Regular versus irregular…Confessions, lots of excuses and some insights to the work!

Blog 12/5/2025

It is Sunday, yes one day before the blog day and I have decided to start writing at 15:51 on this sunny afternoon. And yes, last week there was no blog. And I will of course confess why I wasn’t able to write. I have partly done so to one of my readers, who I happened to meet at yesterday’s Dance Improvisation Open class at Limpid Works. (She is beautiful, brazilian and her name is Rosane), and she in her enchanting singing voice told me gently and politely that she is following my blog every week, and somehow couldn’t find last week’s blog 🙂 I of course apologized and gave about 10 excuses why I hadn’t and even said that I will explain in the next blog why I hadn’t. 

And she covered me in loving compliments about the blog. I was enchanted to know that she enjoyed the music, and that she went on searching about the composers, even went to a concert of one of them after reading about them… that she feels like doors opening to many different worlds, when she is reading the blog. I am very happy that she has a good time with all this. (Besides reading my blogs, she is actually part of the last cycle of the Somatic Dialogue Facilitator Training, and she is currently doing her apprenticeship and soon will be part of the Somatic Dialogue facilitators, just as all the other 11 facilitators-to-be 💙)

Confession time

Nearly every morning for about 15 minutes, while sipping my morning tea, I read the Confessions of Saint-Augustine. And believe me it is not because I am copying him, but because I felt so guilty last week when I couldn’t keep my word and write the blog. Already the week before I had a delay due to the hangover… but last week I was actually too tired, and also pleasantly empty and full at the same time. I had the need for deep reflection. Therefore I promised to confess at least why I haven’t been able to write.

Regular vs irregular

I am the sort of creature that does everything in their power to keep regularity. I have a reputation of being disciplined. However I am not disciplined because I identify as being disciplined. I simply do and repeat my actions because I want to. I am regular because the regular rhythm gives me safety and depth, and makes me present in everyday life. However, all my dreams and fantasies are about being irregular. I love irregularities, I love surprises, sudden changes. I love the irregularity of nature.

When irregularity happens, there is space for reflection and for other things. Such as a fantastic glass of wine and a luscious smoke of tobacco in the evening breeze of the garden, and thoughts that wash you over like an unexpected wave.

I may come back to the regular and irregular, as it inspires me to tell you about the Turkish rhythms and music, which is a combination of improvisation and composition 🙂 But now let me come back to the confession.

A letter to an unborn book

Dear book, 

Dear manual, 

Dear so-called manual 

Dear textbook, 

I know I have not been writing much into your belly nor onto your pages. 

I have not taken you out of my mind, have not found the right words and put them down so that you can take shape. 

I know it’s been a month that I have not really written or worked on you, on your development, on your coming to life, but there are other things in life too. 

I needed to nurture myself. Also take a rest from all the work and listen to what is going on inside of me and in this world where writing becomes very easy. But be patient, dear book-to-be, I will find my regular rhythm again. I feel it is building up inside. I just need to dive into my sources again. Be sure that I am retrieving and redefining my experiences so that I can shape you truly.

A better version of myself - writing becomes easy

You write something, then can give it to artificial intelligence and have it transformed as you wish. It’s magic, you can have it as you like it: a textbook, a romance or anything else. Whatever style, whatever tone, emotional, intellectual, powerful… you name it and artificial intelligence does it for you. 

Yes, apparently a better version of myself for sure, but why? What is a better version of myself in written form if I cannot live up to it, if those words don’t really come out from my belly, or from my deepest of experiences, if they haven’t been distilled through layers of contemplation about what I have seen what I have lived what I have experienced… and if this experience has not found the word that carries the emotional intelligence and lived information in it? Why should my words be a better version? Shouldn’t they reflect all my imperfections and not-yet-matured-thoughts too? 

The past weeks have not been a better version of myself

Well, that’s why I somehow was reluctant to write because I figured out that in the last month I have been going away from my sources, my sources of creation. Of course I am working, dancing, and accompanying others. I am always amazed by the paths that unfold in people who work with me through Somatic Dialogue. It is a bliss each time to see how the “soul”, the life unfolds within the movement, how it really nestles into the bodily structures and opens windows through which one can see the “light” of that person. It is magical. Now I am starting to taste this magic again, and I feel the creative life awakening in me.

The body blossoms, the connection happens: the insight

And now comes the confession: last week I had the honour to work with a closed group of very deep and mature women, together with two of my colleagues: Esra and Güneş. We created this workshop together in which we take the participants through a journey from the body, to memory, from memory to thought, from experience to speech, from speech to dance. The magic happened, and the bodies blossomed, each one in their time, in their subjective and sincere way. And as they blossomed, as they cracked open keeping their fragility, I dived into the perception of how their movements were changing the whole space. The invisible made itself heard, the intangible caressed the skins, the inaudible whispered into our ears, the unknown became familiar to the bone. I felt my spirit approaching the sources.

But I was tired, and on Monday evening fell, and I hadn’t written the blog. I felt I had to, and then I dropped it. Irregularity won!

Sunday gives up and Monday takes over!

It is Monday now! And I am determined to finish the blog today. So as promised I will come back to mentioning something about Turkish music, which has inspired me deeply in my research in dance. One of the most attractive structures in Turkish classical, traditional and also spiritual music, is the Taksim, the improvisation. Whatever the composition may be, which period it may have been composed, whenever this composition is played there will be a space for improvisation, either in the beginning of the composition or in the middle of the composition. With this the interpreters bridge the composition to the moment, especially when they are playing a historical piece they bridge it to the contemporary time through their improvisation. Also they go from a form into the subjective intimate world. That is from the outside to the inside and then again out. The taksim in the beginning of the composition prepares the listener to the composition, by making them tune into the makam (key) of the composition. And the taksim in the middle of the composition creates a space for taking the listener to the musician's inner world, where one can listen to how the musician is playing with the makam of the composition. There are truly extraordinary musicians who are masters of taksim. 

Some music that can reflect my state of beings in this past week

It has been a while since I have last shared some music with you dear reader. So today I have chosen two not so usual musicians of the Turkish music scene. I have had the pleasure of letting these pieces move my body many times in the past. One is in a regular rhythm mainly and the second one in the irregular rhythm. Let’s see how you feel about them.

Burhan Öçal & Jamaaledeen Tacuma

https://open.spotify.com/track/1Y1OUHPISRmPu9aAnVt9o5?si=531eb811041b450b

Sumru Ağıryürüyen

https://open.spotify.com/track/1tn5kMIvpBswsWRLiGWlfb?si=79f0e3ed4e664e19

And to finish

Having talked about the art of taksim I have to finish this blog with yet another great musician, and a dear friend. Derya Türkan. He, amongst many others who I had the honour to listen to and learn from, belongs to the true artists of the art of taksim. Listening to him makes one humble and makes me connect to my source. And in this video below you see him with the amazing Renaud García-Fons.

Let us give more space in our lives to improvisation, in order to be more present in every moment.

Enjoy the pieces and stay in love,

As Love must B

Derya Türkan and Renaud García-Fons

Derya Türkan, Istanbul Kemençesi

https://open.spotify.com/album/1f46fbbkIdJaBQ5jtTD5QE?si=PwD3OKJBQO2lQCRk1I9GyA