This week’s Dance First Member Spotlight is on Phoenix OneSong and Dancing Freedom!

My name is Phoenix, and I’m the director and lead teacher trainer for Dancing Freedom. Dancing Freedom is a movement ‘practice’ that supports people to come home to their body, their heart and their soul by connecting with the elements of Earth, Water, Fire, Air
and Ether.

I have been the loving steward of this dance-ship since 2016 when its founder, Samantha Sweetwater, passed the torch onto me. When I first met this practice on the Burning Man dance floor in 2010, it felt like I had found everything that mattered to me in one modality: conscious dance, ceremony, community connection, nature connection and animism (what most people might call
shamanism).

When I share with people why we work with the elements of nature, I often will say – “because we are made of the stuff!” I have found that working with the elements of nature has been my direct link back into a deep relationship with my body, my spirit, and with the more than human world.

The elements are the wisest teachers I have ever known – and no matter how deep I have gone with them over these 10+ years; they continue to inform me, awe me, guide me and take me deeper down the rabbit hole of becoming more of myself and remembering how to be in the right relationship with the
earth and all of her creatures.

I believe that each and every one of us has a unique role to play in our evolving culture and in the shifting of the current paradigm. In this world of unknowns, the one thing that makes the most sense to me is to use the tools I have gained in my years of personal development to anchor and ground me in the midst of this global metamorphosis.

Ceremony, ritual, dance, song, prayer, and connecting with nature are some of my greatest allies that I love to work with. These are the medicines I carry into my life and passionately share with those who wish to join me.

During this time, especially here in Australia, where we are in perpetual lockdowns and our freedoms have been drastically limited, you will find me walking the land and connecting with the more than human world, sitting regularly by the sacred fire, singing, dancing, and praying in ceremony either alone, with those closest to me or online with my global community: creating the world our hearts know is possible from the inside out.

The most purposeful work for me to be engaging with at this time of great shift is my inner and inter-personal work. Choosing to meet my own discomforts, attachments to old ways of being, outdated programs and thought beliefs with love, compassion and
kindness feels like the most radical place to stand.

One of my teachers once shared with me, the way we do anything is the way we do everything, and thus- if I can utilize this time to transform my personal challenges into strengths, then I can be a ripple effect that will support others to do the same.

Regardless of what our circumstances are, I believe this is the time for us all to come together in common unity, to be active creators in what comes next and to play our parts (no matter how big or small) in weaving our collective visions into the web that we are each a part of.

My deepest passion is in supporting myself and others to welcome ALL parts of themselves into wholeness, to wake up to the majesty of being embodied and to cherish and celebrate this moment, right here beneath our feet, on this glorious blue pearl we call home.

~Phoenix
(www.dancingfreedom.com)