An Old Post: QBL/TBD/GM

Sorry, dear reader. I am lil hung over so I am reposting an older post that I made back in July of last year. It gives me pretty good insight on where I come from

I take belly dancing (BD)lessons. I'm in no way good at it and definitively do NOT ask me to do a graceful hip drop. I leave the graceful hip drops to my awesome and cool teacher, the water witch. Its cool and empowering. I began to take it when my gym membership got too expensive for me. Its a way for me to burn off that extra scoop of ice cream and some pent up sexual frustrations I have without the whole messy relationship part. Its incredible to see women strut their naked belly button. and besides, the typical bellydancer is not your size 2 or size 0, these are women who have had kids and have a little pooch, or more. You have to find your inner sense of beauty to show off your tiger stripes and C-section scar.

In tribal BD you have to isolate certain parts of your body, strengthen those parts, keep your head stationary, your feet on the ground and your pelvis tucked in. Keep your balance. Sweating like a pig is not optional.

I started to think about the correlation between BD and the qabalah. Find your weaknesses, strengthen those parts and keep your balance. and there are definite similarities between the sephirot and the parts of the body that BD try to strengthen and balance.

Balance implies beauty and proportion, which reminded me of the golden mean stemming from the heart in the Thoth Fool card. The golden mean is a represented by the Fibonacci Series. (Incidentally, the link also mentions some work done on the golden mean of pentagrams) More math, I love it! The golden mean is also called the divine proportion (not balance).

So I realized, as the Fool, the balance and consequently the divine is not about finding the black/white left/right type balance, its finding the correct PROPORTIONS that stem from within one's own heart. Finding the center of your own weaknesses and strengthening those parts, just like tribal BD.

For all you women and guys who love your women, put some $ in the budget for some BD classes, you can really have more than one type of spiritual experience as a result of it.

Now Ladies and Gentlemen, a goddess of belly dancing, Rachel Brice