when movement meets word....11-16-20
On my way to an inquiry about fully inhabiting the power of being, I was kidnapped by the word fluency. I’ve taught classes aplenty on the rhythm of flow. I wanted another way in, a quality more all encompassing than feminine, circles, receptive, earth, interior, dark, inhale, continuous, weighted. I kept obsessing on the word fluency, felt like a somatic expression of the power of being. A being deeply in touch with their internal weather---breath, sensation, shifty feelings, looping thoughts---and fluently able to enter the external, the slipstream of human and earth events. You’ve seen beings in full possession of this quality. They confidently glide through any space they occupy, 360 degree aware of the full surround. Fluent.
This delivered me to fluency in language. Which is the ability to both express AND understand. And this notion transported me to influence. I had us partner on the dance floor. From the power of our own being, one person influential, the other being influenced. A conversation. Fluency is essential for true give and take dialogue. In this process our bodies grasped something sorely needed in this crazy polarized culture. The ability to be influenced or be influential depends with whom you are talking these days.
This personal love affair with words was mined a couple days ago by Holly Holt , friend and fellow teacher. She’s passionate about writing and is all about fostering the writer in us all. To help meet that vision, she’s talking to women who write. Women who cannot help but write. I agreed to the interview because I adore that mission and 100% support her in it. But I also knew there might be some pearls from this guided conversation. I was not disappointed.
My first poem was penned at age seven, a plea to the tooth fairy. A poem that initiated a lifelong stream of verse. And there was that diary I kept from eight to eighteen, relinquished to the trash bin in a raging fit of embarrassment. Sigh. And forty years of journals dating from 1970. A woman who cannot help but write. In 2005 I started this newsletter as an informational communication of my offerings as I transitioned from clinical practice to brave worlds unknown.
But toward the end of 2011 those private journal entries ceased. I must have sensed that lodged in all that off-the-record vulnerability there were musings to reach an audience I cared about. This crossover to more personal disclosure was never a conscious decision, just a slow roll over. Didn’t start saving posts until 2013. I just finished categorizing some of them for the new web site in Recent Revelations.
But the interview set me to wondering. Has my writing changed, lost its candor through its link to my public work in the world? Has utilizing my writing to beat the drum about my work altered it? In some weird way this question relates to my soup restaurant dream. Will monetizing my love of cooking change how I feel about being in the kitchen? The interview floated me all around this question and also showed me how tightly woven word love and embodied practice are confluent in me. Confluent. Love of word, love of body…inseparable.
This age old word love of mine. Its inextricable tie to embodiment. This compulsion to pour sensation, feeling and thought into the written form. The revelations that come down the pike as word meets movement, as movement meets word. Language interwoven with bones and breath and blood. I’m dropping the worry about my writing being adversely affected. Of course it’s impacted. And that’s a good thing.
My private journaling was always about documenting experience and exploring what I was feeling. I needed to write to know. This here? Same. Except that because you are out there reading, the writing adventure is amplified, deepened, enriched. Thank you for that.
I absolutely adored being with you last Saturday to trial run Dance Essentials: roll, dance stretch. So much so that it’s re-scheduled for December 12. If you have yet to enter the world of Essentials, this coming Saturday is perfect: a slow two hour cruise through release, tone, stretch. Opportunity to feel so much…including fluent.
Love, Bella
P.S. An inquiry about foot pain motivated the short video below. Physical therapy via Zoom works amazingly well to address this oh so common challenge. Don't suffer with that one! Let's do it.