Soul Motion

I just completed the SoulMotion workshop with Zuza in Burlington. I feel a need to write and yet I am not sure what I have to say. Here goes…………. It is funny how I had a cold on Thursday the day before the workshop and felt quite lousy. When I went Friday night I wasn’t even sure I would last the night. Somehow over the weekend my well being improved…..At the moment I feel both energized and tired and mostly full of gratitude for the opportunity I had to dance with such a wonderful group of people under the sacred and professional direction of Zuza, a woman committed to this path of Soul Motion. It was wonderful to dance and move for an entire weekend!. I did not tire of the dance, however I might add that my body is now revealing a few tender spots. I noticed repeatedly how my mood, feelings and thoughts changed. I went to places of feeling awkward, to feeling rejected, and then accepted, to feeling scared and then safe, of feeling judged to acceptance. The landscape changed over and over again. The key was staying in the present. I got to experience over and over coming back to what was happening in the room, not in my head, not outside on the streets of Burlington. Another lesson I take from the weekend is a deeper understanding of the concept of expansion and contraction. We did this through our dance. . We are always moving between contraction and expansion. We do this with our breath - the inhalation being contraction and exhalation being expansion. -Sometimes we need to go in, to be more confined, more with ourselves, our internal process and other times to move out and be in the world, interacting with others. To do this dance over and over again in a safe environment was truly touching. It is another way for me to remember how we are all connected and how our needs, our desires, our fears are all so similar. Our stories may be different but in dropping the story line and showing up, dancing, our similarities are present and the sense of oneness is given space…………. As I just re- read what I wrote I realize how difficult it can be to communicate in writing such experiences. Poets, artists, musicians, to name but a few, often have the secret to revealing the essence……..the cornel of truth…….However, I am someone wanting to share my experiences, want to teach what I am learning and this is one way I can do that. As I transition back into my regular life and it shifts “out into the world” I know I can be pulled into places of fear, scarcity, doubt, aloneness. These words will help remind me of what I know in this moment to be true and to remember the landscape is always changing, always shifting. Dancing, breathing, sitting and quieting my mind are ways to bring me back to the sacred, to the divine to the connection with myself and all other humans dancing this dance of life………………..

Giving

There is a well known saying, “It is in the giving that we receive”. The way I heard the saying actually sounded more like if you give you will receive, in other words the giving was conditional, it felt loaded.. This started me thinking - what does it mean to really give? So often there are strings attached, conscious or unconscious.For most our intension in giving is generally wholehearted, but perhaps we attach some condition to it. For example, we give a gift of money out of the generosity of our heart but perhaps we have some idea of how we would like to see the money used. We may actually exert a little control over the gift. Or perhaps we offer to help, like helping a friend or relative move and down deep we think perhaps if I have to move they will help me. If this is the spirit of our giving then all that we receive is the hope the receiver will do or act the way “we think they should”. It is conditional. In these cases I think we miss the essence of the saying “it is in the giving we receive”. There is a much subtler, less tangible quality that happens when we just give, no strings attached. For me there is a pure sense of satisfaction, a validation of what it means to walk the talk of how we are all connected. It is worth remembering that our roots all share the dirt, the same earth. So when we reach out to one another and unconditionally give from our heart we touch another’s life, bringing joy or perhaps comfort, relief from stress, to name but a few… .It is a gentle and kind reminder of our inter connectedness. I believe that it is such true and honest connections with one another that make life meaningful.. . And so the pondering of this saying, “It is in the giving we receive” is causing me to look more closely at my giving, my possible conscious or unconscious motives and work consistently towards giving from a spirit of true giving with no strings attached.