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More on A-Bun-Dance and the World Dreams Peace Bridge....
 Around the same time Jean was writing "Group Dreaming, Ken Shapley was writing "When We All Dream Together." Later Ken discovered and joined the Bridge, and shared his book with us. Soon after, Rita, who hadn't read it yet, dreamed:
In the next scene I am sitting front row next to the stage and Jennifer is on the stage dancing with two other women. She looks like a Goddess, very large, very sensual, dressed in a bellydancing outfit and dancing and telling a story with prop swords. She looks like a Hindu myth figure telling a story of ancient times. She is having so much fun doing this. The other two girls on each side of her are just trying to follow her moves, a bit insecure, but she is so sure of herself and so confident that she carries the performance along.
I wrote back:
"The Hindu dancer telling her story, and what you describe "the dream has to do with," are straight out of the part of Ken's book I was reading on the evening of your dream: 'I wore bells around my ankles and cymbals upon my fingers and swathed in pink veils I danced as never before. It was as if Shiva himself were playing the flute and the dance danced me for there was no effort of concentration on my part. I began dancing here in our village and amongst the hills but then I began to move across the earth very fast. It was like being swept along in a river that sang upon and within the land itself. I saw many lands that I do not know as the river took me along.... I danced through the Earth's cultures and traditions and felt that all their ways are the same even though their practices may differ....' - Chapter 18 of "When We All Dream Together," as it seems indeed we do :=)"
Then Jennifer wrote to describe the inspiration she felt in relating to herself as Rita's dancing dream character, and added,
By the way, I don't actually belly dance now, but have briefly in the past. I have a good friend who is a long-time belly dancer and teacher of the art, and I have a niece who is active in a belly dance troupe. I completely appreciate this art, and know its inherent value to women and the health of their bodies.
To which I wrote,
"Hey. Maybe all of us belly dancing Peace Bridgers (whether some-time or long-time or some-time or would-be) should each bring one of our dance costumes to Sonoma in June, maybe an extra costume or two for the would-bes, and...."
And that is how it accidentally turned out months later: in last-minute packing for the conference, I grabbed a whole boxful of belly dance costume items just because I had no time to choose what to bring for the Ball. At the conference I dreamed people were picking through a pile of fabrics belonging to me, looking for belly dance costume items. Then I remembered, and when we conference-going Peace Bridgers got together I said, "Hey, if no one's had an idea for a group costume yet...."
~ Joy F.
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