As a lifelong writer of journals, poems, short stories, and long letters, I have found metaphor to be a comforting companion. Allowing one idea, image, symbol, experience to stand in for another helps me to be a person with a flexible mind and an open heart- the kind of person I enjoy being. Throughout every day, I find opportunity to reach into my experiences of past and draw into the present lessons learned from them. Maybe this is what wisdom looks like? I don't know. I can see, though, that as I mature, I have this well-spring of deep experience which feels like solid ground beneath my feet, and I find this comforting.
I dance. A lot. With a group of extremely kind and supportive people. Lately, I have been finding that what serves me in dance also serves me in other areas of my life. For instance, initiating dance movement from my core allows me to be more centered and balanced, and infuses my movement with greater strength and purpose. Allowing my limbs to follow the movement of my core muscles translates into more fluid, satisfying, beautiful dance and helps me connect with my partner more openly, because I am grounded in my own strength and bodily intention.
Something beautiful which is growing from the development of core strength and sensitivity is the ability to transition easily between "leading" and "following," something that I have found challenging in both dance and everyday life. Reading circumstances, trusting my senses to perceive accurately, and fluidly responding with one or the other role is something that I am learning through dancing with partners, and this burgeoning ability is finding a place off of the dance floor, as well. I no longer have to be dominated by my hyperactive drive to control, to lead, for I am finding trust in my own body's ability to respond to the cues it is receiving. Following is not a passive activity, in dance or otherwise! It requires physical and mental engagement, muscle development, and a willingness to get intimate with my inhibitions.
Dedication to dance is like cultural immersion. The more I dance with other, more experienced, dancers, whom I consider the Denizens of Dance, the more facile I become with the non-verbal language of balance and counter-balance that dance instills and demands, and the more a part of the human culture of dance expression I realize I have always been. In dance, I feel at home- in my body, in my emotional expression, in the company of people who, like me, find joy there. Dancing with others is an exploration of the boundaries of body, mind, energy; most often, I find that there is little that separates me from you. To find this on the dance floor tells me that I can find it anywhere I put my body.
So often, I catch myself ossifying into a state of isolation and individuality. Certainly, there is a time and place for boundaries, but possessing the ability to see through those boundaries and acknowledge that our true state is unity, that we are all made of the same matter, shimmering with the same impulses, feels important to me. I don't want to make myself so singular that I cannot see myself in everyone else I encounter. Ultimately, I am no different from any other human on this planet and dance allows me to see this so frankly. When I move onto the dance floor with another person, and we engage in the tension that exists between our two bodies, I imagine that I have been given the opportunity to jump out of my body and into theirs. I want to feel their bodily impulses move through me, and so I allow myself to be led, to feel my partner's core expressions as a physical roadmap: here is where we are going. I can't know where we are going before I set out, though. I have to just get right with myself at the outset and accept that for me to get anywhere I will have to pay attention to where I am. When the music ends after such a dance, I find myself feeling immeasurably peaceful and full of joy. Moving through space in synch with another person's body is so freeing and so beautiful. It moves my heart to the point of awe.
My entire life, I have dreamt, literally, about dance. I dream about flying an awful lot, also, but that is another story. In my dance dreams, I possess abilities that I have not yet realized in my waking life: I soar, I leap, I turn, I possess muscular acuity that my waking self has never known, and I choreograph the most beautiful dances for myself and others. Sometimes, I long to sleep just to dream these marvelous realities into being. In my dreams, I possess no self-limitations, I am unabashedly alive with dance. As I move more deeply into this undertaking of dancing with others, I am consciously challenging myself to summon up this dreamlife dancer that is me, to tap into what my unconscious knows about how to dance while I am awake. The limitations that I possess are of my own making, in all areas of my life including dance. Dancing with others lately, I see that I can have what I want: free body, free mind, bodily and emotional connection, happiness. It all comes to me in that place, and if it is there, it is available wherever I am.
In the space where I dance, amongst this ever-windening group of people, there exists a remarkable degree of acceptance of one another. I have seen people break wide open and sob on the dance floor, heard spontaneous wails, cries, animal sounds, and songs erupt from the mouths of fellow dancers, witnessed people moving in ways that wouldn't appear much like dance to the average observer, and generally been privy to a vast spectrum of human expression. I am accustomed to a high degree of emotional intensity- I realize that my intensity threshold is very different from many people's- and even I have been startled at times by the rawness of what people reveal to one another at the dance. And I am affirmed by this witnessing, I am humbled by the trust- in themselves and in me- that is shown by the members of my dance community, I am inspired to allow myself to drop into the whatever lurks, lingers, hunkers, slumbers, swims, darts, dashes or dwells within my psyche when I am in this stunningly safe environment.
Lately, I watch myself carrying into the world what I have found on in the dance and I am grateful for the power of transformation, the power of metaphor. Dance is awakening qualities in me that I want to share with the world, so when I feel challenged I pause and summon up the dance floor where I have seen that the strength of my core's intentions is expressed by the rest of my body; fluidly moving between the active states of leading and following makes me a more flexible, responsible person, which in turn allows me to move out of my habitual state of isolation and extreme individuation and engage in synchronistic flow with others from whom, on the most basic level, I am no different; recognizing and disabling self-imposed limitations is a constant possibility; and the safe and vast expression of emotion is fundamental to well-being. Time and again, the practice of dance and its many lessons, so easily transferred to my everyday life, lifts my spirits and fills me with joy.
