This past weekend, after more than seven years of dancing, I finally attended my first multi-day dance intensive. It was a 3 day 5 Rhythms retreat on the theme of age. There was a lot of moving, a lot of crying, a lot of stomping and emoting through the body. There was a lot of letting go of knowing what the hell was going on. A lot of opening up parts of my body that had been lying dormant for years, just waiting to be danced alive again. A lot of conversations through the expression of dancing bodies and eyes.
And a lot (especially for me) of speechlessness and silence.
I loved and hated this feeling of having nothing to say. It humbled and tickled me to sit in our daily closing reflection circles and having nothing to offer but a listening heart. Each day, each dance, for me, was a rich conversation in the territories beyond words. It was about listening, following, desiring, responding. I found myself dipping into that potent well of silence and stillness available inside the sound and movement of the dance. A whirling dervish emerged, with throat and lips sealed soft with opening awe.
And, much to my personality’s surprise, every time we were asked to speak, it felt horribly awkward, jarring, and beside the point. Compared to the full-force movement and subtle dreaming work we were doing in between these interludes of verbal sharing, words felt hopelessly impotent. A totally inept form of expression.
This may not be an unusual experience for many of you readers. But for me, a babbler by nature, the experience of words not cutting it has been a humbling, surprising, uncomfortable, delightful trip. My whole life words have been the medium through which I feel my fullest expression. But this weekend, they had nothing on the movement of the body, in community, touching into profound and subtle topics of birth and death, living and aging.
I shared some bumbling version of this sense of ineptitude with a friend over lunch. “But you’re a poet!”, she cried back. Exactly, I thought. Yes, sometimes, poetry flows raw and now from the lips, like greens picked fresh from the garden. But sometimes it’s more like wine — it takes time to become itself, to ferment that raw sweet innocence into a rich and wise intoxicant. And sometimes, maybe always, it has nothing to do with words.
As with the death theme we worked with all weekend, there’s something about letting go to let come. To letting time do it’s thing with us, tender mortals that we are. So yes, enough said. Let's dance.
I’m still dancing, and the weekend is still dancing me. The grapes are still begin stomped. And as reflections begin, as my mind comes back online for it’s daily responsibilities, the grapes go into the cask. There they sit in the cool dark recesses of this mysteriously intelligent body being. And with time, they will age, and ferment, and incorporate.
And I may or may not ever have anything more to say about it.
But if you listen, there is always, always, always a conversation.
And a lot (especially for me) of speechlessness and silence.
I loved and hated this feeling of having nothing to say. It humbled and tickled me to sit in our daily closing reflection circles and having nothing to offer but a listening heart. Each day, each dance, for me, was a rich conversation in the territories beyond words. It was about listening, following, desiring, responding. I found myself dipping into that potent well of silence and stillness available inside the sound and movement of the dance. A whirling dervish emerged, with throat and lips sealed soft with opening awe.
And, much to my personality’s surprise, every time we were asked to speak, it felt horribly awkward, jarring, and beside the point. Compared to the full-force movement and subtle dreaming work we were doing in between these interludes of verbal sharing, words felt hopelessly impotent. A totally inept form of expression.
This may not be an unusual experience for many of you readers. But for me, a babbler by nature, the experience of words not cutting it has been a humbling, surprising, uncomfortable, delightful trip. My whole life words have been the medium through which I feel my fullest expression. But this weekend, they had nothing on the movement of the body, in community, touching into profound and subtle topics of birth and death, living and aging.
I shared some bumbling version of this sense of ineptitude with a friend over lunch. “But you’re a poet!”, she cried back. Exactly, I thought. Yes, sometimes, poetry flows raw and now from the lips, like greens picked fresh from the garden. But sometimes it’s more like wine — it takes time to become itself, to ferment that raw sweet innocence into a rich and wise intoxicant. And sometimes, maybe always, it has nothing to do with words.
As with the death theme we worked with all weekend, there’s something about letting go to let come. To letting time do it’s thing with us, tender mortals that we are. So yes, enough said. Let's dance.
I’m still dancing, and the weekend is still dancing me. The grapes are still begin stomped. And as reflections begin, as my mind comes back online for it’s daily responsibilities, the grapes go into the cask. There they sit in the cool dark recesses of this mysteriously intelligent body being. And with time, they will age, and ferment, and incorporate.
And I may or may not ever have anything more to say about it.
But if you listen, there is always, always, always a conversation.
RSS Feed