Dear Dancing Community,
What a blessed reunion we had for our Light Raiser in mid-December. Our room was filled with brilliant emerging leaders, old dear friends who have all come of age together and are now rising to serve their younger brothers and sisters. It was pure magic when our opening musicians, Meagan Chandler, Jeremy Roske, and Jonathan Davis, simply kept playing through the whole Movement Mass. Although we had not planned or rehearsed for this, nor had we been together for years, our decade of journeying together through the dance allowed us to be in alchemical alignment with one another. This was indeed community in moving rhythm with one another, Dancing with the Divine for sure!!!
In the spirit of that event, I want to thank each of you for your enthusiasm for our shared work. As many of you know, we are deeply engaged in serving youth and the adults who support them around the world. The funds generated at Movement Mass over the past year has helped us provide some resources for youth who need medical, therapeutic, and educational support. There are so many people who do not fit traditional funding needs. We are honored and delighted to offer our quiet reach to those longing for a supportive hand during the rigorous journey of growing up.
Our reach continues to expand. When you receive this I-contact update, I will be in Uganda working with Tutsi and Hutu youth leaders building a peace movement across Africa, beginning in the DRC and Rwanda. They know the impacts of genocide and say NO MORE. My husband, Mark Gerzon, and I will be working closely with these courageous souls who understand the preciousness of life in every cell of their beings. We will all be discovering together more about resilience and reconciliation, about service and the Spirit. I hope to send short updates about this work and the work that I will then do with our beloved team in South Africa to the facebook site: MelissaMichaelsMovement. Please join me there as you are moved.
Dear friends, I am so honored to be dancing with our profound community, near and far, over these years. As we continue to grow together, I wish for each of you a gentle turning towards the new year, a time of reflection and visioning, and sweetness with your loved ones. May we each deepen our daily practices so that our presence ignites ripples of peace. The work begins for each of us in our own bodies and hearts. On that path, we keep dancing.
Of course, you are so welcome to join us in the dance in 2014. We have some super sweet events coming right up, beginning with Jennie Gershater and Ramon Parish leading Movement Mass in January, followed by V-day Rising for Justice and our annual women’s Shakti Sisterhood weekend. Please check out the details below for these events and the other community gatherings soon to follow.
I bow to you, in love.
Melissa
