Dance: A Transformational Superpower

Drawing Room - how dancing meditational circles & infinities transforms my life

WHERE THE BODY GOES
THE MIND WILL FOLLOW.

AND VS. VERSA.

Whirl by Beautiful and You. Gift of Isis by Dennis Nejtek. Drawing Room.

I draw the sign of infinity with my body and my life changes.

Drawing with my head, I close my eyes and wheel through the depths of history, the present realities, and the unknown future. I connect to the Life Source.

In the alternating roll of my shoulders, like two gears on a clock rewriting time, I throw open my chest, stand tall, and gain the strength to rise beneath my burdens. Although others placed them there, I built two comfy shelves and magnified those insidious gifts until my spine bowed and my ribs caved from the weight. You’re not good enough. You’re too this and that. You’re ugly. You’re so duuuumb. You don’t do it right. You don’t deserve to be loved if you’re like this. These rolling gears propel me out from under those burdens and into the truth of self-knowledge. I learn who I really am.

I learn that I am Love.

Drawing with my ribcage, I connect to other hearts, touching them as they touch me. This infinity weaves together a healing mesh across the rifts from betrayal and the puncture wounds of loss. My lungs move more freely and begin to chip away at the asthma I have had since another driver’s drunken lurch into my life.

Drawing infinities with my hands, I paint a masterpiece of light around myself. I fashion glowing pathways between me and those who surround me. I beckon to Eternity, Destiny, Divinity, Inspiration. I call Them to me whether I am ready or not. (I only think I’m not. They would not come if I wasn’t ready.)

In the continuous rippling of undulations—that infinity that washes from my head to my hips, over and again—my twisted, compressed spine is strengthened and stretched so that disks and organs have room to breathe once more. As the vertebrae relearn how to articulate, I relearn how to stand up.

I learn for the first time how to stand up for myself.

In reverse, that body-waving infinity draws the energy of my own life force upward. From my connection to the Earth, it resonates through my pelvis, my guts, then my heart and my mind, until at last I can feel that I am as graceful and sure as my feet, as strong as my dancer’s legs, as fiery and creative as my wombanly vessel.

And oh, the infinities of hips! Forward, backward, upward, downward, swiveling and swaying in the currents of life. I was nineteen when I was raped by a man-boy who swore he loved me; I was nineteen when I began belly dancing with its innumerable circles and infinities.

Coincidence?

I think not.

It took me five years to remember the incident, as well all the other violent things he did to me. During those five years, I drew countless infinities with my pelvis. Little ones, big ones, slow ones, fast ones. I drew them as I traveled; I drew them standing still. As I drew the sign of Eternal Life with my feminine creative center, I could no longer ignore its voice. First a polite, “Ahem,” then a heartbroken cry, and finally a raging roar that shattered illusion with the shards of glass falling around me as I slammed backwards onto the living room floor.

But I had been drawing infinities for too long and my connection with life was too strong. I allowed loving hands to help me stand.

And I continued to draw infinities.

Circles too. More hip circles—from the cradle of my mother’s hips, through a dancer’s life, and onward unto my death and the recycling of my soul. Small deaths. Small cycles. Small rebirths. Until the big one.

(The next big one?)

(Ask me when I get there. The energy that animates this body has to go somewhere, after all.)

Sometimes that which has died goes nowhere, circling and spinning and circling and gouging until I make it leave. From the implantation of seeds inside my youthful womb and all that was spawned therein, to the mutinous rejection of what I stored in that vessel for years, to the consequent surgery that cut it out so my feminine home could be renovated. Restored. Reborn.

From defilement of those first flowers just opening, to coping-sex, blind sex, numb-it-make-me-feel sex, to a vow of celibacy and then marriage and then celibacy in marriage and divorce and finally, to union with that protective, nurturing presence inside myself.

I bloom again with rolling hips, curling hips, juicy-throbbing-pounding hips.

Mine.

And chest circles.

Hurt in; hurt out, dumped onto the ground to become the fertilizer that it is—fertilizer for creative crops.

Love in; love out, poured back out tenfold so there is room for more to come in.

Blood in; blood out, pumped by my internal drum, speeding and slowing with the pulse of the music and the world.

Breathe in; breathe out. Breathe in; breathe out. Breathe in; breathe out... A gasp of excitement. A huff of frustration. A deep inhalation to sample a fragrance. A sigh of contentment. Breathe in... breathe out…

With gentle head circles, I work through the stiffness of my neck, through the crunching pain of scar tissue and arthritis. Each move opens my throat—that fortress, sealed and thorn-covered for too many years. Out comes a laugh, a song, a growl, a bark at boundary-crossers. My Truth. Around and around, winding new pathways up my cervical spine into the ravaged wastelands of my brain.

More circles: try, try, try, try…fail, fail, fail, fail—succeed! Try, try, try until I regain my momentum. Then repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat—falter. Get up. Try, try, succeed, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat…

And once more…

In the relearned skills of playing zills, in the circular patterns of memorizing music and choreography, in the patience and diligence of honing a craft, I bridge chasms and fill potholes created by three separate impacts to my head. (EDIT: And those other two. And the seizures. And that other one. Oh yeah, and that most recent one. Those chemical toxins, too.)

As I curl circles with my hands, I wind up the scattered pieces of my spirit like winding the threads of the spools I have dropped and that the cats have batted around the floor, around the legs of the table and under the refrigerator. I draw these threads back into me, reunite them with the whole, and I entice others to do the same. Come on, come on, we whisper to each other in the circular dance through our smiling gazes in the hafla ring, or between performer and audience, or between musician and dancer. My curling hands mirror that sentiment. Come with me, they purr at you. Take up your dance—your own dance of circles and infinities.

Infinities and circles, from top to bottom and bottom to top, spiraling me ever-deeper inside myself, ever deeper into the Divine. I work to train my body and my body ends up teaching me about me, and so I dance to express the ME I have found and inspire someone else to do the same—to dance their THEM, and in watching the other someones I see expressions and movements that inspire me, so I go home and I work to train my body, and my body teaches me about me and…

Drawing infinities.

Drawing circles.

Drawing my life in the patterns of this dance.

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Related Posts:

Or from my art & nature, elements & dance publication:

It Started As a Perfectly Innocent Dance Teaching System...Then It Spawned

You can find my tools and toys for this circle & infinity healing-dance in the Section designated for my Elements System.

You can find all the posts about how I got started in dance, as well as the inspirations and influences that created this style in the DanceStory Section.

© 2015 Hartebeast