Draft unedited version of a rough idiomatic translation by Paula Jardim
I remember R. Toro saying that the current understanding of identity can be compared to the understanding of the atom in beginning of century. When it comes to identity, we are in prehistory. We don't know what it is, especially human identity. The theoretical model is a map of identity. So I will give you some points for you to deepen them. R. Toro wrote that identity has ontological resonance. Ontology is the study of the totality of being, where nothing is left aside. Being is totality.
Biodanza has answers to ontological questions
Heidegger, an important philosopher for Biodanza, talked about the forgetting of Being as a totality in a world of superficial things. We see identity as something obvious. There are things in us. All of it is obvious. And we don't enquire about the mystery of things. We don’t ask why they exist, why is there something instead of nothing. We don’t ask the sorts of things that kids ask when self-awareness arises. Why do I exist? What if mum didn't meet dad? Where would I be? These are fundamental questions. Why are there things instead of nothing? All things - chairs, books, trees, etc. - have identity. Everything has identity but we have a peculiarity. We ask ourselves about our identity. Who are we? What is life? What is the universe? This is a characteristic of our species. Tigers don't ask these questions. Tigers don’t go to psychoanalysis and question their tigerness. “My father is such a strong tiger! Perhaps I’ll never be a strong tiger like him.” Each species has its own defined ontological field and exists within this field. I often go to a park with my son who likes to see the peacocks there. Animals don’t experience this sort of conflict. Pigeons don't want to be like peacocks. They don't question. We do. Why am I? This is an ontological question that Biodanza has answers to. But we can’t do what religions do. There’s nothing pre-made. We construct our identity in the world. The tiger tigers because he can only tiger. And Antonio sarpes, and in his sarpeing there is a tiger, a horse, a bird, a mountain, the sea, the wind… All is in me, and also in you. Because we are open to possibilities. There isn’t a determined programming.
We are an unfinished poem, an infinite rhapsody
Heidegger defined it as Dasein, the being-there, the presence. The being-there is open. As Cecilia Toro said, we are not determined, not even genetically. People used to think that we weren’t determined psychologically. Now we know that we aren’t determined genetically either. So we are a being in the world. Existence comes before essence. If you want to know who you are then go into the world. Travel, learn, and live your life intensely. There you’ll find your ever-changing essence. We are an unfinished poem, an infinite rhapsody, an ever-expanding spiral. We are beings in the world, open, under construction. If you want to know who I am, wait until I die. Then you can create a story about Antonio. Antonio was like so, and his Sarpeing was like so. The same applies to each of you. This is Heidegger. With his notion of being in the world, being with the other, in constant construction, a never-ending poem.
Then we have Nietzsche, an author who is not explicitly connected to Biodanza. I asked R. Toro why he wasn't there. He told me that he had a deep affinity with Nietzsche. Zarathustra climbed the mountain but what matters to identity is that he talked about the Übermensch. The Superman is not about having super powers. It’s about overcoming resentments, carrying the burden of tradition, memory, guilt, morals, like a camel carrying a heavy weight and thinking, “If only I could, if only I were, if only they would let me… but I can’t. I have to do this. It’s my duty.” This is the camel phase. Then, at a 2nd moment, the camel rebels and transforms into a lion. “I am. I want. I can. I am a lion. And I have the courage to move ahead.” In the 3rd stage of spirit the lion transforms into a child, dancing and enjoying life, doing Biodanza at the Hotel Canet. The camel is associated with guilt, the lion with affirmation, and the child is enjoying the dance. This is the elevation of the spirit, the overcoming of resentment. “Oh, this world is not fair, it doesn't treat me as I deserve. There must be a perfect world somewhere outside of this world.” Your fear of living is projected outwards.
Be yourself and love your life
Dionysus is also important in Nietzsche, as the god of ecstasy and pleasure as facts of life. Eternal return. What you do today, you can repeat eternally. Each thing you do has the strength of reality, has intensity, affirmation of life. Be yourself. If you had to repeat it eternally it could be wonderful or a curse. Also amor fati, the love of destiny, love of one’s fate, which is characterized by an acceptance of things that happen to you. Everything that happens to you is good. Love the events of your life, because every single thing that happens makes you who you are. Even those who made you suffer also made you more human.
What we’re interested in is the vivencia of the body
Merleau Ponty is another important author. He was into phenomenology and so is Biodanza. The term phenomenology means the reality facing you, that which arises in your presence, the phenomena, the world, the people. There is no subject and object, no observer. Like Cecilia Toro said about Maturana, it’s not possible to be outside the world. Our body is the world. We don't have a body. We are the body. The body is what the anatomists study. The word corpus is related to anatomy studies of dead bodies, mortus, bones, muscles… What we’re interested in is the vivencia of the body. My body is my possibility in the world. It opens all doors. A sensitive body in a sensitive world. I am immersed in the world. I can’t be separated from the world. I have studied the nature-consciousness connection. Consciousness emerges from nature. It's a continuum from nature. We are life looking at itself. Awareness is part of life, of the continuity of life. If you have a passionate, creative and living body, you’re expanding consciousness. If you have a sad, closed and painful body you’ll also have dark ideas. That's why our culture produced anti-life ideas. Because they don't have the pleasure of living, so we needed to create biocentric ideas. I am my body, and through my body I have the possibility of knowing. Consciousness is a complement. All of this is identity. These are all elements of our identities, because we are open and in constant actualization. We don't change. We actualize.
Another author important is Freud. The most important thing is the unconscious. Because for the Greeks the earth was the centre of the universe and the universe was a small cosmos that you could see from your window and say, “look! There it is! It’s there for us, all organized.” And then Galileo came and expanded the size of the cosmos 1000 times. And from a small cosmos expanded. And earth is no longer the centre but a satellite of the sun. This was hard for us. And then we went from being the centre of creation to primates. Darwin came along and told us we are related to chimpanzees – 98% of the genes are the same. They aren’t like us because they didn't the find an enriched environment like Biodanza! Another hard one to swallow. This 2% difference is consciousness, the reason that enlightens us. We are different. We are rational animals.
Consciousness is just the tip of the iceberg
Then Freud came along and said that reason and consciousness were just the tip of the iceberg under the ocean. We are made of intense passions. We don't control our selves. There are unconscious drives moving us all the time. We don't define our desires. They arise from an instinctive matrix. And the unconscious is acting all the time. Sometimes you repress something during day, e.g. you have a boss with a beard and glasses that oppresses you all the time but you can’t afford to lose your job and keep saying yes. At night you dream that you are a man with a beard. The dream is showing you what you have repressed. The unconscious is not a storage house. It is a generator of dreams. The unconscious is constantly revealing itself through dreams, slips of the tongue, forgetting things, calling someone by someone else’s name, and so on.
We are all naked
Reich then told us that the unconscious reveals itself in the body so the defenses of the “I” create the body and we take the form of our emotions. If all of my life I have been dependent I probably have little tonus. You take the shape of your repeated emotions. If I have to show my strength when there’s a scared little boy inside me, I project my chest as a general. But if someone can disarm this, then the truth will be revealed. And the scared little boy will be seen. Character armor is a protection. It is there to hide us. But there is a contradiction. The armor reveals us, makes us naked. We’re all naked. You just need to look. Look at the way you look at people, look at the tension in your body.
I am became devotee of Saint Teresa d’Avila and when I went to Rome in Italy I went to the church to see sculpture in order to learn how to open the mouth and let the jaw drop. When I teach in Portugal I have a poster of Saint Teresa so that my students learn to open their mouths. The tendency to clench the jaw is universal. Often beginners think they’re very loving. “I love humanity”, some people say without being aware that their unexpressed aggressiveness trenched into hidden hostility. It’s like that with the entire body, with the shoulders, chest, hips, knees, feet, hands. Hands of air, sensible caresses. Hands water to surrender. Hands of earth to contain.
Express your ever-expanding identity through movement
Identity is the body. You are your body. But if I am in a wheelchair my corporeity is not the shape the body. It is the vivencia of the body that defines your identity. You can have a body that had a genetic problem and still develop your embodiment. It is fundamental to develop motor capacities. Each new movement you learn represents your identity expressing a new field of your identity. Nothing is just motor. In Biodanza everything is neuro-motor, affective-motor, etc. Each new movement allows a new area of your identity to be revealed. We have science of movement and can amplify our movements to express our identity.
Biodanza has its own math’s equation
organic music + integrated movement + biocentric vivencia = expression of identity
The vivencia is the golden path to identity. If we want to be ourselves we have to experience the vivencia of who we are, and the vivencia of being in the world.
Enrich your identity by embodying archetypal patterns
Jung is fundamental because Biodanza is archetypal. The archetypes are ready made elements for us to embody universal patterns that you’ll take for your personal identity. And the more archetypes you express, the more you’ll enrich your identity. Because nothing we live is new. Everything has already happened, e.g. motherhood, pain, and suffering. Everything has been lived before, even the gods. Everything is ready made for us but each of us expresses it in our personal way. You look for collective patterns to embody. You don't need to invent. The Greeks have gods for everything, for the wind, the sea, the sky, eroticism, cells, for anything! There are gods for everything, ready-made for us. Personal identity archetypes are fundamental.
Biodanza can help you cope with post modernity
Many psychologists and authors help us to deepen this theme. Here I talked about some philosophers and psychologists. Now sociology is also denouncing the pathology of our society. Bauman’s Liquid Modernity. We are living in a time where frontiers have dissolved. Everything that’s solid is lost in air, said Marx. He was talking about class society, but it is still applicable today in our culture. We left behind the cosmic universe of the Greeks. The modern man criticized religions. God is dead. We don't have God or cosmos as a reference any more. Only man, science and reason – and it didn't meet its objective. Neither cosmos or god or science. And we are in the liquid post-modernity where nothing has significance. Everything has dissolved. We have nothing to hold on, nothing to give us safety. Everything is liquid, especially connections. They’re only virtual connections, not real connections. Everything dissolves in liquid of post-modernity. The postmodern man is with someone and looking around checking if there’s a better possibility. Up to your 40s, liquid love. This is postmodern behavior. Always thinking of new possibilities. And you’re alone because you’re looking at all possibilities. After 40s you’re lonely because no one considers you as a possibility. So Bauman is a pessimist who talks about the pathology of post modernity.
But we have an author that R. Toro liked a lot - Michel Maffesoli a French sociologist that sees in post modernity opportunities to create a new culture. Hedonistic Dionysian commitment to vital excess, because excess is erotic, life is good in excess, overflowing with pleasure and eroticism. This is Maffesoli. Biodanza can bridge the two things, opening all possibilities while deepening each encounter. So Biodanza is a great way of coping and dealing with post modernity.
Remember your cosmic and planetary identity
Finally, remember the cosmic aspect of identity. After the big bang and first atoms were formed. The first element was hydrogen and we are 70% water. And the very same hydrogen that originated from the big bang forms water molecules in our body. We are made of cosmic matter that is billions of years old. We are same age of universe, 15 million years old. This is an important point for identity. We need to remember our cosmic affiliation. We are fruits of billions of years of evolution and are living in a special moment of the journey of cosmic life, when the universe is [becoming aware of] looking at itself.
And there’s also our planetary identity. We are a living ecosystem, with bacteria that have been alive since the beginning of life. They are in our genitals, intestines, stomachs, lungs, throat, nose… We are inhabited by other beings that are working for us, so we need to treat them well and ask them what type of yogurt they like, because without them we’ll die. We are a living ecosystem. Identity is diversity, difference, and uniqueness. Identity is you becoming increasingly unique, more complex, and more of who you are.
In Delphi there is a temple dedicated to Apollo with a very well known sentence - know thyself. I will give you a biocentric interpretation. Instead of know yourself, feel yourself! Feeling myself I feel the other.