Written by Khalilah Ramirez for Silicon Valley Debug Stories
Greetings fellow Earth dwellers! Peace Dancer Khalilah here with this week’s installment of harmony and joy. This Week In Peace is an accessible way to absorb the latest updates on unaddressed topics of utmost importance. These vital subjects, like love and acceptance, have put on hold by society in favor of lesser pursuits, like conflict and consumerism. This is not written to rebuke us. It is written to foster enlightened awareness. There is comfort is confronting the angst hiding inside our collective consciousness.
The Dance of Peace was a part of “Melanin Minds,” a San Jose event dedicated to showcasing artist of color. Its main focus was not selling art, but engaging the community across cultures to educate and inspire each other. As a Dancer of Peace it is my work to engage audiences on the levels of enjoyment AND empowerment. In an online post announcing the event I promised to, “teach everyone how to glow without really trying,” something that is done at every performance. How is it done? It’s done by learning to see the light inside.
Whenever we wish, we can close our eyes, quietly focusing on what’s happening within. Practice seeing, feeling and being with our inner light. Envision your heart as a light that glows and grows. It is a peace technique so simple that its effectiveness can easily be overlooked in a world that thrives on complexity and chaos. Learning to glow has only two requirements. A) The knowledge that it is a part of our natural state and B) Willingness to practice the action of using our inner light. Purposely shining the light within produces its own emotions for each individual person. We are all free to experience this for ourselves. Being light is an ongoing experiment which holds the immediate power to enrich our lives. It enriches us with its immense potential to foster peace and eliminate darkness. “Darkness” in this case refers to negativity and other heavy emotions that may escape our notice.
Practicing inner light ties in with the title directly. The “twist mohawk” is a hairstyle that I use often to amuse myself on stage. Twist mohawk consist of dividing the hair into sections, each of which is throughly and playfully twisted. Next, I use a whimsical sense of imagination to pin the hair up into whatever I want. Maybe I am a mountain goat with horns that day. Maybe my hair is a wreath or a crown. Maybe I’m a peaceful (yet fierce!) warrior who arranges my hair so as to strike fear into the hearts of those who wish we would all just conform already. Twist mohawk varies from person to person. It has a dual purpose: 1) Learning to love, accept and be playful with our appearance. 2) Actually taking the emphasis OFF of our physical appearance and putting LESS importance on it in order to focus on our spiritual appearance, the inner world where invisible yet crucial aspects of ourselves live. What does your twist mohawk look like? Play with it if you dare!
Techniques for loving, accepting and being playful in our lives are like techniques for cooking. You can never have too many and the combinations are endless. Bringing a friend or group of friends together for to construct twist mohawks on each other is just one of a million small ways to harmonize joyfully with each other. I used to be arrogant. I could be heard regularly spouting ignorance like, “I don’t like card games” or “Golf is boring”. These days, I am a fan of absolutely anything that brings human beings together in the spirit of peace, tolerance, fun, well-being, and love. Each person has a role to play in their own enrichment and that of the entire world. Make your role an enjoyable one. Thanks and see you out there!
