My Dance

There is a pivotal moment when something within your body wakes up and comes alive to Love.

Tonight I danced for the first time in my life.  At least for the first time since I was a child.  You see, I didn’t know that before tonight I wasn’t really dancing.  Sure, I was moving.  I wanted to dance.  I saw what dancing was all around me.  I felt a hint, a simple glimmer of what dancing could be through other people.  I knew it lived inside me somewhere.  I tried.  

Even in my purest moments of dancing before tonight, even in moments of great fun and love, my sweetheart spinning me fast around, the two of us running towards each other like silly bafoons jumping and displaying our own scene of “fake figure skating” at a wedding--the only sweet fools crazy in love on the dance floor--without a care in our minds of what another human being thought of us-- even then, I was not fully connected to the root of my body, to the root of  My Dance.  

Three years ago, very nervous I walked into my first belly dancing class.  I signed up for the Dance I knew was in me.  I learned some moves.  I practiced a little.  It was nice.  I could finally move my hips like a woman.  I could never do that comortably before.  I had tried but there was disconnect. I worried about how I looked.  I never realized it was about how it felt. I wanted to be the beautiful worman I knew was inside me. And then through Belly Dance I found it,  but at that point only on a physical level.  

At every doorway of opportunity to dance, I have always wanted to.  I was born a dancer, but not in the way some people are.  I was born to dance My Dance.  

When I was three years old, clad in giant crooked mouse ears and a little grey leotard with a tail and tiny ballet shoes, I ran out onto the recital stage with the other girls in my ballet class.  I remember the quiet classes that lead up to our recital.  I remember the hum of teacher’s voice: “Point, flex, point, flex,”  On the barr--plie,plie.   But what I remember more is the rounded shape of the windows on the brick building across the street outside the window, and the way the clouds moved in shapes across the sky; second floor, downtown Oak Street in Augusta, Maine.  I remember the cars driving by as I dreamed out the window.  I never retained a single step of our little mouse dance for the recital.  I didn’t frankly even know I was in a recital.  I liked My Dance though.  I loved being a Dancer.  As the other girls found their positions on stage, I ran back and forth behind them, looking for an open place to stand.  I scrambled into the last one.  I didn’t really have a clue what we were doing, and I still remember looking around at the other girls, and following their plies and pointing my toes.  Then I broke out into my own little ballet. I see the other girls are doing another plie, and I join them out of time. Frankly, its rediculously adorable:  I mean, just imagine a little line of tiny mouse ballerinas dancing out of time-- you could hear the audience respond in joy and laughter to the utter cuteness of it.  Somewhere during the song, our dance was over, and the little mice have all left the stage.  All except one, who, in her own little world, as usual, didn’t realize everyone else has left the stage.  One tiny grey mouse in tights and oversized ears looks up to realize she is alone on the stage.  One little grey mouse panics and dashes to the wings.  That was me and thus began the journey of My Dance.  

Its 1989 and my older cousin dresses me up in a side ponytail and ties my oversize t-shirt in a knot on my hip.  She spends all day teaching me the steps to her favorite synth-beat song.  Family members are requested to line the couch to watch the performance.  I emerge in bright pink lipstick and the music starts.  Cousin Mandy whispers in my ear to remind me of the moves.  Instead I completely disregard them and do a bunch of summersaults and run around back and forth with much zeal and enthusiasm.  Repeatedly she starts the song over, But I feel so free and I can’t resist the pull of My Dance.  

I don’t know where that line is somewhere in childhood when we lose sight of Our Dance.  The fear creeps in and robs us of the innocence we are born covered in.  I think perhaps it is a part of the Great Dance of Life.  The question is, will we ever find it again?  I think we have all found it, in precious moments, at the very least in little glimpses that leave impressions on our hearts we won’t soon forget.  And then throughout our days we reach through our fear- hardened bodies for the glimpses, we look around inside, and most oftenly outside ourselves in search of The Dance we know we have.  The Dance we know we are.  

When I was in high school I fell in love with a boy I knew I could never have.  He was my first real aching, awful, longing, beautiful, deep, echoing love.  I wrote him a letter.  I told him I couldn’t hold it in any longer, the Love was too big.  He thanked me for my courage and told me I was sweet.  I spent hours staring at sunsets, laying under my tree, sleeping outside and writing beautiful words from a space so deep in me that words came bursting through my darkness like seeds breaking through the dirt and baring themselves into the sunlight.  I blossomed on my own.  One day he told me I was beautiful, but I knew that was all I could have.   It was a sweet torture, a love I could feel but could not touch,  and from this aching space I found a new depth of feeling and love within me that awakened my numbness and opened me up.  

One night that summer I sat on my bed in my tiny back porch bedroom, windows all around.  It was past midnight and a warm rain pelted hard outside. It pounded the windows as a borrowed track of piano music played on my little stereo. Time passed slowly.  I remember  I could almost hear my heart beating in my chest, suspended somehow between the rise and fall of the music.  In that long moment,  I could feel the Mystery of my Heart through the music surrounded by the sound of the mid-night summer rain.  And then I felt him.  My some-day Forever Love was out there, somewhere.  I realized in that moment that whereever he was,  however many years it would be until I would find him, that I already loved him immeasurably.   I sent out my love into the night.  I knew he would feel me too.  Implusively I ran outside into the rain and spun around, soaked and passionate,  arms open to the sky.  I laughed and tears of joy melted into the rain on my face.  I fell in love with Life--with what it is to be crazy in love; to feel so much,  to offer my love because my love is worth offering.  I remembered my Wholeness in that moment.  I remembered My Dance.  Six months later I found him.  

Twelve years later I have chosen to open more deeply to My Dance.  Listening to the call of my heart I begin to learn the steps and the movements of Belly Dance in hopes of finding it.   Belly Dance has enchanted me in the ways that it reaches into my Spirit and draws me out playfully and mysteriously; in the ways that it opens the feminine body through slow and sensual movements that awaken the hips and open the chest-- more importantly the heart-- enlivening the creative centers of the body.  My dance teacher is a friend, a sweet wise soul who brings a unique gift of magic as she delves into the “Mysteries of the Universe” within her and plays with sweet energies, bringing Her Dance to the world and inspiring others to find theirs.   At her workshop we write down a personal goal for Our Dance.  I write that I want to “find and feel the connection between my body and my soul and allow for its authentic expression.”  My friend plays a slow song that grows in intensity. She plays it three times.  Each time, instructed to “free dance” using our emotions to express, I open up a little more.  I care a little less about who is looking.    By the time the song plays for the third time, I am kicking and spinning with beautiful arm and hand movements.  I taste My Dance.  But there is still fear.  It is ok to be afraid.  I am content anyway.   

Tonight I hold my love’s sweet head on my chest as we watch a movie together that carries us through a range of emotions.  When I feel a lot, I find it deepens my capacity to express and create, as an opening of my heart and a grouding of my center.   I can feel this movement as the movie ends and  the credits role.  A fast-paced song plays and I feel the inner impulse to dance.  I ask my love to dance with me.  He says no, he doesn’t want to dance,  but says he will watch me dance.  I stand up and stretch, for a moment thinking about what moves I might incorporate to mesmerize him...  And then I completely drop the concept of thought, and I allow my body to connect with the vibrations of the music.  And this time, for the first time I stay in the connection.  This time, I loose the need to think about the movements, I loose the desire to try to be beautiful and the need for acceptance and I feel total love for my own expression.  I feel every step, and every turn, and every movement is already created before it emerges.  I allow it to Be, without the judgements of my mind entering in.  I feel the joy of being silly and playful.  I dance the whole song, in my own perfect motion, breathing heavily and feeling the rush of my soul’s voice pulsing through my arms and down through my feet.  As the last note falls, I move in perfect time to the floor, heart wide open, energy fully grounded, knowing that I have just met My Dance, and shared My Dance authentically, for the first time.  

Life will call Your Dance to the surface of your imagination.  There is no way to avoid it and there is no one form through which Your Dance expresses.  Each person hears the echo now and again.  Will you know Your Dance when it calls for you again?  Will you answer the call?  

Great Blessings Surround You and Hold You,

Abigail Grace

Both Sides of the Moon: Musings on Mangoes, Comfort, Nakedness, and Finding Our Way Home

I remember the day I learned that mangoes are a sensual fruit.  I was a teenager, and my best girlfriend and I sat on either side of a pulldown cupholder arm rest on a big, overstuffed black leather couch.  We laughed beneath a skylight of blue as the juice dripped down our arms.  It was then that I knew.  Mangoes are not for the faint of heart.  They are as wild and passionate as the one who drinks their nectar in.  They are sweet pleasure in their ripe juiciness.  Yes, I have heard that you should eat mangoes naked, and I do believe this is true.  I still haven't done it, but I'm certain I will.  There is a Wildness to Life that yearns to be touched.  Not a one of us hasn't felt that yearning at some moment of life.   Tell me you haven't wanted to taste what Life has to offer and I will not believe you.

I have found that curling up knees-to-chin on a couch of mismatched blankets is a wonderful comfort.  I like to hear the dogs barking outside sometimes.  It reminds me that I am cozy here in this home, so lucky to have my place to curl up and feel safe.  I am not alone.  I love to see the clothes on the line, and as they move I can almost feel the subtle breeze on my face as if I was for a moment a feather-light white shirt, translucent with sunlight-glow shining through.  They remind me of the simple joys of life at home.  The orange glow of a lamp, the sound of a tea kettle singing, the shower is going, there are books on the shelf.  Little cups stacked up.  A sweater hangs out of an open dresser drawer.  We all need comfort.  We all yearn for home.

The air is warm.  I squint as I look out upon the lake, sun-ripples dancing, waving toward me like shards of gold.  A gentle breeze.  I stretch and breathe.  I remove my dusty socks and feel the sharp rocks under my sore feet.  I walk towards the water, hesitantly, but wide-aware.  Inside I am free.  Inside I run like a child into the water.  Several moments pass as I stare out across the blue.  I come to the edge, where the water laps the shore calling me out gently into the freedom.  The afternoon sun is like that happiness that wraps around you like the evening of a summer child. Crickets chirp through a memory of barbecue smoke.  Time stretched long like afternoon shadows.  Sunlight made real.

A silt-cloud of mud fills the clear water as I swirl my socks around to wash them.  I squeeze them out and hang them on a shoreline tree.  Beyond ankle-deep now I can feel each cold and slippery rock underfoot.

 I am deep in the wilderness, prepared with all my heroine heart to get into that water and swim naked.  Gosh darn it, I am determined. I have come so far and waited so long for this divine moment. I invite my Love to join me, thinking I will find some sort of Courage or Liberation or Deeper Love if he swims with me, but I find myself alone and left my clothes on a low bush nearby.

Apprehensive, and sure that someone in the wilderness could most certainly see me from across the lake--how dare she be beautiful and naked in the forest, afterall--I stand for a moment and take in my wild liberty, realizing that frankly, it doesn't even matter if there is.  I slip away into the water, the coolness like sacred silk cloths over my skin. I am reverent of the deep silence below. I feel my body spin like a dervish, spiraling and still all at once.  I savor that perfect still smoothness on the surface of the water--a feeling suspended in time- as I break through and emerge into the light. Cool drops of freshness drip down my face and make high vibrations on the water as they fall from my hair swept wet behind my ears.  I am clean and clear.  I am Wholeness and Brilliant Wild Beauty for no one but my Self.

I wash my clothes with much care and hang them in the trees, then dash shyly to grab my wonderful woolen underlayers.  I savor their sun-warmed softness.  I retreat to that place of cherished comfort once again.  I lay and watch the sway of the pines, hear the low music of the frogs and the rhythmic water lapping the shore, my eyes focused gently on patches of sun as they move on the mesh of my open-air tent.  I find home.

There is a Calling to Wildness and the Open-Hearted Freedom-Bliss of Life.  There is a longing and an echo that can be heard as we become quiet.  Much like the mid-night song of a wailing loon on a secret lake, it haunts us and draws us deeper within the dark and mysterious brilliant night sky-scape of our inner reaches.

There is a retreat once again to the Softness of Spirit within, holding us eternally in a warm and nurturing embrace.  We curl up into it like a tiny child, our hearts cradled like a precious treasure.

It is a mango of sensuous passion, a quilted couch of quiet peace, a wilderness shoreline of adventure, a warm home under the trees.

Wild and Precious, Gentle and Fierce are we.  Quiet and Thundering, Trembling and Brave are we.  We are as Sacred and ever-changing as the Day and Night and Seasons all around us.  We are the Seasons.  We are the Starlit Night.

The sun rises, inviting the petals of a flower to Open.  The rain pushes petals to the Earth.  The mandala is woven.  It circles around. Life is both sides of the moon.

We Welcome Wild and the Comfortable, both...

~Abigail Grace Stohs

Love Glows. (And Other Ponderings on the Nature of Life, Friendship and Inner Exploration

Life is so rich and colorful.

I sit here and feel waves of gratitude for Being wash over me.

Here I am, in this cafe, a favorite of mine downtown--the golden yellow walls  that almost exude a warmth you can feel on your skin.  These walls stand as a backdrop to the faces of the people all around me.  I see their smiles, their embraces, colorful hats, tapping their feet to strange music that fliters through the gold of my corner booth.  What I hear is different, gentle melodies breathe in and through my headphones, providing a soundtrack to what I know is a remarkable moment.

 But the people--they are so beautiful in all their shapes and forms.  I feel as though I am looking at them as a part of my story--a part of life--a part of a grand work of art in ever-changing progress.   I see them connecting.  I feel their connection.  I know this so well.

At once I see movement and flow, like a dance.

The couple just in front of me, in the depth of their conversation form a perfect frame through which I see a business man with a warm smile and the kind of wrinkles that mark a life well lived. The younger man at the bar--tall and thin, black 1950's era glasses and intently styled hair, pointy shoes and tight jeans, lost deep in a novel;  ever-mysterious lover of classical music.  I've seen him here before.  A little girl of five or six, passes by quickly, leaving behind an impression with her sparkling dark eyes and pearl headband.  The barista behind the counter moves quicky from one end to the other adding a rhythm to the music.

I know we walk such different paths, but here--it is almost as though I can feel all the private moments and precious people blend into one another like music--like paint colors falling over a canvas, leaving behind sprays of light.

I do believe that every moment has the potential to be so remarkable, and yet, in this moment somehow I have captured it. I feel I am a part of the music, the dance, the artistry. Everything has a glow to it. Even the little things around me catch my eye; five knives glinter, stuck to a magnet on the wall: two big ones, and three little ones. They are all angled perfectly to the right, as if someone placed them like that on purpose.  Bottles of wine age under little spotlights.  Clean glasses upside down.  Jars of tea line the shelves.

But why do I see with such eyes in this moment?

Perhaps it is because this morning I got very quiet.

I awoke as I often do, with words of hope for the day in my heart.

I bathed.  I oiled my face. The smell of lavender.  I liked the way my skin looked in the sunlight that filtered through the dirty window. I thought about  the nature of beauty and the desire for touch.  I wondered what role beauty plays in Truth.  I started to question myself on everything I've felt lately;  on Who I Am, and whether it is authentic, and whether what I thought was authentic really is...

I began to humble myself and step back.  I literally envisioned myself outside my body, observing my human self in expression.  What is real?  What is true?  Who am I?  Who do I want to be?

And then my sweet husband invited me to join him at this cafe.  And the dance of clarity began.

As I watch these people, I know them.  I can't explain it, they are just familiar to me. And I Love them. There is nothing they must do for me to feel this Love. And over me washes the incredible immeasurable Love that I have for the people that have become a part of my life story.

What I know is that I Love people.  It has never been something I hesitated about.  I can remember as a young teen seeing movies and hearing conversations where people would struggle having fallen in love with someone and then, they would wonder if it was too soon to tell them-- as if there were some defined moment when Love is okay.

 Many times I have fallen in love with people shortly after meeting them. And soon they know. How could I hold it inside?  My Love overcomes me.  I feel it intensely.  However I admit that many times, I feel so much love in new friendship that I tend to share it in little bits and pieces, as not to frighten my friend away, while simultaneously celebrating and adoring them all at once by myself.  I suppose this is some level of the same fear people experience when they fall in love.  Fear of losing something so brilliant.  I have that fear too.  But Love is all too worth the risk, and in truth, I think what we are feeling, and what we are afraid of is really what we are made of, and what we come from. It just scares us that we could be that brilliant, and then share it with someone else.

After this remarkable summer, travelling on my feet over 1700 miles through mountain forests, through sunlit pastures, thumbing on the side of highways, and sleeping under the stars, my capacity for Love has only deepened.  Life out there taught me many things, about the goodness of people, and truth, and myself.  I met countless souls along the way, each with their own gift to give.  A few which I hope to remain friends with always.  A few which have left their imprints on my heart. I feel incredible Gratitude to them for sharing with me a journey only we can understand.

It is the people of this world that make it home.  I can recall one afternoon months into my journey, tears streaming down my face as I longed to be with my family again.  It was then that I realized that people are all that really matter in this life. I had almost nothing, and it was people that I missed.  We need each other.

Today I am grateful to see the walls around me emanate light in this sweet cafe.  And I am grateful to know that the walls are just reflecting the light and warmth of the faces and hearts that make up this glorious Music, making my world my home.  I am grateful for the receivers of my Love, for the people who are Home to me.  The friends new and old that have opened my heart just by Being in it.  And be warned dear ones; I will Love you with a level of Love necessary in a time where it is most important that I be Who I Am: Glowing Love.