People: Ashley Mclellan
Name: Ashley Mclellan (she/her)
Location: Naarm/Melbourne, Land of the Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation
Occupation/ Business: Contemporary dancer, choreographer, and teacher
Who makes up your family? Edan my Son, my parents Maricar and Derek, my two older brothers Evan and Iain, my sister in law Olivia and niece Remi
What core principles / values inform your practice? Truth, Connection and Balance
What are you currently working on? I’m building community where I’ve recently moved to, on Boon Wurrung country. I’m taking care to become an ancestor I would be proud of. Decolonising my mind and lifestyle.
I’m appreciating each day for the magic that it offers.
It feels impossible to separate the everyday, from my creative practice. For me it is all the same and integrity in everything that I do is important.
If movement is my interest, and if all the manifest world is in movement, then it really doesn’t end or begin.
I’ve been greatly influenced and guided by the great wisdom practices of the world (The Tao, The Vedas, Buddhism and my Filipino Anscestry) over the years such principals have naturally infused into my performance, improvisation, making and teaching practices.
First I will sit with what is, if no resistance arises I will draw the mind through layers of consciousness to bathe in the Absolute (thank you Vedic meditation) Then I will come back to the manifest world, listen to what needs to be heard and surrender/tend to that. I’m using this for choreographing, Mothering, everyday life and for teaching. For everything.
This sequencing allows me to still honour my own body and inner voice without being pulled only by the traditions I so love.
The balance is delicate.
So I suppose creatively, I prefer to place more attention on tending to the soil of creation than attempting to over-construct the blossoming. Therefore it feels the ‘making’ is less of my doing. Through the ego but not of the ego. Through form but not of form.
What daily practices or rituals connect you with your centre? Honestly, there are zillions, and the day flows seamlessly through each. I really have a lot of fun with this, listening in for which one is needed in each moment. I love the spontaneous moment so much!
Sometimes it’s as simple as feeling into the body and asking, ‘what is needed?’.
I also practice Vedic meditation, Yoga asana, pranayama, and dance. I’ve learnt that it’s balancing for me to continually bring attention back to body, to the tissues, bone and to the earth under my feet.
What does community mean to you? Connection and wholeness. Interdependence. Giving and receiving
How does community care and self-care intersect for you? In the Philippines there is the word ‘Kapwa’. It means that the community is taken to be the self - or put differently, ‘the unity of self and others’.
I feel this to be so real, as a half Filipino Woman. Self care and self compassion are incredibly powerful and as it deepens and grows, so too does it grow in the external. This is where it intersects. I owe my community my own inner work and it’s perhaps the greatest gift I can offer.
It also works on the flip. As I show up for community I show up for myself. Circular ways of living are re connected.
How has motherhood/ parenthood impacted or shaped your identity? Becoming a Mother has required of me to let go of so many things. To grieve them fully and to welcome the transformation.
Maitrescence has been a wild act of surrender each day. Purging out the old and bringing in the new. It’s been deeply messy and equally as expansive.
In terms of identity I would say that I identify more as ‘the whole’ than ever before. It’s been a huge heart bursting expansion and my global compassion is through the roof! I can feel that my role in society is changing too, right now my one year old needs me the most - but the cogs are moving and many perspectives have changed over the past year... so, we will see..
What is something you're proud of? Most recently I would say I’m proud of my increasing ability to receive. It now feels like my responsibility to my Son in particular. It’s too obvious that when I am feeling full and supported, I become a healthy, loving environment for him to flourish and unfold in. So I now receive whole heartedly.
This past month I moved into the home of my brother, his wife and their daughter. I was invited to create a small village with them and it’s the best decision we could have made. Incredibly grateful for their offer. I’m solo parenting and so it’s been a true game changer on many levels.
For me it is an act of decolonisation. This too I am proud of.
My cup is full when…I am deeply present, in non resistance and intimacy with the moment
I am grateful for.. My Son Edan a thousand times over.
A piece of advice I’d share with my younger self..I would say, ‘Dear precious angel, don’t be afraid to feel into the rawness of any arising sensation. Celebrate the highs, as well as the lows. Celebrate all the nuance in between and push nothing away. For you this life is extremely colourful, textured and vast. There’s no way out but through, so don’t miss out on a single millimetre of it, if you can help it.’
Where can we find you (website, IG etc.)? On instagram @ashley.marie.mclellan
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Lastly, please use the space below to share with us something that comes to mind – a poem, a drawing, a thought, a story, a book you’re reading – whatever you are sitting with right now.
Dr David Frawley once said in an interview, ‘Your attention is the single most valuable thing you have, don’t give it away for nothing’. This has stuck with me for many years Aspirations of Mind Mastery. And then another line/translation from The Vedas that follows this nicely..‘What you see, you become’
I ask myself what I wish to become often.. in a world pulling at the senses in all directions. I think it’s a good question to ask.
17.01.2023
