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
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