This has a few very short bits of writing that don't seem to want to be on a page on their own.
Evolution
It is terrifying
I Open my Mind
The Occult Power of Dancing
Which Diet is for You?
The Occult Power of Dancing
When I talk about "dancing" here, I don't mean ballroom dancing or ballet. I don't mean folk-dancing although I enjoy that a lot. I don't mean line dancing and I don't mean having a bit of a boogie at a nightclub to be social and get away from the queue for the bar.
I mean really getting into it. Self-expresssion. It doesn't work if it's choreographed or constrained. What people do at concerts and raves - but not the bullshit the moshpit can turn into either. Just dancing. By occult I just mean secret. It's only in the title for hype and marketing.
I dance for fun. I like folk-dancing because it's interesting and challenging and you can also drop the hard bits and just do it for a laugh. I sometimes dance just to be in it too but I'm not all that convinced by that. At certain events, there is the chance to dance just because my muscles want to. Then, they're in charge and I do what I'm told. I like to have room.
The best dance I remember having so far was at a party in a threatened park, Moore Park, in Sydney. They've since built a tollway to the airport there but in the middle of the protests against it, we had a party in the park. The sound system was quite small and it was a big open space but it meant we had lots of room and I'm not really much into music that hurts anyway.
When I'm getting up to have a proper dance, I usually start off just bopping, probably like everyone does. It's a bit of a habit and I can see if the tempo suits me and wait for a tune I like. I also try dancing with other people who are there. You can dance with anyone in the room, you just have to be able to see each other.
Usually I find people don't want to dance with me from the other side of the room. I think it's often seen as innuendo to dance with someone but I see it as - well, not quite the opposite but hopefully you'll understand by the end.
Eventually I get bored of bopping and want to really dance. The best times, like the party in the park, are when I start by slowing right down and, really when I think about it, doing warm-ups. I often feel like a bit of a twit here, and close my eyes so no-one can see me, but it's exactly what my muscles want to do.
It's best when the music has different layers of slower and faster rhythms and I can pick out the slowest beat and dance to that. I put a lot of force into very slow movements, flexing all the different muscles of my body, going very slowly from my torso out to my fingers and toes and back.
That part on its own feels fucking fantastic. Drugs help - just about anything in small amounts: weed, alcohol, caffeine, speed, ecstasy, acid, mushrooms or sleep deprivation are definitely nice. Something tells me it wouldn't suit smack or jellies.There's no need to take any drugs at all, though. I can do it straight. It's just a matter of once finding that state of mind, then you can always get back there if you're patient.
There's no sudden transition from there to the next stage. Maybe it's not a stage. Anyway, I start responding to a faster rhythm, twice as fast as the bottom one. There is a change here, though, because I start to feel now as though I'm actually dancing -
I think of dancing as "exaggerated standing up". Standing up involves making lots of little, involuntary muscle movements, always returning your body to balance and vertical, then leaning, then correcting again. This kind of dancing just for the sake of it is that too but the movements are bigger and done to a beat.
- so I'm actually dancing now and my muscles have a reason to move: to return me to balance. Now I totally stop thinking about what to do and become a spectator. I'm a bit bouncy now and not being really wasted is helpful because I don't fall over.
From here I just slowly build up the energy, doing exactly what the music says and my body says. Sometimes I watch my hands. I wonder how I look from the outside, occasionally, but by now I'm so self-centred with the joy of dancing that unless I'm too stoned and get anxious, I really don't care.
At some point, if there's room, my movements become energetic enough to throw me around. I start jumping from foot to foot and ducking and dodging - all the time just wanting to stay on my feet and not fall. I remember in Moore Park, there was a little patch of moonlight and no-one very nearby and I moved over to the bright patch and let myself go. I jumped around and thrashed my arms and the feeling was incredible.
I was so alive. The feeling kept building and I'd been there before so I knew what was coming and then there was a rush of ecstasy. I threw my fists in the air and flung myself this way and that as hard as I possibly could. The only word I have to describe this sensation is that it's like an orgasm except it was really surging through my whole body - every single muscle except my penis. I could feel it, almost like an injection and it went on and on as I kept dancing.
It subsided after some seconds or a minute and I slowed down to savour the afterglow, which was sooo sweet.
My body aways feels incredibly healthy (though sometimes a bit sore) for days after that and at times when I have a very healthy active routine it lasts longer and I get that glow when I exercise later. It's a beautiful experience and is as good as sex. (Better than some sex.) I feel like a completely asexual being when I'm dancing, which is a relief sometimes. It is sometimes necessary to work hard at creating opportunities to have this experience.
back to the list
Which diet is for you?
Carnivore: meat and other animal parts only, except what you find in the stomach of your prey.
Herbivore: leaves and stems of plants. It is a departure* from this rigorous diet to eat any fungi, seeds or fruit.
Omnivore: anything. You can't claim to be an adherent of this diet unless you commonly eat insects.
Vegan: nothing made of or inside an animal. All plants, fungi, bacteria, viruses and synthetic foods are suitable.
Freegan: anything which doesn't cause money to be given to the animal-products industry. It includes vegan food and food which was otherwise being thrown away.
Vaguen: a diet described as vegan when a short answer is required but which in fact includes one or more non-vegan habits and a tendency to lapse without provocation.
Vegetarian: no meat. It includes milk products and eggs, sometimes also fish, birds or even pork.
Greasivore: foods available in take-away shops.
Acceptivore: anything except "alternative" foods. It encompasses the greasivore diet along with foods available from convenience stores and motorway services. It does not include health foods, vegetarian options, organic produce, foreign foods or any fancy stuff from the deli.
Synthevore: primarily artificial flavourings, colourings, preservatives, emulsifiers, flavour enhancers and other additives. It may include sugar and starch although technical advances now allow the additives to be delivered on a base of pure hydrolysed vegetable protein.
Right-on: a diet scraped together from what remains when you boycott all animal products, all supermarkets and other nasty chain stores, all products imported from places with horrible governments, all cash-crops grown by people who are starving in order to grow our coffee and bananas and all foods transported from thousands of miles away when they could have been grown here.
Protectivore: the safety diet that avoids potentially harmful or allergy-associated substances. Organic wholefoods only. Avoid wheat, soya, dairy, animal fats, nuts & seeds, sugar and salt. Adhere to all ancient nutrition advice, except where it says to eat burnt toast because all burnt food is carcinogenic.
Reductivore: fat-free and low-calorie versions of foods. Packaged foods displaying an appropriate slogan make up the whole diet except in cases where fresh fruit or veg. forms part of a prescribed slimming regime.
Alcovore: solely alcohol, party-snacks and pick-me-ups.
Relaxivore anything that isn't harder than beans on toast.
Gastrovore all meals are purist and gourmet. Salad oil must be extra virgin cold-pressed olive oil. Spices must be freshly groud for each use. No sliced bread. An aporpriate wine is chosen for each course.
Hunter-gatherer: a diet of food collected from supermarket skips or the end of the market, food trapped or icked in the wild, stolen food and food provided by relatives, Christians or Hare Krsnas.
Oportunivore: a status that allows you to depart from any diet you claim to follow, in order to eat what someone else buys.
Combination Diets
Right-on/Protectivore: vegan and organic food, locally grown, by a co-operative, on an allotment. For true purity, you should not buy the food but be freely given it.
Greasivore/Synthevore: in this highly selective diet, the only way to get the proper intake of synthetic foods from take-away shops is to choose the multinational fast-food chains.
Hunter-gatherer/Gastrovore: also highly specialised, it consists of the spoils of very fussy skipping and some meals provided by wealthy relatives but primarily of meals eaten in restaurants and then leaving without paying.
Right-on/Acceptivore: this hybrid is a new diet altogether, comprising organics from the supermarket, pills from the health-food shop and fair-trade coffe sugar and chocolate.
Freegan/Alcovore: a diet which people often subsist on while struggling to save threatened areas of forest or green space it consists of cider, skipped crisps and marmite on toast.
Munchivore: a food combining plan, made up of the things that taste nice together when you're stoned.
* Like most of this article, I made this bit up.(back)
back to the list
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
