Your 2010 Wish List: how's it going?

At the beginning of the year, I created a 2010 Wishlist, which you can see HERE. It was an anti-resolutions way of listing goals for myself for the coming year, and I challenged you to do the same. Did you make a list? If so, how is your list going? We're a bit over the 6 month mark for 2010, so it's a good time to see what progress we have made.

For my list, my weight is down about 11lbs. I was down as much as 15, but gained some back over the summer with all the stress. I am back on the wagon and working toward the goal of better health once again.

Re-evaluating dance in my life is one I have had no choice but to stare straight in the face. And to be truthful, I don't have any answers there, yet. But I am on a continuing journey right now that is taking steps toward greater understanding of this question.

I am definitely more organized, but have a loooong way to go with regard to that. Case and point: my desk as I type this message. Ugh. But in other areas of my life, home and business, I have been cleaning up and taking stock, which is good.

So how about you?

Web design and what it means to me...

Web design has been at the forefront of my work this past week. With the dissolution of my troupe, and the lengthy hiatus from my dance over this summer, this fall is an opportunity for a little reinvention. Nothing too drastic mind you, but definitely a re-branding is in order before the Tribal Dreams Festival in November, and Tribal Revolution next year. Taking down the old websites will be hard, but cathartic perhaps.

The tricky part to my dance as a business over the years was compartmentalizing the different dominant aspects of my experience. I was a teacher, but was a director of a troupe which was shared with another person. Technically our troupe was born before I was teaching, so when I began to teach was when the roads diverged strangely. When we taught workshops, sometimes it was as "Shay" and sometimes it was as "inFusion", and more often than not the person hiring didn't understand the difference. When I sold merchandise, some was mine, some was the troupe's, and people would have to write two different checks if they bought items from each. This was very confusing for students and promoters. After all, when you take a workshop with Carolena, you don't wonder if you're getting a workshop from her or from FatChance. It's not either Paulette or Gypsy Caravan. It's understood that these two entities are inexorably entwined. Not so with me and it was a source of tension for many years.

Now I am given the opportunity to re-structure my dance as a business, and it's been hard to get excited about. Because committing to it means finally closing the door, once and for all, on a period of time that was so fulfilling and blessed. The ending was hard, and continues to be, but the years prior were the stuff of dreams. To write The End on that page is...character building, let's say. What I have to keep telling myself is that just because what has come before was incredible beyond my imagination doesn't mean the best is already behind me. There could be more ahead I can't imagine, too!

So designing a new web page is a fun creative venture that can be a tiny step toward these changes. I need to embrace the future, whatever it will be. And frankly, learn to enjoy the process of change as I experience it today.

And so it continues...

It's pretty nonstop here at the Moore household. Last week I got word that my eldest brother, Ken, was in the ICU with severe pancreatitis brought on by a gall stone that had become lodged in his system, blocking his liver function. His digestive system basically shut down, and he was unable to eat anything, subsisting on IV saline alone for about 4 days. My sister was down there helping care for him that week, and the day after she left, I flew down to take over. He was home, but not very mobile, so I was doing laundry, cooking meals, and generally keeping him company. By the time I left 5 days later, he seemed to be doing much better, but was still in a fair amount of pain, distended belly, and various portions of his endocrine system were still swollen and not working at capacity. The day after I got home, he was back at the doctor getting more tests and x-rays, and potentially re-entering the hospital. I have not heard from him since his x-rays yesterday and am keeping my fingers crossed.

More lighthearted bits and bobs after the jump, I promise.

Catching up a little...

Obviously, I have been in hibernation mode lately. I am sorry, dear readers, for being absent. I honestly had no idea how many readers, and how far flung my readership was, until I got that little widget guy on the left there. Wow! Thanks to all you anonymous readers who have been visiting and hanging in with me while my blog has been latent.

Catching up a little after the cut...

The Guest House

Many thanks to Paulette for sharing this wisdom in her most recent newsletter.

The Guest House


This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

-- Jelaluddin Rumi,
translation by Coleman Barks