe, secure, held in its embrace,
rising and falling with the breath,
with the sleeping, the waking, the being.
Nikki Bennett,
Alexandros, Kalikalos, Greece
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