Life is an opportunity, benefit from it - How Mother Teresa has inspired me.

"Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it."
— Mother Teresa

 

 A truly inspiring woman her entire life. Leading by example and sought to engage and help others by living a life devoted to Christ. She was amazing in her devotion to helping those in need, unloved, and uncared for. She was a light. Always giving of herself and dedicating her life to making the lives of others better. After she became a nun, she started in poor slums in Calcutta, teaching others the way of the Lord and working as a teacher at St. Mary's. On May 24, 1937, she took her Final Profession of Vows to a life of poverty, chastity and obedience. As was the custom for Loreto nuns, she took on the title of "mother" upon making her final vows and thus became known as Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa continued to teach at Saint Mary's, and in 1944 she became the school's principal.

Two years later, she received her 2nd calling from Christ, as she was traveling by train to the Himalayan Foothills. He told her to abandon her teachings, and that she had another calling. Mother Teresa recalls him saying to her: "I want Indian Nuns, Missionaries of Charity, who would be my fire of love amongst the poor, the sick, the dying and the little children," It took a while to get out of teaching, since you can't just leave the convent you've been assigned to so in 1948, the archbishop released her and she wandered into the city wearing the white sari and blue sash that became her staple outfit. 

Mother Teresa quickly translated this somewhat vague calling into solid  actions to help those in poverty. She began an open-air school and established a home for the dying destitute in a gross old building she convinced the city government to donate to her cause. In October 1950, she won canonical recognition for a new congregation, the Missionaries of Charity, (founded with only 12 members to start and  most of them former teachers or pupils from St. Mary's School.) As the ranks of her congregation swelled and donations poured in from around India and across the globe, the scope of Mother Teresa's charitable activities expanded exponentially. Over the course of the 1950s and 1960s, she established a leper colony, an orphanage, a nursing home, a family clinic and a string of mobile health clinics. By the time she died in 1997, the Missionaries of Charity had numbered  around 4,000 ( in addition to thousands of volunteers) — with 610 foundations in 123 countries on all seven continents. She also traveled to New York City where she opened a soup kitchen as well as a home to care for those infected with HIV/AIDS. Then, in 1979, Mother Teresa won her highest honor when she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her work "in bringing help to suffering humanity." 

She combined empathy, with a drive to help others, and management skills to achieve so much in her short life time... I think she was incredibly inspiring and although I am not deeply religious, I am spiritual and believe in being a genuine good person. I want to make a difference in people's lives and influence them to think about their actions. I try my damnedest to lead through example, and make good choices, and pay it forward. I hope that others look at Mother Teresa and the good that she did, and think about what they can do to make someone else's life a little better. I love random acts of kindness, but I see many people these days very much in a "me, me, me" state of mind. Many seem to think that they have it so much harder than others, and I see them playing the victim... or making excuses as to why not. And that life is disappointing and hard, and things never go their way. Obviously this isn't everybody, but it's sad that these are their thoughts and there are many selfish individuals. I hope I can inspire others to change. To think outside themselves. To realize that when we can be nice to everyone, and respectful of everyone, even when they aren't nice or respectful to you, we can achieve peace and happiness. But I'll continue to work on myself every day. I am far from perfect, and I'm sure I'll never be a Mother Teresa... but I want to make a difference in peoples lives and I can follow her example and help others in any way that I can...

Dance Thoughts: Importance of Modern and Having a Solid Foundation

Most people know in regards to dance, I'm a modern girl and love the history behind modern dance... I love all the choreographers that started the modern movement, like Mary Wigman who radically opposed classical dance values and movements and focused more on a feeling, which is what Isadora Duncan took in creating her style, focusing on emotions and movements became more pedestrian. Then other artists like Ruth St. Dennis focus their choreography in a feminist way and she meets Ted Shawn and together they form the Dennishawn school and company in Cali, creating "musical visualizations" I think they called them... Great modern artists to come, passed through this school. Such as, Doris Humphey (who focuses on the relationship between gravity and the human body) and Martha Graham (most famous student of Denishawn) who's dance style focused on the ‘center’ of the body, working with the floor and coordinated breathing a movement. Then there was Lester Horton, who created the technique that Alvin Ailey worked with to create the Alvin Ailey Company (One of my favorite companies) and this style of modern brought ethnic, social, and political issues to the forefront... especially those associated with African American heritage and culture because the original company was all African American dancers).  

My style focuses on the core teachings of these foundation techniques. When I'm teaching I certainly focus on Horton , but I have my own flavor in there as well, putting focus on breathing all the way through the music, and using your breath to generate a greater movement. Still working on things like core strength, and the flow of motion in relation to the music that coincides with it. Dance is an art, but people dance for different reasons, especially young dancers, and it's up to the studio and the teacher to enforce strong technique classes such as ballet and modern and educating their dancers on the history behind it. I strongly believe in core classes and knowing the history of specific styles and using them all to your advantage and growing and adapting as a Dancer as well as an artist... Get beyond the steps, understand the movement and fit it on your body. Its not about how high you can kick your leg, or how many pirouettes you can do... it's about the joy and emotions the dancing brings to the dancer and the overall impact the dancer bestows on their audience.
When dance is raw and organic and fully emboided... it is true, it is real, and it's what makes dance beautiful and meaningful to both the observer and the dancer.

"Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul"

                                                                      - Plato

the key to everything: Balance

Do you ever feel like your talking and wishing you could shut up, but the words just tumble so freely from your mouth and it’s like for a second you feel better cause you can’t keep the nonsense bottled up inside? I have.  I’ve been honest. Brutally honest. To the point of where I think some of my close friends would even label me a “Bitch”. I think there’s a part of me that wants everyone to like me, but I feel like so many people just are their own worst enemy and will be in denial about everything so it’s good to call them out.

John calls this issue, “verbal diarrhea”… I hate it when he calls it that, but it’s true. I’ve had some people say I’m mean even. Never do I ever want to be mean about anything or hurt anyone, but I don’t like hiding from the truth and I am just blunt about a lot of things. You could say I’m not good at censoring myself.  But I never want to hurt them with my words… just get them to see what I can see in them. I feel like many sell themselves short. I even do it sometimes. But I try hard not to. I try to remember what I am capable of, and the strides that have taken me here. I can’t resent others for putting their focus on things that don’t benefit themselves or the world around them. That is their choice.  Different people prioritize things very differently. It’s just weird how we’re all so different, but we’re really all the same. The main thing that I have been letting slosh around in my thoughts is balance. Work balance, fun balance, love balance, everything needs to be balanced…. The key to life and happiness is just this… and I think it’s something that I will continue needing to work on.  

 

abstract balance by Mike Featherstone