Dancing in, through and beyond time...

Words and artwork by Pippa

"I arrived at dance last week a bit ‘beside myself’ – in the sense that my body was definitely there, but my mind was preoccupied by something else - maybe something I felt that should or should not have done; my to-do list; aches and pains in my body, or some unresolved emotions around something difficult. Who knows?

Do you know that feeling of not being fully there in the moment?

I enter the room where we dance, and a bit more of my whole self comes to join me as I feel into the space, connect with others, give myself permission to just be there, in time, place, body, mind and spirit.

As we start to warm up, more of my thinking mind disengages and lets go, dispersing into the space and beyond. My body moves in ways other than the ways it has moved all week, and as it does, ‘stuff’ gets released, freeing up a space for the feeling that my body parts are not disjointed, but all one living, breathing organism, connected to the others in the room. I am starting to forget the clock, deadlines, maybe even time itself……..

Have you ever felt that freedom?

My whole self has now entered into the music pulsing through my veins and takes me where it will. I stamp my feet or shake my arms and I sense an echo of ancient ancestors making those same movements across time, connecting me like an ancestral thread to the past. This has no words, no science, no explanation. It just is; the primal state of being human across centuries.

All of my selves, past, present and future, are present in the dance. I can dance out old pain, and I can dance into new possibilities. I can integrate parts of myself that had been resolutely at war. I can be a baby or a mother or a crone. I can be air, fire, water, earth and spirit. I can be a creature or an ocean, a plant or the wind. I am all of these in that timeless zone that is the dance. The medicine of the dance journey takes me beyond words and time. it is as vital as breath.

Are you called to the dance?"