As a young child I had an incident in the ocean where I got lost in the tide and for a space of time, I didn't know where was up or down. I adore water, but it left me with a healthy respect for the power and vastness of the ocean. I have been reminded of this vastness and power again, but on dry land. Where ever it is that "I go" while entering more deeply into meditation, this loss of awareness for ground is part of the transition--there is a moment of confusion and vertigo. The boundaries of the body drop away and there is a spaciousness, but without the feeling of buoyancy that water provides. I am learning to trust this not unlike trusting the abstractness of the Divine--the merging of it all. A taste of the unity of spirit and form at a new level of transparency.
During the past two years of dancing and riding, I have been trying to find a way to feel this essence by training the body (mine or the horse) well enough that it could get out the way and be the least invasive of this primordial spring of being. The walking yesterday as music with two legs and the dissolving from form to formlessness has made me aware of why I was obsessed with this in the riding/dancing. My teachers thought I was crazy and looked at me with blank stares when I wasn't satisfied with something in the freedom of the movement. Couldn't they see the block or lack of fluidity? (Thank you Vicky for being someone who could see and converse about this layer of being in movement, so I didn't give up.) There is a beauty and satisfaction in experiencing the body at that level and in timing it with another well organized living structure, but my search has now lead me to the other side of the limits of the body--a swimming in the formless. The transition back is a bit bumpy and becoming more intense, but incredible gratitude for knowing both.
For now, I still enjoy the feeling of striding along while walking, streaming sweat while spinning on the bike, and the muscular coordination of the body while lifting weights.
During the past two years of dancing and riding, I have been trying to find a way to feel this essence by training the body (mine or the horse) well enough that it could get out the way and be the least invasive of this primordial spring of being. The walking yesterday as music with two legs and the dissolving from form to formlessness has made me aware of why I was obsessed with this in the riding/dancing. My teachers thought I was crazy and looked at me with blank stares when I wasn't satisfied with something in the freedom of the movement. Couldn't they see the block or lack of fluidity? (Thank you Vicky for being someone who could see and converse about this layer of being in movement, so I didn't give up.) There is a beauty and satisfaction in experiencing the body at that level and in timing it with another well organized living structure, but my search has now lead me to the other side of the limits of the body--a swimming in the formless. The transition back is a bit bumpy and becoming more intense, but incredible gratitude for knowing both.
For now, I still enjoy the feeling of striding along while walking, streaming sweat while spinning on the bike, and the muscular coordination of the body while lifting weights.
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