Belly Dancing, like all dancing, is a deeply spiritual experience. It’s one of the fastest ways to unite with the divine, and to become aware of your inner space. When you dance, and you truly let go of your inhibitions, the barriers between mind, body and spirit can disintegrate. Femininity and spirituality become one.
In the Middle East, Belly Dancing originated as exercises for pregnant women to prepare them for childbirth. The dancing took place away from men, and was performed by women for each other. At certain phases of a woman’s life, menstruation, wedding, birth and death, women would join together and dance to honour the occasion.
Belly Dancing is perfectly suited to the female body, and its’ roots are firmly lodged in fertility and birth rituals all over the world. In ancient societies people lived close to each other and in harmony with nature, very differently to the way most live today. These people were ritualistic and many of these rituals were performed through dance, they were major social events that united the community. Although we know dance was a form of prayer and emotional expression, to these people it was an important magical practice. Men and women would dance to try to understand the mysteries of life and nature, and most importantly, birth and death. Fertility was a matter of survival for these cultures, and because of this, women often held key social positions, as they held the key to staying alive.
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