not even an inch....3-23-21
"Not even an inch." This mantra, established immediately, oft-repeated throughout the reunion week-end. Emphatically, joyously, giggly---over and over. Marveling how crazy close we were to each other. A vaccinated release from an entire year of no physical contact with my children and grandchildren. After three glued days it still felt utterly strange, weirdly verboten.
Preview of coming attractions, eh? This slow shift into shedding spatial and contact vigilance. We are so in need, so ready, so yearning. We know the beaucoup science around health benefits of touch. We're first hand experiencing our neurological wiring for connection. Where touch is deprived, humans cease to optimally thrive. Not just physically and emotionally, but mentally, soulfully, spiritually.
It's a weird coincidence how this year of touch taboo arrived on the heels of #MeToo. We were attuning to appropriate touch in new ways. Feeling the cultural pendulum swing far enough to right years of wrong. This unfolding drama abruptly closed for the pandemic season. And because "so on the dance floor, so in life" this new perception of old behavior was playing out on practice floors around the globe, too. Who knows if such hard won, freshly developed discernment will survive.
So when the door slammed shut a year ago, none of this went away. Lack of touch and the longing it creates; graceful/awkward maintenance of physical distance; pandemic-enforced touch taboo concurrent with #MeToo sensibility---unfolds right before my eyes each and every Sunday in Sacramento. Cuz somehow we've been moving together in that spacious garden through three full seasons now: summer, fall, winter. The intrepid pioneers who initiated this miracle and do everything it takes to keep this practice alive are amazing. Courageous, inventive, respectful.
Now it is spring, things are slowly shifting. Participants are newly venturing out, some are emerging from the singular safety of Zoom, some are vaccinated, some are less than aware. The territory is changing yet again and we just keep negotiating the unknown. My partner Majica and I are charged with holding this sacred ever-evolving space. It is a responsibility we have not shouldered lightly. And since health care delivery continues to be my highest calling, I'm grateful for CDC guidelines. Especially now that this government organization appears to have re-joined the ranks of integrity.
It feels consummately clear that in a public setting, until we hear it is safe to do otherwise, we need to honor those CDC guidelines. No matter if you're sick to death of it, vaccinated, or just feeling rebellious we cannot touch each other out there. The need to remain physically distant and/or masked is a communal imperative and demonstrates an embodied understanding that unless everyone wins, no one wins. There are many among us unvaccinated and/or immune system challenged. It is the wrong time to be selfish. It is the right time for us all to rise up together, as one. And I cannot imagine a better practice setting for life than dancing out in that garden.
If we can keep the maturity bar high, I truly believe we're offering some of the best specific medicine out there. Health care that insures that, if not physically, we persist in connecting emotionally, mentally, soulfully, spiritually. Strong in our communal desire for everyone to win. We're practicing it on that dance floor every week.
Soon I'll be considering how and where to have that first live communal Essentials class---just a one off for now. But stay tuned. No need to wait though. That Zoom thing is established and awesome. And we are in the introductory phase of feeling into the breathing benefits and subtle core toning available from an accurate practice of uddiyana bhandha. If you are intrigued with the video below you might read about it in that highlighted link. I am loving how it feels in my body and I am starting to hear the same from you. This week? 10:00am Thursday, Friday and/or Saturday. The touch of the roller and the balls? Not nearly as good as human touch...but an awesome massage just the same...and some of the best specific medicine out there. Looking forward to that time when we can all be "not even an inch" and until then staying...
in service...Bella