Rosina-Fawzia al-Rawi - Grandmothers Secrets: The Ancient Rituals and Healing Power of Belly Dancing

This edition first published 2012 by

INTERLINK BOOKS

An imprint of Interlink Publishing Group, Inc.

46 Crosby Street Northampton, Massachusetts 01060

Copyright Promedia Druck-und Verlagsgesellschaft m.b.H, 1996, 1999, 2003, 2012

Translation copyright Monique Arav, 1999, 2003, 2012

English edition coyright Interlink Publishing, 1999, 2003, 2012

Originally published in German as Der Ruf der Gromutter by Promedia, Vienna

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Al-Rawi, Rosina-Fawzia B.

[Der Ruf der Gromutter. English]

Grandmothers secrets : the ancient rituals and healing power of belly dancing / by Rosina-Fawzia Al-Rawi : translated by Monique Arav.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. )

ISBN 1-56656-302-X (hardcover). ISBN 1-56656-326-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Belly dance History. 2. Belly dance. 3. Belly dance Social aspects. 4. Al-Rawi, Rosina-Fawzia B. I. Title.

GV1798.5.A5 1999

793.3 dc21

98-38638

CIP

Printed and bound in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5

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A woman is the guardian and hostess of the earth. As the bearer of life, she stands closest to birth and death, thus closest to life and to the earth. This linking, life itself, is a womans true space.

W riting a book on Oriental dance begs the question of where to begin. So many of my own memories are woven into this dance form that I need to go back to my childhood to form a full picture. This ancient dance form has long become a way of life for me, a symbol of my life consciousness. Much of what I have seen and experienced in my life has flowed into dancing. Dancing has been and remains a true companion through all the phases of my life. Everything I have lived and experienced as a young girl, a woman, and a mother sings through dancing. All the people, and especially the women, who have ever influenced me are brought back to my memory through dancing. The dance grows with me, while I grow as a human being and a woman. Every time my body calls me and nostalgia becomes overwhelming, I dance in that very instant, that intense moment of being. Each moment is different and each dance more whole than the previous one.

Belly dancing is an art and as such it entails three factors: theory, practice and the heart, without which no art form ever comes to life. This book is especially devoted to the first and third aspects of dancing, as they are often either neglected or totally ignored. As for the practice of belly dancing, it is shaped by each womans personality, her intuition and creativity, the teacher being none other than life itself.

Casting a historical light on Oriental dance, I would also like to show how these movements, which have been passed on for centuries, affect individual parts of the body and the whole psyche. I want to explain their deep spiritual meaning and the purpose and healing effect of each of them.

One might object that belly dancing originates in a culture which is foreign to the West and therefore unsuited to Western women, yet this is precisely what makes it an even more enriching experience, apart from the fact that it is perfectly suited to the female body. By experiencing unfamiliar movements, a woman can allow her body to break through cultural norms. Learning this type of dance means learning new body wisdom and rituals, so that the dancer becomes physically aware of her culturally acquired conditioning, repression, and blockages. New worlds of awareness become accessible, releasing memories stored in the body and a joyful physicality that in turn leads to a less rigid way of life. Amid the jungle of confusing womens images, belly dancing can help women in the search for their own identity, as women and as human beings. It can pave the way for a process of self-awareness that helps them acknowledge and defend their own needs and wishes, regardless of sexual determination and the allocation of roles.

As I have suggested, the story of ones life as it is written into the body can be retold and understood in the intense moment of dancing. Thus belly dancing becomes a source of inspiration, a means of collecting and strengthening oneself, and a clear and dynamic way of discovering ones wishes and understanding oneself, no matter how insecure and doubtful the future may be.

Belly dancing teaches you an attitude: a new way to open yourself, far beyond blind imitation. It is a source of courage and inspiration that provides an opportunity to discover oneself on a deeper level. It is meant as a way to enjoy and a way to understand, and this all depends upon how it is learned and why.

This book is designed as a guide on the way to yourself, to new viewpoints and new conceptions of life, and to a deeper understanding of dancing. Its aim is to inspire you with new ways of self-awareness and bring you closer to your own body. Last but not least, it is intended as a bridge towards greater understanding and respect for women who come from other cultures.

This is how this book, originally meant to be much more specific, grew into the multicolored carpet on which belly dancing is performed.

When you read these stories, you may wonder how they relate to belly dancing. All these experiences are the threads which were woven into the carpet on which my grandmother let me dance for the first time. And she used all these experiences and thoughts to shape me into the dance, into my existence as a human being and a woman.

Since belly dancing mainly consists of circles, I shall start with a round dance, a circle of stories twinkling like a myriad of tiny stars filling up the great circle...

W hen I look back on my childhood, four characters catch my inner eye: my grandmother, my grandfather, and the two pillars of my childhood: Adiba and Amina.

We lived in a large two-story house in Baghdad, near the river Tigris. On the ground floor, a large corridor opened into rooms on the right and left, where my parents, my great-uncle, and I had our bedrooms. A huge common room, two storage rooms for food and other mysterious things, a guest room, a laundry room, and the kitchen completed the ground floor. My grandparents slept on the first floor, where my aunt, her husband and daughter, as well as my younger uncle and Adiba, one of my grandmothers cousins, all had their bedrooms. The official reception rooms were entered from a separate outer staircase, and whenever the sexes needed to be apart, the corridor was divided by a partition. Our common room stood at the center, and could be accessed from all bedrooms.