Dance of Oneness - by Banafsheh Sayyad (Paperback)

About the Book

"Sayyad shares how dance can help you honor the body as the physical expression of the soul: miraculous, wise, and full of wonder. Through her healing modality, Dance of Oneness-a fusion of Taoist, Sufi, and Divine Feminine wisdom with flamenco, tai chi, Persian dance, and Sufi whirling-Sayyad guides you to release blockages, activate your light body, and rediscover your vitality and purpose. For the first time in a book, readers are initiated into whirling as a portal to higher dimensions and profound transformation"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

Discover healing, transformation, and joyful liberation through sacred dance with this empowering guide to embodied spirituality.

Your body--the material aspect of your soul--is a living map to freedom, joy, and your highest potential. In Dance of Oneness, Banafsheh Sayyad offers a transformative path to attune to your body's wisdom and awaken love as a healing catalyst for greater well-being, awareness, ease, and connection.

This book isn't about professional dance techniques. Instead, Sayyad shows how you can reclaim your body as the temple of the soul--a holy instrument through which the greater consciousness expresses love, unity, and the miraculous wonder of existence. Rooted in Divine Feminine wisdom and a spiritual awakening through dance that transmuted the pain of exile from her Motherland, Iran, Sayyad's Dance of Oneness(R) modality fuses Sufi whirling, Persian dance, and flamenco with Traditional Chinese Medicine, mysticism, and feminine embodiment practices to dissolve patterns of constriction, activate your light body, and awaken vitality and purpose. For the first time in a book, Sayyad initiates you into whirling as a living portal to embodied love, higher consciousness, and union with the Divine.

In this guide, you will find:

- A step-by-step path to embodied spirituality to unify body and soul
- Divine Feminine, Taoist, Sufi, and mystical teachings to expand awareness and inspire wisdom, joy, connection, and freedom
- Mystical poetry to awaken the heart and welcome you home to yourself
- Written, audio, and video practices, including whirling practice, are accessible via QR code to enliven your journey

"Dance of Oneness invites you to live your life as a dance that brings you into unity with all through embodied love," writes Sayyad. "True embodiment is experiencing yourself as a channel of light to help heal the Earth." With graceful and warm presence, Sayyad's own story out of a tumultuous Iran and into the freedom of dance as a spiritual practice, Dance of Oneness invites you to embrace a soulful, embodied life.

Review Quotes

"Dance of Oneness elevates dance to a mystical path of finding joy and wonder in every expression of life, but especially in the sacred design of our physical body. This book is pure inspiration. I loved every page." --Carolyn Myss, bestselling author of Anatomy of the Spirit, Why People Don't Heal and How They Can, Sacred Contracts, and Invisible Acts of Power

"Dance of Oneness is the most profound and sublime modality of sacred dance and embodiment on the planet and Banafsheh Sayyad is the greatest teacher of radiant embodiment I know. She has transformed my life and work and she will transform yours--with grace, mystical depth and tender, precise encouragement. This book is not only for everyone who wants to dance physically. It is also for everyone who now needs to dance inwardly to discover the marriage within all of us that births a new power and a new kind of human being." --Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope and Son of Man

"I will never forget the first time I saw Banafsheh dance. Not only was she wordlessly embodying every mystical tradition I had studied and practiced, but her dance invited me to fully inhabit my own body, marrying the sacred with the sensual, perennial wisdom with lived experience. In this brilliant book, Banafsheh shares her own compelling story of growing up in Iranian culture, with both its political tensions and its timeless beauty, and finding a spiral path toward the holy ground of dance. Then, step by joyous step, she leads us out onto the stage of our own life, where she sets us spinning in ecstasy and then settles us into sublime stillness." --Mirabai Starr, author of Wild Mercy and Ordinary Mysticism

"If across the centuries Rumi and Martha Graham dreamt together to create a manifestation of sacred movement and divine wisdom in form, that being would be Banafsheh. Dance of Oneness lights the way into the depths of our own heart. Here, no matter your age, skill, or background, you will find healing through Banafsheh's profound stories and simple embodied movement practices that brilliantly unites matter and spirit, healing and expression. I've been reading each page with tears in my eyes for the beauty and passion of Banafsheh bringing dance and the divine to all. This book will light a sacred fire in your belly and show you how to shine with reverence, playful power, and luminous joy." --HeatherAsh Amara, bestselling author of Warrior Goddess Training and Wild, Willing, and Wise

"Dance of Oneness is an invaluable gift--part personal story, part spiritual map, part call to awaken. With courage, empathy, and poetic subtlety, Banafsheh Sayyad invites us to reclaim our bodies as temples, to dance ourselves whole, and to embody love as a living force in the world. This is not just a book about dance; it is a guide to becoming fully alive." --Omid Arabian, author of The Universe in You

"This truly marvelous book that could one day guide the creation of a new civilization, is a Teaching, an Illumination, a Revelation, that leads us to the discovery of who we are, why we are here and what we can consciously love and serve." -- From the Foreword by Anne Baring, author of The Myth of the Goddess

"How extraordinary that Banafsheh has been able to translate her embodied wisdom and divine physical movement into a book of words that compels us to dance. Dance of Oneness is both a" how to manual" and mystical enchantment swirling us, lifting us, moving us towards each other and a new holy freedom. Read it and Dance Dance Dance." --V (formerly Eve Ensler), bestselling author of The Vagina Monologues and The Apology

"In this profound and priceless book, the author describes an evolutionary pathway to the Divine Beloved. She reveals how she--only after high ups and very deep downs--succeeds in becoming a manifestation of the Divine, thereby integrating her experiences as dancer, yogic teacher and healer into ONE. This book is a milestone in the past and present of Sacred Dance, and can initiate its readers into the secrets of Divine Life inside a Conscious, Sacred and brilliantly Shining Body." --Annine van der Meer, author of Magdalene's Ascension

"Dance of Oneness is an embodied cry for freedom! In a world that is becoming increasingly more artificial, Banafsheh Sayyad calls us back to the most authentic path there is: the path of the body. Not as a theoretical construct, but as a reverential experience that rebodies us of who we are. The practices that thread through this piece of art cannot help but bring you home to anything that got lost along the way--your feelings, your healings, your clarity as to why you are here. Practice doesn't always make perfect, but it does make presence. Engage with this book and its practices, and be here . . . again." --Jeff Brown, author of Hearticulations and In Trudeau's Kitchen

"Banafsheh embodies beauty in motion. She has brought together many different traditions and modalities of dance into a single dance of oneness. Her dancing radiates the magnetism that oneness catalyzes in all of us who are dedicated to the pathway of love." --Jim Garrison, founding CEO of Ubiquity University

"The task of our day is how to become divinely embodied human beings and Banafsheh is one of our most luminous guides for how to become the Beloved in motion!" --Stephen Dinan, founding CEO of The Shift Network

​​​​​​​"Dancing through the chakras with grace, power, and wisdom, Banafsheh Sayyad has written a book that calls us to be the best version of ourselves--and that shows us the footsteps how. To dance in oneness rather than separation is to discover that the power of joy and connection dwarf the apparent potency of anger and hate. This is a book we need, right now--don't miss it!" --Jeremy David Engels, PhD, professor of Communication and Ethics and author of On Mindful Democracy and Living Namaste

About the Author

Banafsheh Sayyad is an acclaimed spiritual embodiment teacher, sacred dancer, choreographer, activist, and founder of Dance of Oneness(R)--a Divine Feminine lineage for healing, transformation, and spiritual evolution. Banafsheh has helped thousands of people around the world awaken and align with their full potential, including innovating Sama (whirling) as a path to spiritual awakening for all. Bridging Sufi ritual, feminine embodiment, and contemporary dance, Banafsheh's groundbreaking expression of Sama is an embodied living art of liberation. With an MFA in Dance from UCLA and an MA in Traditional Chinese Medicine, she performs and teaches worldwide.