A "pavan of provocation and perturbation" is the best way for me to describe the Applied Healing Arts (AHA) program at Tai Sophia Institute. It has, in fact, been a slow, steady dance to stimulate heart and mind and to bring to the surface stories that have outgrown their usefulness.

In Acupuncture symbology it could be seen as a "needle;" in Re-evaluation Counseling terminology, a "contradiction." Both needle and contradiction allow one to make room for the larger-minded story, the story that no longer requires one's woundedness to stand central to the tale. Once room is made for acknowledgment, that wounding can then take its rightful place as a symbol of one's learning and growth, honored for the role it has played in the shift toward both remembering and living the bigger view.

This Project of Excellence is intended to reflect what I consider to be the best and deepest means of moving from wounds to wings so that the bigger view can take center stage.

What is the bigger view then? Always it is the open hand / open heart in service to Life that views everything - every experience, every joy, every pain - as a call to remember ourselves in the fullness of who and what we are: manifest creativity, an expression of the One remembering Itself.

In telling our stories from the largest place possible, in healing our way into the Authentic Self, and in using our body's messages as tools for spiritual transformation, we partner with Life in the dance of creation. Life itself IS the perturbation, the elegant pavan continually holding out its hand in invitation to "dance the being" and "be the dancing." And so it is. Amen.