Even after all the darkness, a spark can reveal itself reigniting and enlightening what has been present all along. It has been a long time of not seeing, a long time of numbing and a long time of suffocating. In all honesty, I lost my spiritual compass along with the knowing and understanding of my value, being and the alchemy of my work.
In this darkness I was unable to see. In this darkness I could not breathe and was unable to feel. In this darkness I was unable to hold the space for love. In this darkness was a well meaning meandering spirit not knowing where to go, how to get there or even which direction to first step. What remained was a shell of an exhausted wanderer beaten into the darkness by disappointment, fear and shame.
And then, out of what seemed to be the end, came a spark; carried by a fellow traveler, friend and confidant igniting the light through reminding me to be present in the work and to open the eyes of the heart. In doing so, I recognized the memory of joy and the reason for my being. I could remember again.
I have been there all along with my work and yet it took just a little bit of light to recognize, remember and reconcile where I have been within that darkness.
The light reminds us. The light inspires us. The light is us. To be the light is the practice. The practice for me is a return to body and a return to seeing myself as worthy of the light and worthy of being the light.
I may have been here all along or rather the shell of myself has been here all along. I have so much sorrow for all I have missed, lost, hurt and have not allowed myself to experience. Yet despite this sorrow, I am reminded that in order for me to be present I must be present in the physical practice of bodily awakening.
I remembered after all this time that this kind of practice was the reason I found dance and began dancing in the first place. Dance was the vehicle for this practice and my lens at which I came to understand the labyrinth of my body. I did not fall in love with dance, I fell in love with the ability to transform my body through the excavation of a body in motion and being a geomancer of space.
I recognize my second journey has begun and I am being gifted the opportunity of acknowledging, knowing and remembering that it was never about dance but always about a spiritual journey of a body in motion as the vehicle to animate and enlighten my soul. Perhaps this second exploration will remind me not to saunter through life this time but to finally realize what it means to sonder through life.
Ironically I have always known I was not a dancer, dance teacher, choreographer, and for gods sake a dance academic. What I have been is an archeologist of body excavating the kinetic landscape while unearthing the history and prehistory of my being lost beneath the layers of my life.
Here’s to digging! Here’s to digging deeply in the light!!
Architecture of the Heart 