"..the time had come for the witness to move once more.." -some DMT and AM genius
so i have started moving. without the benefit of keys to a dance studio, or a college campus where i had access to a dance space, or a climate where moving outside doesn't require expansiveness impeding layers...i started moving in my little red nook (my upstairs apartment in south troy - south troy against the world!)
thing about my apartment...its crooked.
after a number of late night revisions i pretty much have my furniture and my art supplies fashioned within the space to account for the slant and in such a way that things aren't rolling around or falling over...including me in my day to day activities...but this kind of moving proved to be a bit of a different story.
i think for a while this crookedness is part of why i was so still here..i was somehow conscious that the off center shape of my space was going to reveal something about me...i assumed it would highlight my own off centeredness...my own weaknesses...my own misshapen spaces...
eventually i came to a place where i was so crowded inside there was no room for a deep breath and i knew it was time to stretch, to realign, and to rediscover the spaces in me that i had allowed to shrink with disregard. i simply needed the room.
i put on the mandala cd from this wonderful band www.facebook.com/MomentaryProphets and started with a familiar yoga sequence. at first the less than square specs of my art room proved to be very much in the way and i was drawn out of my body into my head when my fingers would hit the parts of the ceiling or i would loose my footing on the tilt. discouraging thoughts emerged that i just might not be able to do this very helpful thing i know how to do for myself in the space i call home. that somehow the centuries of movement tradition that had served so many were somehow inaccessible to me because my environment was less than ideal.
almost in a gesture of defeat i let go of the yogic form and relaxed into a stretch that just felt really good. one that felt solid and powerful on this unsolid feeling floor. one that still felt like a stretch but also felt very possible. without really being aware of it i fell into a new sequence, one that was unlike anything i had done in a class as a student or anything i had taught to students in a class as a teacher. i didn't abandon the forms i knew but instead of trying to recreate them i connected to the essence of why i learned them..what they were designed to invite and encourage my body to do. to expand, to shift. to twist. to open. to close. to lift. to lower. to release. to hold. to let go. to be.
i shifted my trust from the form itself back to my own body, trusting it to know how to use all my knowledge, experiences, and even the space around me in the way that would be most right. for. me.
without having to think or plan or figure or struggle i found myself immersed in a seamless flow of movement that both challenged and soothed me...one where the slanting ceiling served as a perfect place to lean for greater opening of my heart center and core and where the incline of the floor allowed for more consideration of an old injury in my left hip while giving me the fullest and most effective stretch possible.
weakness and strength, good and bad, right and wrong, hard and easy, these were no longer meaningful descriptors. there were no categories or dichotomies to separate out the parts of me or the world around me. all things in that moment became simply facets of my reality that had to be fit together in whatever way worked for the good...whether that fit had a recognizable shape or name or even an explanation couldn't have mattered less.
so this is the story that is mine in all that is going on in my world. the details don't really matter, the message for me right now is that i don't have to fix it, i don't have to start it, or stop it,i don't have to change it, i don't have to understand it or figure it out. i just have to keep moving in all of it. moving according to the rhythm deepest inside of me even when that creates dances that i have never done or seen before.
it is not for me to war against the imperfection of this space that is our world, or to hide from it, but to step down into its very cracks to find the spaces for movements we never imagined possible and to lean into its jutting surfaces to gain momentum for leaps and stretches we once thought were too far. maybe the condition of my feet mean i will never be a ballerina, but maybe their odd shape is perfect for sliding into those cracks and blazing a trail for what will fill those cracks and bring wholeness.
only the dance between the imperfections of our world and the weaknesses of our own being, set to the music of love and faith and courage, allows the inconceivable work of a holy Choreographer to take the stage.
"and we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God..."
