Tuesday, April 9, 2013

I think I might have inhaled you.

"I think I might have inhaled you,
 I can feel you behind my eyes,
 You’ve gotten into my bloodstream,
 I can feel you flowing in me."--Bloodstream, Stateless

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3b1CDLsiGU

This is one of my favorite songs to dance to that I've encountered in my past two months of blues dancing regularly.  The first night I danced to it, I went home and danced by myself with this song on repeat the rest of the night.  It touches the deep recesses of my soul, just as blues dancing has these past months.

The first time I encountered blues dancing, I absolutely hated it.  It made me nervous, being so close to someone.  Following a lead dancer seemed difficult because I was too anxious to stop and listen to the beat the lead dancer was trying to show me.  It's hard work to stop our bodies and minds to tune ourselves to the heartbeat of another person.

How often does that happen in our regular lives?  We run about our days so quickly that our interactions are prepared sentences or our own shit circulating outside of our heads with others doing the same thing towards us.  We walk around with our own worlds constructed around us and these worlds collide together in community, for better or worse.

Dancing teaches you to drop your self conceptions and listen.  If I don't attune myself to the beat of the person leading me in a dance, I end up looking like an ass.  And dancing doesn't just call me to listen; it calls me to boldly step along with another person.  Sometimes that means being unsure that the move I am about to make is the one my partner intended and messing up.  Within that mistake lies me, covered in the fear and shame of being unsure and having to admit that.

We hold these masks over our faces that let other people know that we know exactly what we are doing and that we are doing just fine always.  This assumption that we make up for ourselves is so far from the truth and it not only damages others into thinking that they are alone in their insecurities, but it tears apart any hope we have of development.  How can you change if you teach yourself to believe that you are fine and have things in control?  Because you do not hold the control.  You never will.  And that is a gift.  Revel in the fear of being wrong or not knowing what comes next and laugh at it.  Be content with the mystery because there is nothing else to do.

Dancing has taught me to face the mystery and see the gracefulness of what happens when you tear away the insecurity and just be.  Be the body that moves to a beat that matches the music and a dance partner.  Be the lead dancer and move to the rhythm as it unites with your soul and the wooden floorboards.  Dance by yourself and see how graceful it is to move to the feeling before thinking about it; letting your soul soar through your body's movements.  Be the embodiment of the music-you hold the musicality of every song with your fingers, toes, shoulders, and hips.

I think I might have inhaled the divine.  I can feeling it in my bloodstream; I can hear it in the pumping of the bass line and the pauses in the music notes.  I feel the divine flowing in me.

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