Movement Mantra & Love Comes First

I have two tips for practice for today!

1) Practice with Movement Mantra. Say it as you dance it!

2) Remember - Love comes first.

It is helpful when learning & practicing new belly dance steps to name what you are doing as you do it!  This can be outloud or internal speaking. I start in class by guiding the process, naming what we are doing as we do it.  Then - especially when connecting with new material - I allow time for students to repeat the mantra I have proposed outloud at the same time as they practice the movement. 

This narration helps students 

  • focus
  • remember the movements
  • embody the movements more fully so they can dance with greater confidence
  • start to connect with the rhythm of the movement
  • harmonize body mind and spirit with the action

For example, for the traveling move I call "step, hip,"  I have people say "step" as they step and "hip" as they hip!   Very simple, but not always easy!

The other day in class our movement mantra was "step, hip, sit, hip."  

The first "step" is important, and I talk about my philosophy of that step in all my classes.  Any dance step we take is about connecting to Mother Earth with reverence, sensitivity and intention. You are never alone when you dance.  Earth is there supporting you. Sky is above. Space is all around you, ready to receive your energetic imprint, your shapes, your love, your flow. Every move you make has an impact on the space and community around you.  Breath keeps you alive.  We tune into ALL of this with the first step.

On a physical level, the first step is about preparing our incredible body's brilliant skeletal structure to support the hip action with ease and grace. 

We step and we hip with a sense of gratitude for this dance, for the gift of our vessel. We belly dance with appreciation for our body's capacity to channel so many wonderful energies - from shimmies to waves to circles and spirals and beyond. We step with supple knees that, when slightly bent, act as shock absorbers for the skeleton -- soft, unlocked knees support and free up movement of the hips and spine. 

Here is a little video about how Love comes first!'



Keep on dancing, 
-Melina

www.moodystreetcircus.com


Tambourine Dream

 Tambourine Dream


"The tambourine begs, 
Touch my skin so I can be myself"
-Rumi

Imagination & wonder is always woven through my dance.  

The tambourine is an instrument of joy and a call to participate in the dance of life.

This is my Mom and me dancing together in Singapore at a show organized by Goddess Motion. A memory and a time I treasure.



The photo below was from a troupe performance I organized for a festival at Brandeis University.  The atmosphere was sizzling! 

Mark Curelop photography


Shik Shak Shok class combo

https://vimeo.com/1103638767/5a089decc9 

This unlisted link will take you to the video of part 1 of the Shik Shak Shok combo I taught in class today in case you want to follow along.  Students did such a great job!!! So many shimmies!!!



Undulate Hands Tutorial!


 

Hips don't Lie

Happy full moon in Sagittarius!  




This lunation illuminates the bold & daring sign of travel, philosophical wisdom & learning through direct experience! 

My focus in dance class tonight is HIPS. 


Little known fact that HIPS stands for:


“Happy is (the) Person (who) Shimmies.” 


Ok I made that up BUT hips are made to be mobile and move us in all directions. We are going to consider a myriad of ways that we can move the hips starting with 


1. Full body warm up 

2. Simple hip mobility drills

3. Hip connections both above & below 


Your hips don’t lie, but do you even let them speak? Now’s your chance.


#bellydance #daughtersofrhea #shimmies #twists #lifts #drops #snakes #circles

"You Are the Myth" Reiki Radio Interview


Had a great conversation with Yolanda Williams as a Guest on Reiki Radio.


I love that woman.  She asks great questions and brings out the best in all those she interviews.



www.speakeasyreiki.com



Dance of Spring

Here's the combination we practiced last night in class.

Great to dance with you all.

CLICK HERE FOR THE RECORDING: Dance of Spring: Sequence of April 2025



Photo credit: Bruce Mount


Enjoy your day!





✨Melinda Melina Pavlata, Ph.D. ✨

CoFounder | Director 

Moody Street Circus | Speakeasy Reiki | Melina’s Caravan

Seminars | Ceremony | Entertainment | Reiki

www.moodystreetcircus.com

✨ feel the love & shimmy ✨

Energy Work Sessions / Readings:


All the 8s to feel Great

My Creative Process alway begins with energetic envisioning in a meditative state.  I apply this process to my entire life - lesson planning, events, whatever might be coming.  I tap into a sense of spaciousness and feel into what would best be of big picture service.  In this way, energy flows more easily and freely, creating room for everyone and everything to unfold in everyone's highest and best good. I also draw on my analytical mind, but underneath everything there is a field of larger creative consciousness that holds space for surprise and spontaneity.  

I especially love to plan dance class with this open mindset, seeing what is asking to lead.  In dance class last night we were guided by aspects of the number 8 in many dimensions.

Figure eights are already a big part of the belly dance repertoire, and the numerology of class day - 4-22-2025 - added up to 8 - so that was already my jumping off point for considering how to incorporate eight into class in a fresh way.  8 is also the number of the strength card in the Major Arcana of Tarot, which we can see is a courageous, golden-light-filled and compassionate energy to dwell in.

It all started in a meditation that morning, with the image of Isis on her throne. 

This led to a vision of my skeletal system as throne for our regal but relaxed posture of authority, our beloved bodies a home in which to lengthen spine and breath deeply and easily.  Starting by feeling into our skeleton in this way is a beautiful way to begin a movement practice of any kind. And so we did: we brought awareness to our posture and felt into our internal bone thrones.  We brought our energies in from the outside world to the sacred studio and the dance at hand, breathing in the energy of 8, imagining it weaving through our system.  Structure and Shakti cocreating within our bodies a greater sense of peace and aliveness.

Back to the morning of class..

At the breakfast table, I suddenly remember the used book about bones I had just bought for a dollar at my body worker's office. A healer in her practice is moving back to New Zealand and leaving behind his very eclectic library of books.  I got up right away to find the book.

Leafing through Bones, your 100 questions answered while eating my chia seed infused oatmeal, some facts jumped out immediately:

There are roughly 206 bones in the human skeleton 

--that vibed with my numerological theme for the night of class, as 2+6=8 --

There are 26 bones in the spine.... 

8 again!

And 8 that make up the cranium.  

By this time, I was receiving validation for the theme of our compassion and the snakey, healing energy of 8 right left and center.

Then I looked at the clock.  8:11. STOPPIT!  Too much fun. 8 is 8, 11 is a portal...  

And let's not forget about the Rune I pulled out before a meeting later - Dagaz!  Its as close to looking like an 8 on its side in Rune land as you can get.


"The Dagaz rune, meaning "day" or "dawn," signifies new beginnings, enlightenment, and a shift in perspectiveIt represents the culmination of a cycle, often a breakthrough or transformation in personal growth. Dagaz can also symbolize hope, awareness, and the awakening of one's true self."

A beautiful energy to weave into class as well.

__________________________________________

Here are some of the songs that all this skeleton talk brought up.  One is a song one a student mentioned in class that her adorable son likes to sing, and the other is one my dad really likes. I hope they both bring you a smile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og4dCZneWMo


https://open.spotify.com/track/4XoVZDCiZAdCKJdtTc0rqn?si=6Y4QVOe5TCWN966bCg48Jw)



While we're at it, here is the Spotify playlist I named "All the 8s to Feel Great" that contains the music I played in class last night:


https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0XxvcgFMP4ADf9kcwQp7Cg?si=vKcmMKCHRlSDxLD2p1OebQ


We explored many dance combinations that involved tracing the energy of 8 both slowly in place, and more rhythmically, including claps and traveling steps.  We put lemnikates into various body parts to see how they might move us. The infinity symbol, also called the lemniscate, is an 8 on its side, and represents everlasting, ever-renewing energy. It promotes harmony between our analytical and intuitive minds, especially when danced with the imagination.


Finally, I guided class through the Magician mantra dance I created a few years ago, when I was overtaken with a desire to create various dances and movement mantras for many of the energies of Tarot.  Here is the poem:



Thanks for joining in on my intuitively led dance class planning and musings filled with Tarot wisdom and infused with Reiki.  It is my way of creating and holding space for beauty, magic and wonder.  The cultivation of our precious energy and the empowerment of our spirits is crucial as we dance through these unusual times.

More on my practices around energy work here:




✨Melinda Melina Pavlata ✨

_______________________________

CoFounder | Director 

Moody Street Circus | Speakeasy Reiki | Melina’s Caravan

Seminars | Ceremony | Entertainment | Energy Work

www.moodystreetcircus.com

✨ feel the love & shimmy ✨


New Moon in Pisces

 

Pisces is Mutable Water...

Release control and trust where life is taking you 

Pay attention to your intuition 

Pay attention to your dreams 

Coalesce intentions around healing past wounds and spiritual growth

Release the need to over analyze and over control

Watch for wishful thinking 


Pisces is often depicted as Two Fish....


Random Facts I lightly researched today

Pisces is latin name for Fish

on fish gills:  
Most fish have gills. These allow the fish to breathe oxygen by extracting it from water.

From Google:


Fish take in water through their mouth, and it passes across the gills on its way out. When it does, oxygen gets diffused into the bloodstream and travels through the fish's body.


This got me considering how fetuses breathe in utero - it is not through gills... 


"the umbilical cord provides the baby with oxygen until the first breath after birth. Lung development begins early in pregnancy, but is not complete until the third trimester."



Most of us don't remember our very first breath, but how important was that rite of passage.  That marked the moment we went from swimming in an unconscious sea of creation to independently taking in the air of Earth's realm of duality.

Piscean energy is subtle, spiritual, psychic, emotional, imaginative, symbolic, dreamy... 

My intuitive impulse to research fish gills and breathing in utero was clearly telling me something about how important it would be to tune into our breathing apparatus for moon ritual class this evening...

In order to get into a Piscean state of consciousness, it helps to gently breathe your way a relaxed expanded field in which the small mind settles, suspends its judgments and analysis, surrenders its material concerns and merges with a larger sense of energetic presence... 

It is within this field we will dance.

Dancing with The World

 


This month we entered an exploratory creative zone in my dance classes, blending universal energies from the system of Tarot with belly dance movements and choreographic phrases.

The World is the last card of the Major Arcana, in which the Fool completes their journey, finding their magic, power and freedom within the wholeness of their own being. 

Here are the movement highlights from our latest class inspired by The World.

    1. We created spaciousness in the body by tuning into our breath and harmonizing it with movement. 

    2. Mel's creative "Dance of the World" in which we activated aspects of the card, setting energies depicted free within our movement.  We stepped into our safe wreath to celebrate our freedom of movement, to move in our authority.  We moved into the initial pose like the figure on the card, tracing the winding pathway of the flowing scarf around our body and lifted by soft breeze.  We felt into the four directions and danced the four elements of the four fixed signs pictured on the card -- Taurus (earthy sensuality), Libra (balanced mind), Scorpio (emotional watery undulations and eights), and Leo (fire essence - ruled by the sun - proud, bold, fiery movement choices and energies).

    3. When it comes up in a reading, The World card can mean travel is afoot.  Thus we practiced traveling steps such as 

  •     "On the Prowl" - a heel to toe cougar glide experience and opposite arm and leg worked together to propel us along the dance floor.  
  •     "Rolling Shoulders" - a toe to heel walk along where we rolled our shoulder which each gentle footfall.
  •     "Triplet traveling textures"... There are a myriad of ways to travel your triplets .. we highlighted the "As Above, So Below" Variety where the "In the Clouds Triplet" step on relevĂ© with arms flowing back and forth up high contrasted with the "Earthy Hips" Triplet step with grounded flat feet, hips swaying with each step.
  •     "Two Worlds Meet" - We set up Two Worlds facing each other from across the dance floor - The "Step Hip" world and the "Tripleteers." They had to dance toward each other in their respective dance languages, circle one another in a friendly energy then keep moving to the other side of the room.


Here's another way I have interpreted The World Card- 



In her Book The Tarot Handbook, Angeles Arrien writes of The Universe (#21) (another version of the World Card):

"In order to make a contribution in the world with our inherent talents, we must trust our ability to express love with wisdom (the Empress). Love with wisdom can be expressed when we are willing to break limiting patterns (The Hanged Man), release old sorrows (3 of swords), be clear on our priorities (3 of disks), express our integrity (3 of Wands) and communicate respectfully (3 of Cups)."


If you are interested in bringing your energetic system into more harmonious balance through a Reiki session, Tarot or oracle card reading, guided journey or dance movement medicine, please visit www.moodystreetcircus.com/speakeasyreiki - enter the password "abracadabra" - and submit your interest form.


* For entertainment purposes only. Greater well-being may result.

All my best,
Melina