You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.--Colette
Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else ... Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. --Hermann Hesse
I have been reminded on more than one occasion recently that when you want something vastly unlike that which you have ever known, it is often (always) necessary to do some thing (usually several) that you have never tried. And you might feel ridiculous in the process.
I am reminded of one particular experience that I had last year when I was in California for a seminar for graduate school. I had just made the decision to follow my hungry heart to the Creativity and Innovation specialization. Making that decision in itself marked an important turning point that I have written about previously. Just an hour or so after officially changing my specialization, I found myself in a room with other artists casually joined around a circle. There were a handful of us gathered with my mentor, Nancy Rowe. I exhaled completely in their company, fulfilled by just being in their wordless midst. Nancy had several papers strewn across the floor and none of them had the information that she wanted to give us. She laughed easily and comfortably about organization and paperwork not being her strength. I relaxed even more. There were a pile of instruments in the middle of the circle and she suggested that instead of staying in that stuffy room, we take ourselves and those instruments down to the redwoods and reconvene. Oh yes, I was in the right place.
Our week long seminars were hosted by an old Catholic convent where a few elderly and hospitable nuns still live to this day. The grounds are beautiful--actually only a few miles from the busy highway, but cloistered by the enormous trees and hills characteristic of the Bay Area. There is a small pond on the property and miles of hiking trails. My favorite spot is an outdoor amphitheater that overlooks the pond and is encircled by huge redwoods. If you have ever encountered hundred year old redwoods, then you know something of the presence of holiness and majesty. Their stature and strength are matched by their beauty and grace. To be in their presence; to sit or stand with your body pressed against the rough red bark is a true healing experience. Our group of merry minstrels gathered there for a creative exploration of epic proportions.
My dear friend Lindsay was among the group. She, too, at the eleventh hour had decided to switch specializations and celebrate her creative coming out with me. I was overjoyed to have her with me there. Our lives have many parallels--we both reluctantly exchanged a transient, independent life in California for a more affordable 1/4 acre in Florida to plant our roots and have babies. Our kiddos are almost exactly the same age and we are both yoga teachers becoming life coaches slowly becoming more of ourselves each day. Lindsay, the rest of the group and I were gathered in the natural amphitheater mid day and Nancy suggested that we begin with some specific voice work of which she was only sure of a few details. She recruited one of the singers from the group to lead the half-understood practice. We sectioned off into groups and began sounding in a round. The first group began and then the next and so on, until we were all creating different sounds at varying times. A bystander might not have been impressed (only embarrassed for us) but you know it didn’t sound that bad from where I sat. Perhaps the trees absorbed some of the sound, mercifully buffering us from ourselves.
The next creative exploration we practiced was one that Nancy has dedicated many years to working with and one I have grown to appreciate immensely. It’s an improvisational expressive movement practice called Authentic Movement. It was developed in the 1950’s by a woman named Mary Starks Whitehouse, a student of the famed dancer Martha Graham. Whitehouse became a psychotherapist that used dance therapy with many of her psychiatric patients. The instructions are simple--begin with eyes closed and take a few moments to connect to the body-mind processes. Wait for some kind of stimulus or impulse and then begin to move from whatever arises. It is a spontaneous experience with no expectation or direction outside of your own felt sense. As Whitehouse explains, "When the movement was simple and inevitable, not to be changed no matter how limited or partial, it became what I called 'authentic' – it could be recognized as genuine, belonging to that person." The authentic movement experience often involves both the mover and a witness. While one person moves, another observes or “contains” the one moving without judgement or interpretation. Both people become active participants in the experience. For many, like Nancy, who has written about and taught authentic movement for years, it is nothing less than a spiritual practice.
We all spread out on the deck below the redwoods leaving ample space for our neighbors as Nancy said a few words to lead us into the experience. We would be moving for ten minutes and she would let us know when the time was up. Ten minutes?! I caught Lindsay’s eye out of the corner of mine and we shared the smile that spoke the same language: “If only they could see us now. . . this is EXACTLY what they all imagine we do when we come to California. . . have I lost my mind?. . . I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.” We closed our eyes, cutting off the telepathic communication and I took a deep breath. I began to move at first superficially and then more sensitively as I attuned to my body and breath. Within a few minutes the most amazing thing happened. I forgot about the others, and the pond, and the trees and Nancy, and my silly thoughts. I moved and at a certain point that I cannot clearly identify, I was moved not by own volition. I surrendered to whatever it was that had been waiting for me to receive the invitation to dance. When I opened my eyes after ten minutes I was awed to the core. Gratefully we were not asked to speak about it just yet. We were guided to paper and a variety of colorful pastel crayons and invited to draw the experience. I picked a few colors and let them sweep across the page effortlessly. This was a new feeling for me, as I tend to resist and contract internally when I hold a crayon or paintbrush. And then we were invited back into movement again, exploring the dance from the perspective of our drawing.
Perhaps you are one of my friends in California reading this, in which case none of this sounds unusual or even that enlightening. Redwoods, vocal sounding, authentic movement. . . been there, done that, created a job from it. However, for most people that I encounter each day in my small suburban city, this sounds downright crazy. I can hear them saying, “Which one is the psychiatric patient?” Yes, I know it looks and sounds ridiculous to some. And when I first thought about doing it, it did feel a little silly. But I admit, I secretly love this kind of stuff and I have been doing it for years so the initial skepticism never lasts long. I quickly got past the ridiculous and was lucky enough to taste the sublime. And from it, I have been able to extract a simple, yet accurate formula for my life. Here it is: Chances are if it looks ridiculous, foolish, impractical, or slightly embarrassing on the outside, but feels absolutely sacred-sublime, soul-freeing, luminous and joyful on the inside then go for it. The opposite is usually true too--if it looks, sounds and presents as shiny and bright and full of promise on the outside, but feels questionable, empty and contradictory inside, then proceed with great caution. The authentic movement practice has taught me to trust more directly in the currents that move through me from one day to the next. It satisfies my deeper longing to be true to my essential nature and to encourage that unique capacity to lead me forward.
This can be a tough one for the ego to swallow. Most of us don’t want to risk looking foolish to follow our bliss. But sometimes it is necessary; especially if we are hungry for something we have never experienced. This month’s inquiry involves a dare: are you willing to risk looking ridiculous in order to taste the sublime pleasure that comes from trying something completely unknown? What will your authentic movement look like? Is there something you have always wanted to try but are afraid of the awkwardness of being a newbie? If you are feeling extra frisky, try the authentic movement practice that I described above. You can do it in your living room with your dog or even a plant as the witness. Start gently and work your way up to other opportunities for feeling slightly foolish. In many indigenous cultures it was the fool that carried the greatest wisdom and sacrificed popular cultural acceptance for truth telling. The fool is often depicted as the child-like spirit in search of experience and appears to be stepping off the solid precipice of security and common sense. Witold Gombrowicz, the Polish author reminds us: "Foolishness is a twin sister of wisdom." When we can connect with that foolish part of ourselves, we give ourselves and others the gift of permission to play rather than perform; and to collaborate with our soul rather than compete with our ego's expectations. And you never know, it may just lead you to your most authentic heart's longing.
Shall we dance?
The Dance
By Oriah Mountain Dreamer
I have sent you my invitation,
the note inscribed on the palm of my hand by the fire of living.
Don’t jump up and shout, “Yes, this is what I want! Let’s do it!”
Just stand up quietly and dance with me.
Show me how you follow your deepest desires,
spiraling down into the ache within the ache,
and I will show you how I reach inward and open outward
to feel the kiss of the Mystery, sweet lips on my own, every day.
Don’t tell me you want to hold the whole world in your heart.
Show me how you turn away from making another wrong without abandoning yourself when
you are hurt and afraid of being unloved.
Tell me a story of who you are,
and see who I am in the stories I live.
And together we will remember that each of us always has a choice.
Don’t tell me how wonderful things will be . . . some day.
Show me you can risk being completely at peace,
truly okay with the way things are right now in this moment,
and again in the next and the next and the next. . .
I have heard enough warrior stories of heroic daring.
Tell me how you crumble when you hit the wall,
the place you cannot go beyond by the strength of your own will.
What carries you to the other side of that wall, to the fragile beauty of your own humanness?
And after we have shown each other how we have set and kept the clear, healthy boundaries that
help us live side by side with each other, let us risk remembering that we never stop silently
loving
those we once loved out loud.
Take me to the places on the earth that teach you how to dance,
the places where you can risk letting the world break your heart.
And I will take you to the places where the earth beneath my feet and the stars overhead make
my heart whole again and again.
Show me how you take care of business
without letting business determine who you are.
When the children are fed but still the voices within and around us shout that soul’s desires have
too high a price,
let us remind each other that it is never about the money.
Show me how you offer to your people and the world
the stories and the songs
you want our children’s children to remember.
And I will show you how I struggle not to change the world,
but to love it.
Sit beside me in long moments of shared solitude,
knowing both our absolute aloneness and our undeniable belonging.
Dance with me in the silence and in the sound of small daily words,
holding neither against me at the end of the day.
And when the sound of all the declarations of our sincerest
intentions has died away on the wind,
dance with me in the infinite pause before the next great inhale
of the breath that is breathing us all into being,
not filling the emptiness from the outside or from within.
Don’t say, “Yes!”
Just take my hand and dance with me.
