Convergence Divergence

I came on this page to write a letter to someone, and then I saw the Daily Prompt: Blossom. I don’t know about you, but there is something about the word Blossom that makes my heart swell, and I am reminded of the quote:

The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom -Anais Nin

And I find that I am up against some tightness in my life, and not sure where to “break through,” but I sure know I want to blossom again. I have been in this stuck place for quite some time, and the more I look at where I am and talk to the amazing entrepreneurial people in my life, the more it is clear to me that I don’t believe in what I do.

When people ask me what I DO for a living, I tell them I am a Pharmacist, but I don’t say it with pride, and it’s not that I loathe what I do, or that I am not proud to be a Pharmacist. The problem is that I don’t believe in our Sickcare System. We have hundreds of thousands of people trying to take care of our population, but the insurance companies have tied our hands behind our backs. We document in ways that are not meaningful, and we focus on externally defined clinical measures, and we reduce the time with patients to get more through, all so we can survive and keep our doors open.

The problem is that people are getting sicker, and the truly heartfelt HealthCare providers are either burned out and leaving, or they are starting concierge services outside of the System. Not everyone can afford this……But, I digress. I could go on and on about our SickCare System, but I am here today to put words to this divergence within me.

A little over a year ago, I realized I wanted to dance and perform again, so I found a small local dance company and performed with them last April. This January, I found some ballet and modern dance classes in Portland and San Francisco, and it was AMAZING to feel my body respond after 11 years off! And I come home to my tiny hometown of Ashland, and there is just not enough here to get me in dance shape and to perform. My work as Director of Pharmacy is certainly not fulfilling that part of me. It fulfills other analytical, strategic and creative parts of me, but it doesn’t touch me deeply like movement and dance. My work does not help me get closer to myself.

So, I decided to start bringing more somatic experiences into my life (stay with me…..I am going somewhere with this). By day, I was building my little Pharmacy empire, and on weekends and evenings, I was doing Contact Improv and going to workshops like Orthobionomy and the Psoas with Liz Koch. You know, my timelines are all messed up. This really started last year when I did Mogadao Sacred Sexuality Workshops with Sarah Byrden. The Mogadao work so spoke to me that I have done pretty much everything Sarah has offered in my area since then. I did a 5-day backpacking trip in the Trinity Alps with 11 other women (Sarah included) last summer, where I entered a portal of existence that felt more consistently awake to the synchronicity of life than ever before. Recently, I went on a writing retreat called Writing Back to the Body, with both Sarah Byrden and Kate Grey, in the most beautiful area of Hood River, Oregon. Wow! I couldn’t believe that all the times I had gone to Portland, I had not continued north into the Columbia Gorge. Put that place on your Bucket List! At the same time, I was starting an online course with Sarah to take more time to learn her work, which I had started in person with her the prior year.

So, now I have somatic experience, sacred sexuality work (which includes qi gong), and what is called the Gateless writing method at the most recent retreat working their magic in my life. The Gateless method is an amazing way of not only fostering an immensely safe and loving space between a room full of what may be strangers, but also a surefire way to turn off your inner critic and see what comes through. 

multnomah falls

Feeling radiant after a week of Gateless writing, sharing and loving

During the retreat, I realized that the Gateless method could be used in so many ways, and potentially with dancers. If I could have tapped into that and seen that the critical way is not the most fruitful way, I may not have put aside my dance shoes for so many years and I may not have suffered 24 years of shame and guilt and wondering. So much wondering…

It didn’t take long before I contacted Suzanne Kingsbury to sign up for the Gateless Teacher Training in July. I explained to her that I have this profession of pharmacy that I worked very hard for, and it allows me a good living. Yet, what I am most passionate about is movement and the spiritual alignment that happens through conscious movement. I explained to her that I want to find a way to marry what feel like 2 divergent sides of myself. I was offered the Golden Scribe scholarship, and am excited to say that I will soon be certified in the Gateless Writing Method!  

Yep, I signed up for the training, and instantly entered the Convergence Zone.

You know how sometimes your life goes through phases of being almost freakishly synchronistic? My last couple weeks were very much that way, and it has me feeling nervous and excited. I went home to visit family in New Mexico and to celebrate my sister’s wedding. Well, after 5 days of being with the whole family, they left town and I had a whole week to myself in my parents’ home.

Ok, you ready for this? The Mogadao Institute was founded in Santa Fe, New Mexico by Zhenzan Dao, the man that trained Sarah Byrden in the Sacred Sexuality work she teaches. He had been in silence for quite some time, and recently came out of silence and started teaching again in Santa Fe. I had the immense pleasure of entering 2 days of training with him and his students, two of which I did the backpacking trip with last year, and who moved from both Oregon and Montana to train with him! It felt so new and like a reunion at the same time.

I could write a small book about the magic of Santa Fe that week and what transpired in the classes with Zhenzan and his students, but I will save that for later. Suffice to say, the sky was alive, and so was my heart and my curiosity. I left knowing I would train with Zhenzan at some point. And that Wednesday, after gong fu and Mogadao yoga and then meditation, I met with my best friend Shane Robinson, whom I had met in Albuquerque 16ish years prior, and we had both lived in Maui at one point, and now he happened to be flying into Santa Fe! Lives converging on this planet over thousands of miles, over and over, I refuse to consider merely a coincidence.

Many other magical things happened, but the magic of the possibility of the Mogadao training and the softness and strength of reverence and daily attunement to our body’s needs speaks to a place in me that is timeless and not of this current realm of reality we live in.

And so, what led me to a Sacred Sexuality course was curiosity of having a more intimate experience with my partner at the time, and I was inspired from there to partake in my first backpacking trip, deeper communion with nature, more embodiment, a writing retreat, Gateless Teacher Training, and potentially training someday….someday with a monk named Zhenzan Dao in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Life is a beautiful unfolding of possibilities and connections. We have only to trust in that unfolding and allow ourselves to blossom into our desires.

To be continued….

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Choreographing Life- transcript

Recorded January 2017

So, I spoke with (counselor) today at work about what’s up for me, and I told her that last night, I was sitting, and it became very clear to me that I’ve been running for 2 years, since my divorce, and that I feel like it’s time to FEEL it. And I have all these things going on that are either distractions, or….it’s just all up for me right now.

She said, “I picture you, you know, making a dance of what you’re going through….like, choreographing a dance maybe around your divorce” and it really hit me hard..and I’m driving home, and it’s like…it’s pretty clear to me that I started dancing more and instantly I started shutting down, because when you dance, you feel more, you’re moving energy through your body, and you have to allow those energies through in order to dance, and just by the act of dancing, you open up channels that are maybe trying to be blocked…..

So, I’m just having an image of the therapeutic power of allowing the story to play through our body and to orchestrate that story and to be conscious of how that story is played out and how it WAS played out, and how we move forward into the world…and how our physical movement in the world and our energetic movement in the world, interaction with people, is no different…it’s no different.

And to choreograph a dance that illustrates the TRUE story of what happened could be profound. My first thought is to go learn about choreography more, and to dive into that, and about storytelling and the power of story, and find a way to combine the two in a way that can really empower people to understand what’s happened to them in a different way and to change their course consciously or to act out somehow what’s happening internally that they can’t put words to, because these energetic shifts… we can try and use our brain and rationalize it….or braini-ize it, or whatever you want to call it, but it doesn’t… at some point, you gotta just give that up, and the body starts talking. This might be a way to help listen to the body too. It’s amazing how one small suggestion, when I look at it, I see the potential for it, and that’s where dance therapy comes in ….

(sigh)……yeah…dance therapy. I like it. I wish there were more programs for it. I would be willing to see how to make that work.

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Pushing Up Against Myself – transcript

Recorded January 2017

So, I’m reading Soulshaping by Jeff Brown, and, um, he talks about the patterns …just kind of that person that’s really you. He says ‘there are more authentic versions lingering below the habits of daily experience. To identify them, we need to make real efforts to distinguish our personality traits from the deeper archetypal currents of our lives.’

I guess the words aren’t directly related to my sensation, but I have to wonder if the authentic me is a dancer if it’s just so hard to get back into it, or if I’m butting up against what I don’t want to feel by dancing again. (sigh)

I feel like..I was thinking of (Pdx friend) actually, and how he goes out dancing, and he doesn’t seem really impassioned by dance, but it fulfills a definite purpose, and so he goes out and he dances, quite a bit I think. And it’s a part of his life. So, that’s where I feel like I’m pushing up against something in myself to prevent dance from just being in my life, to prevent committing to dance, or a style of dance, and forgoing the other styles for a while. And granted, I live in a wasteland for dance, honestly. It could be a lot worse, but, …..yeah, there’s definitely not much here. So I am just wondering what I am pushing up against in myself.

It’s almost like someone’s standing there waving their arms in front of me, there’s a part of me saying “oh, no! Don’t go that way!” and I keep going….but there’s that resistance I’m up against…so, I’d love to figure that one out.

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Depressed – transcript

Recorded January 2017

(I really wish this audio was uploadable….because it really catches what I am feeling so much more than the words will… the pauses, the intonation, the sighs…etc)

My usual MO is to plan right now…to plan my mornings, find a goal, set a goal, figure out how to do it. I don’t want to plan anything. I don’t know if they call that depression. I don’t want to do a thing, and I have so much I could do…

Yeah…like,

“I could wake up early and go work out…” -what’s the point?

“I could get up and do yoga…- but what’s the goal?

“I could get up and dance” – but I honestly want to just sleep.

I don’t have a lot of energy. I’m tired of being sick.

something…..(sigh)…

.

.

I don’t want  to feel my body.

….

There’s something there.

(Sigh)….and if I feel my body, I’ll have to feel it. I can certainly sense my resistance…to feeling.

Ooooooh,…..it’s tough being human.

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Older dancer

When I do a search on Dancemagazine site for “older dancer”, I find an article blurb asking “Why aren’t we seeing older dancers more often?” and when I click on the More hyperlink,…..the article is no longer there….

Kind of like the remnants of a dancer’s life.

Like amazing dancers who just vanished from the dance world, with only pictures and memories. It’s as if they died, but we have links to them. The links are just dead.

When I have experiences like this, and when I look for classes in cities I am visiting, and they have JAZZ40 (Jazz for folks over 40 years old), I start to feel like a senior citizen. All this at the same time I am thinking of starting dance all over.

Part of me says this is impossible. The pragmatic, scared part of me knows that to simply follow a “regular” career would be the easiest route, the safest route, the predictable route, with only the pain of numbness.

Another part of me, the warrior side, jumps at the challenge. “I can do anything I set my mind to” is her mantra. I have accomplished most of what I set out to do, although I have not learned to sustain anything. But, this is not something to conquer, although I would have to use all of those warrior skills to ensure I am safe and consistent and that I push through those tough times. This part of me knows what it takes, and stands at attention, ready to take on the next challenge I give it.

The weary part of me asks, “when will all these challenges end? I am so deeply tired.” This part wants simplicity, no goals, just time to ponder, and sleep, and feel what comes up. She wants to slow down enough to feel nature, to breathe in her surroundings. Slow down until the air breathes her, until the rumblings of the earth are the rumblings of her body, until the vibrations of the universe are the music in her cells. And then, she will be rejuvenated, and then she will tap into the wellspring of mana and let it flow through her.

And a deeper part of me knows that this is not a labor of a year, or simply a challenge. This is not something for which I instantly drop everything else in a brave attempt to reclaim what I laid down in shame. ..Something I picked up again, and again, and again.

This is a calling to be fully embodied, not just to dance the form I know best, but to yet again be a channel of light and love. This time, with more wisdom, with more gravity, more balance and sincerity.

This is a deep act of self-preservation in a world so confusing and chaotic, so wildly unnatural in its attempt to curb our true wild nature. Our wild nature IS balance. It is a natural, instinctual response to the vibrations moving in, around, and through us. It is not a set of societal structures and rules, but rather an inner compass based on wisdom, heart, and deep knowing. It is sourced from our genes and our ancestors.

I know not where this is coming from, except that I know a knot inside is coming unraveled. It’s a big one, a gnarly mess of shame, grief, unspoken desires and abandoned dreams.

It’s time for something new to be born from an old passion. When I left San Francisco Ballet School and abandoned a full scholarship, I told them that dance was a spiritual thing for me. I didn’t tell them the truth, that I couldn’t afford to survive. And yet, I think in many ways, I did tell the truth. Dance is my way of connecting to source, to being a channel of the FULL experience of life. It rolls in the past, the present, and future. It rolls in HUMANITY. It can be shared or it can be solitary, and either way it connects us.

I trust I will find people who feel the same way as me on my journey. This journey started 33 years ago, when I discovered ballet. While I may not have spent all those years in the studio, I have explored movement in many forms, and I keep coming back to the DANCE….

Dance is Life is Dance

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Re-Visiting, Part I

I  am fresh back from a walk through memories of  a time when I found…and subsequently lost, myself. So much I need to get down….so much percolating….

When I heard of Walter Swarthout‘s passing, I was shocked, as anyone would imagine. I had not heard of anything awry with his health, and indeed it was unexpected. Granted, I had not had real contact with him for 22 years possibly, but Facebook has a way of giving us cursory information about people. What I wanted to know was how Margaret, his wife of 50 years, was doing and how could I make sure to be at the wake so as to connect with her and the people who may attend?

I hate that deaths bring people together, but I realized this may be the last opportunity to connect with so many people from my past, from a past that somehow, against everything that sings in me, I gave up,…..and I have been lost ever since. I did not hear of a wake, but I did receive notice of a celebration of his life October 1, 2016. I only pretended in my mind to debate whether I could make the time to go down to the Bay Area, but my soul had made up my mind the instant I learned it was on a weekend and within a 6 hour drive from my home.

I brought my daughter, who gave no fuss thankfully, and we headed out Saturday morning, with copious amounts of coffee, at 6am for the Bay Area, to visit friends I had danced with 20+ years ago when I was living my life with my first true love, Dance. I was excited to share my history with my daughter, to share a time of my life I talked about with distant eyes.

I moved away from home a week after I turned 16 to San Rafael, California to study at Marin Ballet on full scholarship. My ballet teacher Lynn Cox had left Albuquerque, New Mexico to teach with them, and I was considering quitting dance without her there to keep things going. I made the better choice and followed her out there. It was a crazy time. I broke my foot in class 10 days after I moved there, and was living with a family that was pretty understanding, but I am sure they did not anticipate having a depressed teen dancer on their hands. I would not let it sidetrack me, though. I was exactly where I wanted to be. There was ZERO question about sticking it out.

After the first semester, the family would not keep me, and I moved into the ballet school. As far as I know,  I was the first dancer to live in the building, or at least the first female dancer. That building used to be a convent, and our main studio was the chapel, so it had big, golden tinted windows that cast a warm glow when the sun was shining in. At night, it was big, cavernous, and left me too much space to mentally roam. I was thankful at times for my tiny room.

As my daughter and I approached San Rafael, I searched for familiar places…. for the underpass I walked under every morning to catch the public bus at 7:13am to get to school, for any buildings that were familiar. It had changed dramatically, but when I pulled around the corner of Linden Lane to Elm Street, and saw the ballet school….I knew it hadn’t changed much.

As soon as I saw the second story windows, so many memories came flooding in….of people who had ended up sharing the building with me at times, such as Alejandra, and Amir, and Sebastian….and the rooms… and the stairwell outside that I would go and pound my new toeshoes on to soften the toe box. And the runner I met in the dark before dawn when I was desperately trying to meet anyone in the area…. and I found myself parking in the exact same spot as I did 20+ years ago.

And the emotions hit me….excitement, apprehension, sadness, remorse, giddiness, curiosity…all of it. I walked slowly up, past all of the bunheads, fairly oblivious to my daughter and me, despite the fact we seemed pretty out of place with our slow gait and wandering eyes. The inside main level had been completely and beautifully revamped in white, metal and glass. I pointed out the studio where I had my most transformative movement experience ever,  the couch where I realized one lonely night that I was in love with my gay roommate Amir, the lobby I had spent so much time in, the staircase I had traversed hundreds of times. The wood was still the same. I pointed out the hallway that used to have a pay phone that I got in trouble for using and giving out the number. I had tried to meet guys, and they would call during school hours for me. It was not a good thing. The phone wasn’t there, but the studio looked the same. I used the bathroom, nearly tripping over the 20 young dancers sprawled out in the small locker room next to the stalls. We definitely did NOT fit in, but I didn’t care. That was my home once. I still belonged. I left a part of myself there.

I went to the front desk and mentioned that I used to live here (at which point I started crying, of course), and asked if I could walk around. She didn’t seem phased and said yes. More and more memories flooded in as I walked up those steps, looking through the glass partition that once was wall….by Ms. Swarthout’s old office, and straight to Studio D, the big girls’ studio. They had raised the floor, so that you could no longer catch that extra moment of air by running from the hallway and leaping off the step into the studio, but other than that, it was exactly the same. The windows, the lighting, the old school chairs, even the letters labeling the rows of chairs were the same. The portable barres, the same, …..the fat wood barres, the same. (The picture below is from MarinMommies.com and one of few I could find of even part of the studio.)

marinballet

Even more memories flooded in, of the piece I did with Lynn Cox, of the day I broke my foot, and exactly where I sat. I pointed out where I used to sit and do floor barre with my cast, and I remembered the long night I had a breakdown and wailed until I was spent, and pounded my fist on the floor until I thought it would break because I was heartbroken over the man I had lost my virginity to. So many memories that nobody ever knew about…. so many lonely nights.... Amir and the pictures he took of me bathed in the golden light cast by those windows on the dance floor, my long hair falling behind me.

ballet-polaroid

I knew my daughter was uncomfortable, with three dancers sitting around talking and stretching before class, but they paid us no heed, and I needed to take the time to FEEL that space, to feel what it opened up in me. It was so incredibly clear that I was HOME. Nowhere else on this earth was as much a home for me as that big, creaky building that housed more tears and laughter and triumphs and challenges and friendships and expression than any other place in my life. That was where I had a love affair with my true love, where I was held by the community of dancers that understood and loved and supported me. I had never quite realized the power of that place on me until yesterday. I wanted to do another plie, a few tendus… just for old times’ sake. I refrained, but I am not sure why.

Next, I took my daughter to the back, where I used to live, and amazingly, it was EXACTLY like 22 years ago. The paint had not been updated or even touched up, the bathrooms were the same old tile, the floors the same linoleum, and only the contents of rooms had changed. I showed my daughter the bathroom, with the stalls and 2 showers, pointing out this was my bathroom for 2 years. I didn’t mention that I had sat on the floor of one of the showers one lonely Sunday, contemplating suicide because I thought that I was fat. By that point, I was deep into my anorexia. Thankfully, once I thought of how I would commit the deed, I realized I couldn’t do that to myself. Nevertheless, it was a scary and dark place.

My first room was converted into a pilates studio while I lived there, at which point I was moved to the other end of the long hallway. This is where most of my memories were of living there. We walked down to see it, and opened up the door to what is now the Boys’ Training room, full of weights and a thin, cheap carpet over the cold linoleum I once had. I could picture my small bed tucked in the corner, surrounded by toeshoes and posters of dancers hanging all over the walls around me, like a ballet cocoon. …and the small table where I had my tiny boombox that played classical music while I studied on the bed, my books, and the 6″ black and white tv I watched only very occasionally. The sink in the corner was the same, the closet, the window, and the exposed baseboard heater.

I then took her down the back stairs into the kitchen, where I informed her I had to lock up my food, because occasionally other dancers would eat my food, or they would take my only spoon, which I had stolen from the grocery store, because I only had $20/week to live off for food. I think if they had realized my situation, they likely would have offered me silverware and food, but I was proud and didn’t see my situation as rough, just tight. I was so resourceful, only buying the overripe bananas, nearly stale bread, and other clearance items. It was not unusual for me to steal my weekly 5 pounds of carrots, and I think the folks at the grocery store probably knew. I was so thin at 95 pounds and 5’6″, I think they took pity on me.

The kitchen was not much different, rough and handmade, with white painted wood paneling making up the shelves and cabinets. No lock was on the refrigerator anymore though, since nobody lived there. And then, the room by the kitchen where Amir lived, and afterward Sebastian, the man I lost my virginity to. I had moved out by that time, thankfully. And then the studio downstairs where I listened to that haunting piano piece that sounds like raindrops. I laid in the dark space and let the rain fall down my face as the notes dripped into my heart…a haunting, serene, and surreal night.

By this time, I had completed the ghost tour of the studio, and I could have hung out for days, but I knew my daughter was uncomfortable, and it didn’t make sense to hang out where I was no longer dancing. I suppose it would have been weird for me to suddenly take up residence again….

I regretted not getting pictures of me in the space, but I made sure to get just one picture out front. Of course, the instant I decided to take a picture, a dad promptly seated himself, and a dancer did too. They were oblivious to the idea that I might actually have enough reverence for this building that I might want to take the picture without them. They added to the picture though, showing that this building is still a vibrant school of dance.marin-ballet-10-1-16-2

The memories didn’t stop there! We went downtown to 4th street and visited my old haunt Royal Ground Coffee. I was there when it first opened 23ish years ago, and I let them know I was an old-timer. They still sell the same brand of oat cakes!348s

It was nearly time to get ready for the celebration of Walter’s life, but first I took my daughter to my old high school. First, I showed her the amphitheater outside where I graduated, and we were fortunate enough to be able to go inside, where I snapped a photo by the Redwood High School Alum pics, specifically the one of Robin Williams.

At this point, it’s time to get prettied up and ready to see actual people from my past at their new dance school, Marin Dance Theater. That is big enough for a second blog, to be sure….. until then….

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The Power of Performance

When my body was suddenly covered in goosebumps, I knew I was on the right topic with my tea date. After nearly 2 hours of talking about life, career, parenting, politics, we came back around to performing, something that I know deeply, both as a performer on stage and as a person “performing” in life for love and career and social acceptance.

The world is our stage, and we can either sell our soul trying to appease this audience or that audience. Or, we can be authentic, and find that instead of feeling depleted, we are left overflowing with joy.

Have you ever been to a performance where the artist somehow brought you closer to yourself? Where you found yourself more deeply connected to your own body and sensations and emotions, and those of everyone around you? Where the light, the air, the sounds, are almost palpable?

I know that feeling, and I relish that feeling. It’s called being connected, and I witnessed it yesterday in untrained dancers “performing” in a Tantric Dance of the Sacred Feminine at Inlakesh Festival. After getting in tune with our bodies, eyes closed, we all formed a circle and held space for 2 dancers at a time. They kept their eyes closed, and just let the movement come, big or small. Amazingly, the smallest movements were certainly the most powerful. Why? Because they came from the center of their being.

Couple one was a large man with a sarong draped like a cape across one shoulder, and a petite woman, both of them coincidentally Asian. The man was quivering, so large and powerful, yet obviously intensely sensitive and sensual. The lady was very reserved at first, yet it wasn’t long before she was overtaken by something glorious, sensuous, powerful. Afterward, shaking and eyes alight with wonder, she said it was like the heavens poured into her.

Couple two was a younger girl, strong and pretty, who shook her hips and arms like one would “expect” to the music she was given. The other lady was tall, full-bodied with voluptuous hair well past her waist, a classic face with rosy high cheeks, an absolute pleasure to look at. When she danced, it was like watching Kali. She was soft and sensuous, yet in her dance was fire and brimstone, earthen love and watery seduction.

Fast forward to African Dance later that day, where the heavens again poured into and through me, and my movement became pure devotion. I reached a point in my dance where only the intent drove the movement, my body lit up with an electrical charge, and I had seemingly boundless energy that I poured right into the other dancers. At the end of a full and energetic (and SUPER sweaty) class, we took turns performing improvised solos. One of the movements of the class is deeply devotional and exuberant. In a gesture of bringing my hands close to my heart, and collecting all the joy therein, then offering it forth to each and every dancer in the circle, one at a time, I poured my heart and joy out, shared my love, and channeled an immense amount of energy. I looked directly into the eyes of each of them, some alight with wonder, love, awe, and some with uncertainty. They felt it. I gave all I had to them, and in that exchange, I filled up with more love and joy than I can imagine on a daily basis. 

mansare dance class

(Photo from Oneworlddance.com ….Sarah Mansare is the teacher and the person that really turned me onto this dance, this culture, this amazing affirmation of our potent life force and capacity for joy and giving)

I leave these experiences transformed from the inside out, each time more and more certain of why dance means so much to me, why and how it can be good for others, to connect to themselves and therefore to others.

There is little (or nothing) more vulnerable and empowering than dancing our truth, and in that instant lies the power of the heavens and earth combined.

Everyone can have that.

I hope for everyone to experience that interconnectedness, to realize that authenticity is the true pathway to connection.

 

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The Heavens Opened Up and Poured Into My Heart

**This post is 2 months old, and I thought I had to write everything before posting….silly me

Joy is timeless, so InJoy!

I don’t know how to assimilate all of the goodness that is flowing into my life.

I opened the doors to what I want, and it’s all flooding in at once…. conscious relationships, dance, community, career success, financial stability, and something I never imagined….. having my whole reality shattered by a weekend of African dance.

Sounds odd, but bear with me, and you will understand.

Sometimes, I can’t tell if written words or spoken are better. Here is my Bathtime Musing #5, in case you prefer to listen:

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Bathtime Musing #2: The Fall of Exaltation

You know the post-performance (or post-project) blues? They hit me within hours of the end of my first weekend of performances in 11 years. Here are my thoughts on that…. direct from my watery tub.tub

While I wanted to edit this one, I didn’t. Please pardon the abrupt ending.

 

 

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A Year to Clear

As is par for the course on a New Years Day, I slept in. Thankfully, I remembered to turn off my alarm, and at 10am, I awoke, with crusty eyes, swollen hands, and an internal panic of all that I “have” to do.

Insert big EXHALE here.

Let me start over. I know 2016 is going to be big. 2015 was huge. I let go of a lot and brought in so much that I now don’t have enough hours in the day to do all that I brought into my life and would LOVE to do! It’s a real problem, folks.

I wake up, and my mind starts with, you “should” do yoga. That’s a healthy way to start the day, every day. You shouldn’t drink coffee. It’s hard on your adrenals. You really should go play on your pole. Don’t sit down on the computer right away without stretching and being active first. And on and on… I think I have an internal mother on overdrive.

And then I think of all that I want to DO in my life.

  • I want to dance more, like full dancing, with jumps and leaps, and performing, and pirouettes, and floorwork, and all the pain and beauty I remember.
  • Oh, and I have a pole downstairs that I want to learn to use, but for some reason am not.
  • I want to write more, so I think a daily blog again would be good.
  • I started a fellowship, so I know I need to study.
  • Of course, I want to somehow turn that into a business where I actually help people be healthier, vs. approve medications that are prescribed by other people and that I know are making them sicker.
  • Oh, and I want to be healthy and strong, so I want to keep up the workouts in the gym, and of course the meal prepping.
  • Perhaps I might do a figure competition as well.
  • Somewhere in there, I really want to have more close relationships with people. Yet I am reticent to have a relationship outside of myself. I want to let people in….slowly.
  • I want to clear the clutter in my home….starting with the file drawer full of things to file…and I need to download my quicken for the YEAR and figure out what is biz and not…and organize so I can study, so my heartrate doesn’t quicken in panic every time I walk in the office….
  • And all of those things take Time, …and Focus…. and Presence.

And yet, I am remembering going through some of my old posts last night after coming back from New Years festivities. So many of the posts are about Surrendering to the unknown, to letting the current image of things as we think they should be fall away. They are about Trust, Self Love, and BEing.

So, I sit down with my coffee, open up my computer, and this page is looking at me (which I opened last night)

A Year to Clear What is Holding You Back!
Premium on-line course by Stephanie Bennett Vogt
(9,538 people have taken this course)
 

This is a 365-day on-line course available from Stephanie Bennett Vogt. We will email you when your new lesson is available and you will be able to login and read each lesson on-line or print as they become available and click to listen to the guided audio meditations. Your first lesson will be available immediately after you enroll.

“The journey is the treasure.”-Lloyd Alexander

 

Well, I took it as a sign, and I signed up. Part of me thought, “Amy, there you go committing to yet one more thing,” and the other part of me said, “It needs to happen. It will help me focus on what is most important each day, help me in seeing that I don’t have to do it all every day, that it’s ok to let some things go so other things can come in.”

So, no New Years Resolutions, except maybe to ALLOW my Self to be all that I imagine and more, or less than I imagine, and to trust that letting go of what I imagine will allow something I cannot imagine because it is a whole new way of being.

I like the sound of that!

What is on your mind as we head into 2016?