What Warmth Can Do

Dearest Dancers,

How does this moment find you? What’s your body telling you? How does it feel to be the inhabitant of your body right now? What are you holding and where (in the body)? What assists in your softening? What brings a sense of energy and vitality? Where does joy reside in the body? And ease? Well-being? When it’s rough outside, how do you self-soothe? The body is such a marvelously exquisite thing. Do we honor it? Do we listen to it? To what extent are we attuned to all the wisdom within the body? How do we tap into that?

I only have questions. No answers. But can I tell you something silly and astounding? My acupuncturist has me eating only warm foods. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine I need to do this in order to heal my digestive system. I’ve carefully consumed only warm foods and beverages for several weeks now, but yesterday I ate half a peach that I found in the refrigerator. It hurt. No, that’s a bit of an overstatement. It was uncomfortable. Yes, that’s it. I’ve come to the point of sensitivity where consuming cold foods or beverages feels lousy in my body. Isn’t that odd and yet also wonderful? I’ve been numb to the subtle but lasting damage done to my stomach and spleen by cold food for years. What else am I numb to? What else might this glorious body be trying to tell me? To move more? To rest more? To be still and relaxed? To touch more? To connect more? To laugh more? To dance more? Yes! I feel this to be true at the very core of my being: I must dance more! And that, my friend, is precisely what we’re here for. . . . .to attune to these beautiful bodies we’ve been given, to celebrate them with conscious movement. Joy of joys, come dance with us!

It tickles me to report that our beloved Kathy Altman is back and will be holding the space for us tomorrow as only she can do; with love, with curiosity, with wisdom, with a sense of purpose. And, of course, she’ll bring a fabulous array of music to loosen up the body and help it find some freedom, some ease.

I wish you all a good dance!

Here’s the link: Community Dances | Open Floor Dance

We begin at 9:45am Pacific

Here’s a lovely poem for you by David Whyte:

The Bell Ringer

Consider the bell

ringer as an image

of the human soul,

he stands foursquare

on the stone flagged

ground, and surrounded

by a circle of communal

concentration

searches in his fixed

aloneness

for a world

beyond straight,

human,

eye to eye

discourse,

in this case

above him,

the collision of metal

worlds chiming

to each bend and lift

of the knees,

letting his weight bear down

on the rope,

creating out of the heave

and upward pull,

a hollowed out

brass utterance,

a resonant

on-going argument

for his continued presence,

independent

of daily mood

or the necessities

for a verbal

proclamation.

***

Let him stand there

then

for the human soul,

let his weight

come true on the rope,

the way we want to lean

into the center of things,

the way we want to

fall with the gravity

of the situation

and then afterwards

laugh and

defy it

with an upward

ultimately untraceable

flight,

a great ungovernable

ringing

announcement

to the world

that something, somewhere,

has changed.

Consider

the bell ringer

as one of us,

attempting some

unachieved,

magnificent

difference in the world,

far above

and far beyond

the stone-closed

space we seem

to occupy.

Below

we're all

effort, listening

and willful concentration,

above,

like a moving sea,

another power

shoulders

just

for a moment

the whole burden,

lifts us

against our will,

lets us find

in the skyward pull

a needed antidote

to surface noise,

a gravity against gravity,

another way to hear

amid

the clamor of the heavens.

~ David Whyte ~

Something, somewhere has changed, my Loves.

Let’s dance to change.

Sending love,

KB