Dance, The CD : Moving To the Rhythms of Your Ture Self

Rating:
Summary: Transformational Magic
Review: I loved Oriah's first book, "The Invitation" , so I looked forward to "The Dance"...but with the fear that maybe the magic wouldn't happen again; maybe she'd said the important stuff and this would be the leftovers. I needn't have worried.

I read an exerpt on her website and now I've read the whole book. It's powerful and magic, and I feel changed by it. Not because it left me with a sense of who I could be, but because it gave me a sense of the value of who I am, and of how to more fully live with that.

Oriah says of her book " It is the story of my discovery that the question is not 'Why are we so infrequently the people we want to be?' but rather 'Why do we so infrequently want to be the people we really are?' ...It is the story of our struggles with those things that make it hard to remember who and what we really are, the places where is easy to become afraid in our culture."

She also shows us much more of the person she is, of her background in Shamanic teaching and the workshops that she ran, and that makes the "The Dance" more powerful for me. Her stories are vivid and real, and she often tells painfully human anecdotes of mistakes she makes; no "I'm the Master who knows all" fraudulance here.

It's really a wonderful book...if you're on my Christmas gift list, you probably don't need to buy a copy, but otherwise you definitely should.

Rating:
Summary: Moving
Review: I read the invitation over and over. At first I was not ready for this book. It wasn't untill I read a half of it that I fell deeply into seeing Oriah's perspective and it healed me.
Now I have read it twice, and it still is moving, and highly recommended from my point of view.

Rating:
Summary: "Slow Down and Let Go"
Review: I was so taken with this book that I read it in one day, staying up much past my bedtime! Oriah writes from her heart and her experiences - she acknowledges her frailties, doesn't gloss over the complications of life, and suggests skills to learn that could help a person learn to "Move to the Rhythms of Their True Self." I was captivated by the beautiful poetry, energized by her suggested meditations, and through her writing, realized just how much I need to slow down! I have not read "The Invitation," but will do so in the near future. In the meantime, "The Dance" goes with me wherever I go - to be read again and again and again.

Rating:
Summary: Poetic Insight
Review: In wonderful poetic language, this teaches us that you are you and the mere desire to be something that you aren't is the primary cause of unhappiness. Though you'll have to read it to understand since this review does not do justice to the fine qualities of this book, it is incredibly insightful and inspiring. Some of what the author says about consciousness and human nature in this book overlaps with some of the stuff in "The Ever-Transcending Spirit" by Toru Sato, which, by the way, is another completely awesome book. Sato's excellent book is more theoretical and dense in psychological content. Mountain Dreamer's book discusses these things in a more beautiful and poetic way. I'd recommend both books highly though.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant yet so straight forward
Review: This is an amazing book. The poem itself is fantastic - it just speaks to your inner most being, like a quiet friend asking you those life questions. Each chapter is introduced by a stanza in the poem and then the chapter itself is Oriah talking about her experiences with that particular question or idea. The writing style is simply wonderful, conversational, story style that just draws you in. I bought this book on a whim having only seen the poem once on a postcard and I thought it was nice. I had no idea how much the book and reading the stanzas in a slower way would touch me so much. I was reading along, la di da, thinking really nice book, lots of good "stuff" to ponder, la di da, and then I got to chapter "Hitting the Wall". The stanza that goes with this chapter reads like this: "I have heard enough warrior stories of heoric dancing, Tell me how you crumble when yoy hit the wall, the place where you cannot go beyond by the strength of your own will. What carries you to the other side of that wall, to the fragile beauty of your own humanness?" I've only "hit the wall" once before in my life - not to say that everything has been easy but I've always been able to see the glass half full and get on with things...until this one time. When I read these lines in the book it just touched me so much and her own stories that she provides throughout this book - they're just so honest and frank. There's a lot to think about in here. I haven't read Invitation or her others yet but plan to check them out. I've given this book away s gifts I liked it so much. Definitely recommended to anyone just doing a little introspection, looking to live the dance.

Rating:
Summary: Take my hand and dance with me...
Review: This was a beautiful book and I will have to agree even better then the Invitation. However, you don't have to read the invitation first to enjoy this book but if you haven't read the Invitation then you would be missing something as it also is a wonderful book. " Take my hand and dance with me " This book will truly change you, your perspective and you just don't want to miss this one!