The dance of my inner world.
If you have 15 mins, I invite you to join me on this ride in to my heart exploring the most interesting dance I’ve been learning - the dance of going within. Thanks for being here, friends.
Coming out.. again..
Hello online world - I’d like to weirdly reintroduce myself on here. (Why does this feel like a coming out, again?😅) As you can see, my online presence has only ever really been my dance work, sharing anything personal on here always felt a little weird and unnecessary to me and to be honest, most of my life was lived in this dance career bubble. To think of my life to be anything but dance 24/7 wasn’t ever really a thought. Although, in the past 4/5 years or so I have been on a wild ride exploring life, healing and consciousness that has transformed my experience of pretty much everything. Although there’s nothing new here to those I’ve interacted with in the physical world for the past few years, this process has been super personal and at times very fragile so it’s always felt a little strange to share about online and I wanted to be sure that if I start to open up more on here that it’s from a grounded and authentic place - not being another insta hippie channeling codes from the cosmos projecting his white spiritual privilege online, giving out advice and healing for £11.11million but doesn’t walk the talk or embody this reality (lol, ouch). I’m not offering anything right now but storytelling has been the driver of my whole artistic life and after reigniting my passion for writing I hope that sharing a little about my journey can serve as a warm cuddle for those walking the path that have felt or are feeling a little crazy or alone.
It’s difficult to put words to what I’ve been moving through in these years but I’ve been learning how to navigate a spiritual awakening. It’s a rollercoaster for sure - not all fun like you may assume especially how intensely it happened for me - feeling like my whole world had flipped upside down and suddenly uninterested and disconnected to the life I had, perceiving every part of it with what feels like completely new eyes and perspective. At first it was so beautiful but also overwhelming, chaotic & confusing - a dance of ecstacy and depression - I’ve slowly had to learn tools that I didn’t really have in place at first - feeling like a baby re-learning how to be in a world that just didn’t feel aligned to this new understanding of who and what I am. This awakening changes your whole world, seeing that what you were chasing isn’t going to do it for you anymore and all your beliefs start to fall away. Your reality seems like a weird video game that you’ve stepped out of for the first time and you’re speechless at how deluded you were. A real life ‘Truman Show’. I believe there’s many stages of this awakening but there’s no specific way or time that it initially happens, whether this life or another through the loss of a loved one, a hug, a psychedelic trip or giving birth, but a lot of times it is met with depression, confusion and thoughts of going crazy because I think that our society, that doesn’t acknowledge spirit, is not set up with the support for those going through it. Sometimes it’s subtle and gradual and sometimes you feel catapulted into a drastic life change - which can be traumatic in itself if not supported with care.
Silence and psychedelics…
Even though it is intense, there was something deep in my heart that felt at home and knew I was never going back so can only surrender to this new unknown. I searched for support from many communities and practices that have helped me understand what’s been happening within me. I took a deep dive into meditation, sitting in many silent meditation retreats and learning from eastern philosophers and yogis. I’ve spent time exploring Buddhist teachings and the transformational power of meditation. I did my yoga teacher training (which I now find hilarious that us westerners crammed a whole spiritual system with a lifetime of exploration into a 2 week course LOL) but having a pretty solid daily practice for a few years has been my main anchor. Yoga is so much more than the fitness we’ve turned it into. When you sit for 10 days in silence, no phone, no substances, no reading etc you meet yourself in ways that my words could never describe. After also working with pranayama and different breath work practices, training as a facilitator has been blowing my mind at what the breath can do for us.
I have reconnected with nature in a way that’s also blown my mind off (..literally). I moved out of the money spending loop hole of London, sold nearly everything I own and lived in a van around the UK for a year, sleeping in random places to connect with nature and travelling to work in my home on wheels. I became so passionate about learning from and connecting with our greatest teachers, the elements of nature. I’ve been learning how to process psychedelic medicine journeys with gradual maturity (Jesus, it takes time…) and finding my way to the South American jungles that I’ve been visiting on and off for a few years to learn from the indigenous cultures working with different medicines including the master plant teacher, ayahuasca. Years ago when I first worked with ayahuasca, which is called yagé in the tradition I’m learning in, it initially helped me to unravel and start to digest and heal such deep repressed childhood trauma. Since then I’ve been curious and devoted to this path, sitting in many ceremonies and plant dietas - learning from and honouring the traditions that hold this wisdom which for me have mainly been the Cofán (Colombia) and Shipibo (Peru). I’ve been meeting my trauma, sadness and pain that I’ve been unconsciously holding at such depths, but I see that my suffering has been grace that has led to compassion, love and humility. This indigenous medicine is an ancient spiritual technology that cannot be learnt from books and the more I do this work the more I feel like a humble beginner student which I pray to always be - it’s funny to even try and put language to what this medicine is capable of and how it’s changed my life - something so beyond anything our minds can understand. Hundreds of ceremonies and never the same experience. I feel very lucky to do the healing I’ve been able to access through these ancient modalities and indigenous wisdom keepers. To think of the heart breaking colonisation and destruction that happens from us westerners and the fact they still share their 1000s of years old wisdom with us has had me in genuine tears countless times. Deepening my connection to nature and the spirit world, I’ve been doing core shamanic and energy healing training whilst learning from my teachers in the jungle. I am a huge advocate for this deep soul work and look forward to sharing more about this journey soon.
Illusions and spiritual ego…
Walking this spiritual path I now see why it is known as the less travelled path - full of constant traps and tests. Yes, it has opened me into such a profound experience of love, joy and faith that I truly never thought was possible but after a lot of struggle to integrate such high experiences that blast you out of every single idea of reality you used to believe - I’ve also been moving through the enchanting attachments and illusions that altered spaces can create. I see the many initial phases we possibly need to move through such as pushing our agenda on others thinking the world NEEDS psychedelics, frustration at people not ‘awake’, running to my meditation as a form of escapism, holding ceremonial space before a good clearing of our own inner cobwebs, putting spiritual guides on unrealistic pedestals and the grand old trip of ‘the medicine is calling me to be a shaman’ - my own version of these felt innocent and from the heart but were not spiritually mature or wise. I’ve been hit hard with the reality of the path - the depression and fear that would arise when my high and awakened states don’t last, feeling like the mystical flirts with me and then blinds me in to forgetting. Even when we start the spiritual path, many of us just meet this newly discovered part of us with the same capitalist programming - doing a few ice baths or mushroom ceremonies and then suddenly offering ceremonies, coaching, courses, advice. Although coming from a good heart, a lot of us find the path because we desire healing, yet these wounds of wanting to feel special, seen and loved can subtly transfer to our spiritual pursuits and offerings. I’ve had to work through a lot of my own spiritual ego sh*t - trying to convince anyone that I’m even slightly ‘enlightened’ or thinking I know what someone needs instead of just creating a space for them to find their own wisdom has only created more inner traps and barriers to break through. I am accepting that these ‘illusions’ are just part of the process - there’s no need for shame - just an acceptance that we don’t really know anything, the veils going to keep being lifted in many ways so stop attaching to any idea of ‘truth’ and choosing to be quiet is probably a good option most of the time.
In the spiritual community, I see a lot of corruption - it’s definitely not all love and light. I notice this pattern of people going through an awakening journey or drinking lots of medicine but then getting to a point that the inner shadow work and embodiment in the physical reality stops and they drop into being of service too fast whilst they’re still in the psychedelic honeymoon phase or they start taking advantage of vulnerable people for power/money/sex, losing the deeper intention of this work and wearing their spirituality as just a new ego costume. A lack of wisdom, experience, humility, patience. That’s why I’ve had such hesitation to sharing this part of me or offering my services publicly because I am adamant to not fall into any of these traps and it takes time to notice these shadows in ourselves. Nevertheless, as the stories of who I think I am keep falling away and I subtly shift from wanting to be right and know things to just wanting to be free, nurturing the growth of this spiritual seed in my heart has become less of a thing I do and more of the soil of what and how I am in this world.
Embodiment and Integration…
I am now strongly committed to the art and wonder of integration. Especially when working with modalities like plant medicine and long silent meditations, what’s the point in all of this insight and enlightenment if it only becomes a memory that we talk about? After experiencing such profound states, in the past years I’ve spent a lot of my time doing inner work, meeting and re-wiring parts of myself, my beliefs and the mechanics of my mind I didn’t even know were unconsciously controlling my life. We have such busy lives ran by our mind computer and its coping mechanisms, which I have deep gratitude for, keeping me alive, protecting and serving me, but as we awaken we see we don’t necessarily need all these programs anymore and are distracting us from meeting the peace within. But forgetting the insight and falling back in to these habitual ways of being, which is a normal part of the process, has been difficult for me to manage and has been a process of acceptance as well as curiosity to what enlightenment/awakening actually is once I let go of the attachment to the high states. It took a while for me to understand that this path isn’t an attempt of making those enlightened states my common state. Ram Dass’s teachings deeply touch me and he once said you become more interested in your ‘lows’ rather than your ‘highs’ at some point because that’s where the work really is for freedom. So, I’ve been choosing to take the ‘Earth school’ curriculum and find the joys of this physical reality which starts with the vehicle of our spirit, the body. Although I believe now more than ever we need to be connecting to our spirituality, meeting our true nature and leading our life from our soul’s (which from personal experience isn’t some woo woo thing, it’s a process that happens when you walk the healing path authentically), this has to involve our body and this physical world. Awakening dissolves all labels we have put on this human experience and enlightenment is something to be lived here and now through the body, which is only ever in the present moment. Slowly healing my gut and learning to communicate with the body, I believe most of us are out of touch with the body’s intelligence and power of healing itself if we stopped instantly medicating to suppress and instead heard the body’s messages and signals. The more spiritual I get, the more my daily practice is back to the body’s basics - eating well, drinking enough water and getting my daily doses of friendship, nature and sunshine.
Although it’s always fluctuating, I do feel much more settled in the present and grounded in my spirituality. The beauty and impermanence of every moment. Less grabbing or clinging to these expanded states or pushing away my beautiful, simple & mundane humanity and mind. The more I learn (which leads to actually knowing less), the more my devotion is to the awareness that rests behind it all, the freedom I believe the medicines and ancient traditions are pointing us to. At times it feels like my life is completely falling apart yet within & behind the clouds, I know every moment of my life is a perfect gift to hold sacredly with gratitude. As I see my experience reflected in the constant cycles in nature of death and life and light and dark, I have a peaceful surrendering and faith in life that makes me laugh when my mind still convinces me that it’s not all as it should be in this moment. Genuine awakening involves honouring where I’m truthfully at which includes my times of disconnection, reactivity and lack of faith. Accepting and allowing every level of my consciousness, my habits and my desires instead of shaming them like I used to because at the end of the day, it’s ALL God. After being in hundreds of medicine circles and witnessing huge expansion and healing followed by the fear and difficulty of dropping back into the habitual, reactive ways - I feel that my own experience of this has created such compassion in my heart and a passion to support others with this and even though I’ve been doing it for a while, I look forward to offering ‘official’ integration support when I complete my training in a few months.
Privilege and pausing …
After attending an 11-year-old’s funeral recently, it shone a bright light on my own privilege and the illusions of even having a spiritual path. Death can really be a catalyst to wake you up to being present and nothing else. The fact that most of us have the privilege of not being in constant survival mode, in poverty or at war and have the conditions in life to ‘work on ourselves’ puts us in probably the top 5% of the world’s privilege (don’t quote me). Trying to navigate this is something I’m always battling with. Guilt, acceptance, inaction, doubt. Accepting the conditions that my life has had whilst also feeling such ridiculousness about my suffering around my healing and spiritual growth when there’s people the other side of the world literally counting down seconds until they are killed. We are heartbroken at suffering and then suddenly back to worrying about who is watching our Instagram story. We sometimes escape to our spiritual practices as a distraction without any action towards the suffering in the world. Doing the ‘work’ can inflate the selfish ego even more. We are in an information and knowledge overload culture that to ‘listen to your own intuition’ feels impossible and choosing to rest is wasting time. Every day there’s new and contradicting advice about our health. Self care is becoming an addition to our stressful to do list rather than actual care. Our attention span is minimal and sugar intake maximum. We are literally addicted to watching other peoples fake presentation of their lives. AI is alive and we have no idea what is real anymore. We are documenting our lives rather than living them. It’s all very confusing. But because of this privilege of getting to explore our inner worlds, I trust that there’s many of us that are waking up from what we’ve been taught about life and know that walking this path is exactly where we are meant to be and choosing to take the journey within is not selfish, it’s necessary. It can sometimes feel difficult and lonely but when the awareness starts to get more spacious and we meet the spaces between the thoughts - there really is no escaping these new eyes. And we must do this together as an offering to ALL beings. Freedom is not individual, we cannot own it - it’s universal and it is shared, and it’s my mission to constantly reveal it within myself and let that be my guide to service. Instead of aiming to change the world, let’s just start within ourselves and see what blossoms from there. We make things so complex. Yes we can heal our traumas and practice meditation but in reality, we could be gone tomorrow. So let’s practice waking up and choosing love and monitoring our daily success in amount of presence instead of productivity. We know absolutely nothing, the mystery is not something to be figured out - it’s an opportunity to remember that we ARE the mystery and our best way to know it and serve it is to live this weird thing called life as authentically as possible in each moment, whatever that may look like. I saw that even seeking enlightenment as a state far away distracts us from the present moment which is where enlightenment, our inherent state, really is.
My life has completely changed in so many ways whilst still feeling like it’s the same old Ricky in here. I’m trying to move slowly and know that a simple life is a great life. For the past 8 months I’ve been mainly in the jungles of South & Central America, healing and learning. Purifying and shedding. Sitting quietly listening and being of service, living in community, volunteering and work exchanging, crying a lot, fasting, singing around fires and surrounding myself with a vast range of people in culture, age & experience - opening my eyes to life more & more especially being around elders that have walked this path and compassionately keep me accountable as I move through some hardcore initiations. I’ve spent a lot of time in isolation, meeting and learning to love the vast experience of being human. I’m slowly breaking down certain patterns of my society that are embedded in us of needing to achieve, succeed, have a plan and to do list or to be somebody special. Being a teacher and role model from literally age 11 requires a lot of shadow work when you realise having a deep sense of self is not supportive to being truly free. I’ve been learning the simplicity of just Being, not needing to do - just aligning to the natural flow of God and life. Literally remembering and realigning to what I feel is all of our truest nature.
Taking a pause in my dance life scared me which is why I knew it was necessary, I achieved a ‘dream’ and after it feeling empty I wanted to take some steps back from the industry and see when what has been my whole life is not there anymore, who am I? After healing many wounds that I was trying to solve through a good career, is it something I still want to do? After a hella crisis of questioning, I realise dance is a huge part of me and is my most authentic expression of my soul (phew!)- so there’s just been gradual changes in my teaching, facilitation and work pursuits because of the inner shift in purpose. I have been giving space for my new intentions to weave in to my movement over the past few years and not fear the questions and doubt that were coming up about it. I had such resistance in showing up in this new way to the ever-changing fast paced dance world, but the more I show up authentically the more I seem to draw in the dancers that are craving this inner connection. I am now finding much more joy in supporting the community and dancer’s on their journey with more mindfulness rather than focusing on my previous goals that were rooted in individual success. The dance sessions I’ve had in the past few years have filled me with more love than I’ve ever felt before and I feel super inspired to create and share again.
What now?…
Even though my training has been around mindfulness, coaching, ceremonial/energy work - I don’t want to add to the already over saturated world of healing consumerism that is only making people even more confused as to what they need or who to trust. The amount of spiritual courses/retreats/coaches promising unrealistic outcomes is ridiculous, I think it’s creating power and pedestal dynamics that is pulling us away from the fact that ultimately, we can only heal ourselves. Nevertheless, I do feel guided to stop being so in the shadows about my journey, so without rushing I’m listening to what feels right for me moment to moment. As I nurture the qualities of love and presence, what I have learnt is that we are not alone, this process of awakening to who we truly are is absolutely universal and the more we can support each other in community, the easier it is to navigate. Whenever we feel it’s time to step out of our ego-driven lives, we see there’s actually many beautiful people walking right beside us, smiling at our returning to what we’ve always been. Healing is collective. Yes we are beautifully unique, but we don’t need to strive to be special - when we start to unravel this belief of separation and competition and instead honour our interconnectedness and the fact each one of us is a unique manifestation of the One, our service that’s in harmony with the universe starts to arise. One thing that I trust is that we must quiet our minds and follow our hearts. Be so deeply in love with this life. The true task of spiritual life doesn’t have to be expensive flights away, in wild altered states or something you do when you ‘find the time’, it’s right here, in the present moment, honouring the truth of what’s arising with acceptance - the beauty, the fear, the injustice, the confusion - though much more difficult, I trust this is the way to freedom and that there’s been thousands before us taking this pilgrimage home. It’s available to everyone and is our human right to access it.
I think that the idea of ‘finding yourself’ is a myth that convinces us to search for something outside of us - you actually just peel away the ideas of who you are and slowly reveal the beauty of the mystery inside. There’s nothing to find because it’s all already here. I feel like I’m purging away all the spiritual belief systems I’ve been exploring, dismantling all these systems and my attachments to them - and as I meet the mystery that is under it all, it feels like emptiness. After constant deaths of identity and ego, I’m learning to surrender to the truth of my impermanent nature with less fear whilst also witnessing the mind’s desire of clinging to form screaming ‘what the f*ck are you doing?!’ So hello, I’m Ricky, same old dancing obsessed guy here with all the ego and habits of being human - just choosing to build new relationships with it all and finally accepting that my life is going to look very different to how I imagined it 5 years ago. I feel like my soul is starting to drive my car and it’s time I quit resisting it. Yes, I love sharing dance and the beauty of movement, but I am embracing all the passions of my heart which also include my love of spirituality, nature, coaching others towards their true self, breathwork, music and working with spirits and the invisible beings/realms. I’m done with the story of fitting into one box or things I ‘should’ do and choose to give myself to the university of life and the path of love. It felt nice to put some words to the past few years that I hope gives you a reminder that you’re not alone and I look forward to sharing more with you. I want my online space to be a more truthful reflection of who I am. I’m treading through the mud like a lot of us so may we find the joy in walking, falling and sharing about it together. We’re all just walking each other home - and I hope to be someone in the world that is able to help point the way, as a reminder for myself. Teach what you need to learn, they say.
Feel free to reach out if you got this far and something resonates. Much love and blessings to you all. May all beings be free and at peace. Aho 🙏❤️
Ricky x
‘The freer I get, the higher I go,
The higher I go, the more I see,
The more I see, the less I know,
The less I know, the more I’m free’
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