clarity in action...2-19-19

What is power and why would I choose this term in naming the Fluidity, Power and Release trilogy? I love the dictionary. Remember those big old well-used ones on the library lectern? Well, though Merriam Webster on-line lacks the intrigue and veracity, the definition is clear enough: the ability to do something or act in a particular way, especially as a faculty or quality. And I love this piece: the ability to act or produce an effect. It doesn’t include brawny or tough or struggle. Nope. Just clarity in action. I had a moment like that Sunday.

There is this potent stillness moment on any given Sunday morning. We’ve danced two hours, the room utterly quiet, vibrantly alive. Whether I’m up front or on the floor, I’m breathing, being, landing, resting. The only difference about being up front is the necessity of closing our time together. Which can be done infinite ways. Much easier to say a few words and let people go. But if I’m curious in that moment and feel it is in service, I call us together and invite participants to share their experience.

I continue to grow the clarity in action needed to hold a circle of verbal sharing. From too many painful episodes I’ve learned to tactfully frame it as a forum to speak to the experience of the previous two hours. Anyone who has been present at a hijacked circle knows to what “painful” refers. I spent years as a student in closing circles never saying a word and so I often speak to the gift of articulation. That your experience may be akin to something a quiet person has felt but has no words for. After setting the stage, there is the formidable moment of simply sitting, breathing, waiting.

This Sunday, after offering up what was apparently a provocative practice mid-waves, I opened the circle for sharing, listening as people contributed. Since the group is well-versed in guidelines, I’ve begun to notice that reflections fall into three categories. First are those who take on the simple instruction offered mid-wave and share their experience around that. Second are those that come to dance with their own active internal process, pretty much set aside the instruction and share their personal process with the group. Sometimes in this type of share there is objection about how the instruction, the offered language, interferes with the internal agenda. And thirdly (and there is a special place in my heart for these folks because I have plenty of experience along these lines) there are the courageous who speak about their resistance to the particulars of the instruction and how they worked with that.

What tickled me on Sunday is the obvious passion sparking these three types of share. Fiery animation informs me that people have been challenged and moved and, on whatever level, transformed. And for me, this is the ripe fruit of my labor. It’s why I keep showing up. This is the obvious.

But on a more personal level, I am heartened at how my response to a highly charged situation is a signpost of how I have risen out of a background of defensiveness. There is a cumulative feel to staying present as clear neutral witness to whatever arises. With a modicum of grace. Not being stroked by the student who elaborates on the value of the teaching. Not dismayed by those who ignore the offering. Not provoked by someone who objects to the use of language. Not triggered by the dancer who resists the particulars of the instruction. And it is not lost on me that modeling the power of clear witnessing is one of the things I offer.

This ability does not stand alone. It is grown out of the shifting sand of fluidity, ever able to remain flexibly aware of what is happening in present time.   Power is exercised in response to what is happening in the moment. Response can be delivered with a hard defensive or judgmental edge. Some people might call this being direct. I totally know how to do this. Practicing a powerful response that is soft and clear continues to be the practice of a lifetime. And I am so not done. That’s why I’m moved to offer this workshop; we teach what we need to know.

If you’re ready to trust your gut, come for an afternoon on March 3 of nurturing an inner strength. Feel the possibility of moving and expressing from the inside out. We’ll start with the rollers to establish that flexibly aware fluidity. And then we have a luxurious amount of time to feel into the deep belly place from which focused power arises. This will be a subtle and dynamic exploration of your deepest being.

I’m picturing you there with me.

Love, bella