Rosane Gibson (Hozuhni)
This book contains inspirational insights gleaned from Hozuhni’s varied world experiences (she is an international Flight Attendant for American Airlines) about applying the powers of awareness and positive intention to the stress and challenges of modern life, along with practical instructions for using the ancient art of exotic “belly dance” for creative transformation of body, mind and spirit. It includes step-by-step instructions, enlightening interpretations, and many delightful illustrations. Particularly unique are the author’s correlations of esoteric systems such as the energy charkas and the Chinese placement art of Feng Shui with expressive dance.
Hozuhni succeeds in rendering such transcendent experiences as enlightenment, ecstasy, and bliss accessible through her deep understanding of the spiritual power of solo dance. Readers will undoubtedly appreciate the book’s progressive synthesis of the personal and universal, old and new, and East and West in this ancient but evolving and increasingly popular moving art-form.
I was born to the rhythms of Samba. In Brazil everyone dances!
Music always fascinated me. I grew up watching my aunty Regina dancing. She was so full of energy!
My family was huge: I had 13 cousins, 6 uncles, my mother Stella, my sister Eliane, and aunty Regina. We used to gather at my grandmother’s big house for every celebration. I remember our Christmas gatherings where I would always get my cousins and sister involved in an artistic project. One day I made everyone act in a theater play that I had written. We made up costumes with curtains and sheet pieces from my grandma''s closet. The play ended up with carnival dancing! Aunty Regina always danced with me and I wanted to be like her. My mother used to dress me up in dance costumes for the Brazilian Carnival parties, and I loved it! I became Ballerina, Carmen Miranda, Hawaiian Girl, and “Baiana”.
I remember dancing around my living room at the age of three. My mother enrolled me in ballet classes when I was just five. When I was eleven, I was dancing in point shoes and dreaming of becoming a famous ballerina. My ballet teacher introduced me to several creative routines fusing Jazz and modern dance. I was really fascinated by the Belly Dance number she once created! I danced with veils and dressed like a harem princess!
I wanted to do more of that dance, but it was just a single performance. How enchanting, and how sad that I would not be able to do it again (at least for a long time)!
My mother took me out of the dance classes when we had financial difficulties and she could not afford them. She didn’t know how hard this impacted me! I promised myself that one day, somehow, I would be a famous ballerina and would travel the whole world sharing my dance.
Time went by, I grew up, I married and I had kids. Like many of us, my dream of becoming a ballerina was overshadowed by my busy life. It was only when I got divorced that my life unfolded into a path of self-discovery and healing. I got involved in mind, body and spirit philosophies. I read many books in psychology, self-improvement and ecology.
I could never get used to the uncaring violence and chaos in the world. I always thought somebody had to do something to change it, so I took initiatives by participating in movements for peace and coordinating environmental projects. I wanted a better world for my sons and their friends! In between parenting and going to College, I studied theater and poetry, and had weekly therapy sessions for over two years. I worked at Varig Brazilian Airlines and then British Airways at the Rio de Janeiro Airport for several years. The jobs in aviation made me a student of human emotions, watching so many travelers: happy to go somewhere, sad about leaving a loved one, angry because of the delays, fearful of flying or feeling compassionate towards someone else; a lot of deep emotions!
I have always been fascinated with airplanes and travel. I love to pack and go! I love to meet new people and to be able to be on the other side of the Planet in just few hours. I also love to see different cultures and learn from them. But what mostly fascinates me is flying. The fluffy shapes of the clouds, the rainbows, the stars and even the turbulence on the airplane reminds me of a dance in the sky! So, I became a Flight Attendant.
One day I went to the doctor because I was feeling back pain and he said to me that all I needed was to exercise. I told him I hated to exercise and that nothing really appealed to me but to dance. So, he said, dance every day! Do it! This is your exercise; take it seriously!
In 1995, I left Brazil and lived in England for two years. I made many friends in the paradise-like Isle of Wight where I had the opportunity to start teaching the dance that I would later call "Enlightenment Dance." My classes were held in St Thomas''s, a Victorian Gothic church in Newport. It was so spiritual to hear the bells in the 138-foot tower ringing at the start of our dance sessions! I remember when I drove my bicycle around the Island hanging up class flyers at the stores and making friends with the locals. Those classes became very popular on this English island and my flyers attracted several enlightened students. Among these, Angela Renton and Anna Baildon became close friends. I found out that by teaching dance I was connecting to the Brazilian part of me that was starving for the fun and spontaneous dance I used to see everywhere in my home country.
A year later I had to move to America, and we were all very sad because we thought those fun dance classes were coming to an end. But that was not an end; it was just the beginning of an enlightening journey! I encouraged Angela to keep teaching the classes and so she did! In my small house at Newport, I taught Angela everything I knew and she took notes and recorded videos. From there we parted, but remained in close contact. My little dance school still blooms on English soil! Angela established a spiritual approach to manage the funding of the classes. The money collected is kept in a savings account for the benefit of the group. They use it to buy costumes, to pay for teachers to come and present workshops, or for any performance needs. Every now and then I go back and teach and share new discoveries of Enlightenment Dance, and feel inspired by the feedback I get from my sisters there!
Enlightenment Dance really came into existence after the drastic events of September 11,th 2001. Working as a Flight Attendant for American Airlines, I was based in New York City at the time and I felt like I was seeing terrorism too up-close. It was really not fun, and I decided that I wanted to stop flying. This decision killed me inside, because flying was what I loved! By flying I connect with the world, I expand my dancing horizons by meeting other dancers, learning and teaching in the cities that I visit. I would take people to their destinations, and would have access to the world!
The Company offered leave of absence, and I was grounded for six months. During this time, I was able to transmute my fear by elaborating the concepts and definitions of my Enlightenment Dance Company. I made the web page and started this book. In this process the Flight Attendant Dance Choreography creatively came to my mind. By depicting events in flight, and the airliner environment, I was both dancing and healing myself and others. Much of this book was written while I was literally miles high in the sky, flying at hundreds of miles per hour, so I have shared flight information with you at the ends of those sections.
The first title of this book was “Inner Ecology,” because I switched my attention from environmental health to the inner path of self-discovery and healing. I figured out that the world is like a big engine and the only way to fix it up is by fixing ourselves first. Here I am, writing on the plane at 35 thousand feet, with my laptop wirelessly connected to the world. It is fascinating, isn’t it?
As my scientist friend Harold Cober says, wireless connection is the first step before telepathic communications. I hope you will be able to receive my telepathic inputs from these pages, like a wireless connection, heart to heart! Consume it, then re-think your life, and dance! The message within has helped me discover enlightenment, and it will help you too!
May the world be in Bliss!
With love, Hozuhni (pronounced Ho-zah-ni)
