Dancing the Tarot

Dancing the Tarot
with Hazel Young

Sept 2006, Holycombe House, Whichford, in the Cotswolds.
Hazel Young's own webpage

1. The Rollright Stones
2. Holycombe House
3, The Dancing

1. THE ROLLRIGHT STONES Heather Stunning Lichens on the Stones, and the limestone has weathered into fascinating holes. Below - Annie in the centre, showing some of the Stones, and the sort of Cotswolds views you get around Harvest Festival/ Mabon / Michaelmas.	Coming to Holycombe is a journey through small Cotswold lanes with big trees, bigger houses newly built in golden Cotswold stone set discreetly back from the road, and huge views. Heather (left) and I met at the Rollright Stones, 3 miles from Holycombe, an ancient limestone stone circle, with a King stone (below)on the other side of the road, and two Knights half a mile away across the fields from the circle, leaning together, plotting with each other against the King.

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2. HOLYCOMBE THE HOUSE Holycombe is also a very recently built private home, set in a dip just above a pond, surrounded by hills. It has a modern turf cut labyrinth set in the hillside beside it. It is absolutely beautiful, inside and out, reminiscent of an Arts and Crafts house of the time of William Morris, and a real privilege to be able to live there for a couple of days. Wonderful facilities, but most of all, deep peace and beauty.

Above: The House, After morning dancing on the lawn beside the pond.

Right: The Labyrinth

This is the baronial-looking fireplace in the dancing room You can just also see the beautiful wooden floor.

At the foot of the right hand candlestick there is a pile of gold cups.These were used in the dance for Temperance, for pouring water from one to the other, making sure all was "mixt equally", as John Donne says.

	Viv posing with the Angel Wings which give the dancing room its name - the Angel Room. They're real feathers, soft and white and beautiful. Fantastic photo of Viv, too good not to use....!
Across the width of the dance room on a beam was this lovely festoon, made of driftwood, and antlers, feathers and cones, artificial flowers, silver spider web, fruits - a work of nature and art. Close up below of another part of the festoon. Such intricate detail, so beautiful!

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The group at Sunday lunch - from top of the table on the left: Nicole, Chrissie, Susan, Heather, Sally Maxwell hiding, Ajay, Teri, Angela, Hazel, Viv, Anni, Mary. And my blue teeshirt.

The menus devised and produced by that Genius, that Treasure of circle dance catering, Sally Maxwell, included the BEST chocolate thingy to die for, much richer than a cake, and BRANDYSNAPS, just like mother used to make!, and cherryberrybramble jelly for grownups. And Whole Poached Peaches. And Icecream. (There was also nut roast and roast potatoes and that wonderful flakypastry plait full of delicious savory filling, and Salads of amazing variety....) Did I mention the grapes? And the fruit cake? And the lemon drizzle cake?

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3. DANCING THE TAROT Hazel Young

The symbols of the four suits - Cups for Water, Swords for Air, Wands for Fire and Pentacles for Earth

centre

These are My impressions only. I knew some of the dances and some were new and some were fantastic, and this is basically my aide memoire rather than reportage.
Hazel was doing this weekend as a repeat, at a request from Anni. She used a version of the Rider Waite pack to demonstrate with.

MINOR ARCANA
We began with "Los Quatros Elementos", and a quick whizz through the Minor Arcana, with appropriate dances for the four elements. Earth was the Soweto Earth Dance. Fire was Hora Medura. Water was RockWater (a Bach Flower Remedy dance by Anastasia Geng) and Air was Winds on the Tor. However, later on, Hazel did another Fire dance called "Fire Walking" by June Watts, to music by James Asher "Feet in the Soil" and if didge and drums drive you to wild dancing, this is an album to get - (New Earth NE 9512-2).

MAJOR ARCANA
The dances mentioned here are just the ones I really liked. The whole programme belongs to Hazel.

The Fool - Tsadik Katamar, The Wise Man and the Fool. Obviously. With abandon!

The Empress - June Watts's dance "Mother of All Things". New to me, tender and trance-y, I liked it, made me think of those Renaissance Madonnas with Child, all blue robes and stars and flowers and in some way very....unowned. I feel that the Empress is like Bride, the beautiful Celtic goddess of the Spring, goddess of Childbirth and Poetry and Blacksmithing, in other words of magical transformations and bringing inert things to life. A Diana sort of energy, the original meaning of "virgin" as in "unowned".

The Emperor - Bob Minney's "Dawn Wind" , which Hazel said she felt as Laying Down Boundaries and being very imperious, and I could certainly interpret that and feel it.

The Chariot was celebrated by "Katya", a Ukrainian dance, and was a big favorite, very energetic, very horse-y, a really Powering-Through dance and music. Wanted to dress up in skins and leather and boots to dance that one! Reminiscent of that Ukrainian group who won the 2005 (?) Eurovision Song Contest, very Conan the Barbarian...There's another Charioteer image that comes to mind, from the Bhavaghad Gita. Whatever you are, whoever you are, be what you do utterly. Do what you do utterly.

Strength - "Gorace" from Albania. Definitely the most powerful for me, a Yang energy dance, see dance diary for steps. Danced with bent knees, low to the ground, I felt like a Maori warrior doing the Haka. They don't come more macho than that.

The Wheel of Fortune, - Hazel chose a choreography by Stefan, that she says he has forgotten! "Shifting Sands" to music by Nawal Gadalla. I can't help feeling someone should choreograph something to "O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana. It's been used for aftershave (who remembers Old Spice?) and washing powder, now we need a circle dance just for this purpose...

Justice - Kareve Yom. Justice is about karma, about reaping what you sow, but deep down it is ultimately about Intention. Your thoughts create the world around you. Kareve Yom, with its four movements, sings in my head to the Buddhist Bodhisattva prayer - "May all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness, May they be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. May they never be separated from the true joy which is free from suffering. May they abide in the great equanimity, free from attachment and aversion, near and far." This doesn't correspond with the movements of the dance, but it does correspond with the intention, so it was good.

Temperance - we all were very taken by "Pradesh" by Peter Valance, which was Made for Temperance , as it involves pouring water from one cup into another, to fantastic music by Ravi Shankar. For those who don't know, the Angel of Temperance in the RiderWaite pack is depicted as standing with one foot on land and one in water, pouring water from one goblet to another. It's for Patience, particularly, and for things being properly mixed. A medieval idea used by John Donne in one of his love poems - "whatever dies was not mixt equally". We watered the plants in the Conservatory with our mixed water: they should grow and prosper!

The Moon - Bernard Wosien's Moon Dance to the Vivaldi Guitar Concerto, which we did in basketweave hold, very like a Sta Dhio in feel. I always think of "Kore" as a Moon dance, the rising and setting, the regular 4 weekly/4 section dance. But - then we did the Kore steps as part of A'ghrian...In fact, come to think of it, Chiaroscuro would be nice for the Moon, as it means shadows and has lots of turns in it.

The Sun - we were all transported by dancing "A'ghrian" to the Sun, especially when we danced it again outside early on Sunday morning, when the sun was already risen and hot on our skins and brilliant in a blue sky.

The World -Nanni Kloke's "Hallelujah for the Whole Earth" from the Finnish Mass.

Dancing in the Garden

On Saturday evening we had supper in the conservatory as it had been rather dull and cool all day. Hazel had photocopied some of the Major Arcana and put the sheets upside down under our plates at supper, which noone took much notice of, until she said turn them over. That was a lovely idea, and each person was surprised by their choice, especially if they'd changed their places. As usual, the synchronicity was flowing.....

On Saturday night, we danced The Journey, which was Our Journey. Not the full 21 dances, thank goodness, but the pack was laid out around the centre, and each person chose a card, and we danced that dance. There was much discussion about whether we would end with the Chariot, but in fact in a circuitous twist of the synchronicity we ended with Justice (Kareve Yom),
On Sunday, Hazel produced another pack, the Druid pack, which is very beautiful, and then later on a third, equally beautiful pack, called the Visconti Sforza pack, a reproduction of the oldest known Italian Renaissance pack. I also really liked Anni's Motherpeace pack, which is round, and painted with rather primitive, naive, tribal pix, but very earthy and "normal life" representations. Several of us used the Osho Zen Tarot pack for our own personal development and meditation.

There was also time for leisure. Me on the left, and Hazel, I PROMISE you, on the right. If you look hard you can see her hair....!


Hazel and Heather under the Victoria plum tree. Back to top

Roses, Apples, Cosmos, Lavender and me. The Labyrinth in the background.