Field Notes for Ah-kine - Arkestra Inspired

The other night I went to see Sun Ra’s Arkestra in a performance to celebrate the 100th centenary of his arrival on our planet.  If you don’t know Sun Ra then he was a jazz musician who claimed to have come here from Saturn.  He blended sci-fi imagery with ancient black culture and is widely credited with founding Afro-futurism. 

If you’ve never seen the Arkestra they are quite incredible.  They come out dressed in vibrant colours, sparkling with sequins.  They get up and dance around whilst they play and they give an incredible night (they had projected star maps all around the hall so it was like we were sat in the stars).

I’ve been pondering the question of what it means to be Ah-Kine and it struck me that the Arkestra were really embodying so many principles of it.  So here’s some musings from me, inspired by the Sun Ra Arkestra.

Commitment

Whatever you are doing, do it with your whole heart and body.  Spend time getting good at what you do, and share it with the world fully.  Open hearted commitment creates an energy that carries you along and buoys up others as well.

Colour and celebration

Celebrate!  Look for the vibrancy in life and search for the ways you can bring that into being and share it with all around you.  Make life full of colour and light.  Again, it creates an energy that carries us all forward.

Community

Spend time with those you love and whose mission is aligned with your own.  Learn how to listen to one another on a very deep level so that many levels of communication are open.  Practice an open-hearted and expansive response to people.  This exponentially increases the possibilities for co-creation, and frees the way for a spontaneity that can be liberating.

 Fun

Don’t forget to have FUN.  Dance, laugh, do crazy stuff just because it’s fun.  This is great care of the heart and strengthens us to stand stronger in our selves and meet our challenges with grace and humour.  Lightening things up allows everything to flow.  Things move through us and we don’t get in the way as much.

Overlapping time and space      

Draw from the past and envision the future.  They’re a continuum – don’t split them off! Merge the outer reaches of space with the wooded valley just down the road.  Let it all come together in your dreaming self as a fertile place to act from – right now!

Use your imagination

Let your imagination dream up all manner of wonders.  Don’t dismiss an impulse. Nurture it to see what it is saying.  Let it inspire you to expansiveness. Be creative.

Be flexible

Have a road map but be prepared to veer off it at any time.  The map gives you the grounding so that if you need to improvise you can do so with centredness.  Follow those impulses, try new ways of doing things, look with fresh eyes.

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