Got Birth?
In my late 20s, I studied bellydance for 6 years. At the time, it was an identity creation process happening on the inside by dramatic forces and the power of will applied to the body. Dancing was for me, by me and not really to be shared- though I did perform on a handful of occasions with a couple of troupes.
Those years were about getting in touch with my own sensuality, but even more importantly about refining and tempering the creative force within. The school of dance I studied with channeled all that energy into a very disciplined, mind-bending taxonomy of precise, small movements, simultaneous rhythms and shocking “wow, you mean my body can do all that at the same time if I turn off my brain?” results.
Like with Tae Kwon Do in college, I never got to the advanced levels. But when all we could see were trees and not the whole forest floor of our learning, my teacher would remind us to look outside the school and see how well trained we were...as dancers. I did this, spending another year in the backbeat ridden environment of a hot salsa class led by an athletic Puerto Rican and a room full of women dancing it all out right behind him.
That same energy is back. Perhaps it's that this is a 1 year, but I can't really put a specific finger or sentence on it. Something has ridden in on the winds of the Equinox, barging in like an angry lover. On top of that, there's a salaciousness in the air or water.
I’ve got handfuls of blog ideas in queue and like someone stuck staring at the trees, I can’t navigate the forest anymore. I can’t write even one post worth publishing- except this one. It tore through the village of my mind, swiping all the animals and stealing all the clothing.
Does anyone else feel in the throes of creation? Or contractions? Or something? Some friends of mine, including my husband, are hard at work creating a CD of lullabies; I know of a couple of other parties on the path of forming non-profits right now. Another friend is trying to buy a home of her own now that the market’s in the shitter. They say deaths come in threes, but what about the forces of life and birth?
As important as it was then to the dance, sound is following me around in this journey. Mystical and sometimes not so mystical, music is my psychic canvas for life. What are the sounds of your spring?
Here's my playlist, so to speak:
Home by Face
Some Kind of Wonderful cover by The Fault Line
Dance S'loyfn, S'yogn (Traditional Yiddish) Moira Smiley & Voco
So, Hecate is the goddess of birth and um, other things. It’s also the name of this rifle- a picture I found on the internet. You really can’t make this shit up, only Google it. I liked the resonance of the image given the very obvious connection to events up our nation's wazoo right now. But I also thought it was pretty darn cruel to be going all along with this assortment of food, nature, animals, and art images, a dash of politics and men or women in power, la la la--and then camo and rifles. How rude is that? So here's your closing image:
Another thing that began this year is on ongoing tradition of a Twelfth Night Party at our house. Our friends Nancy and Bill and their two daughters acted out the complete works of Shakespeare right in our living room. Their older daughter Cassandra produced and directed and they performed all the death scenes from Shakespeare's plays in about 15 minutes.
I can't remember which play had Bill in the tutu, but maybe Nancy, who's pretty brilliant with words and song rewriting (like she re-wrote Ode to Joy by raiding this blog), will stop lurking and remind me.
Comments
Post a Comment