“Breathe, woman. Breathe,” she exclaims. More and more, these three words drip from her mouth. Each time they are accompanied by a deep embrace, with which we are each engaged. She can feel the lack of expansion in my ribcage, in my gut, at my diaphragm, and in my mid-torso. The discipline of her Kundalini yoga practice makes me feel as though I am riding a giant air balloon. With my arms gently placed around her shoulders, back, neck or waist, I ride her warm air currents of deep affection and maternal attention. Up, up, up…
Devi’s words ring in my ears.
A chime of soft bells,
A ding of forks on plates,
A caress of the follicles in my eardrums.
Tonight, I entered into our communal dance space with all of this
re v e r b erating, -
the sound of sage advice and the feel of a gentle nudge,
a friendly reminder.
“Just breathe,” I encouraged myself.
In through the nose, - a deep inhalation,
out through the nose, - stale air.
In through the nose, - new energy,
out through the nose, - the stagnant repose of control and reason.
In.
Out.
In, out.
In, in, in, in.
Out out ouuuuttttttttttt.
Innnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn……….
With each person I greeted, I breathed deeply while opening my arms. First it was Kirk, a Tango dancer who applies what he learns from us, and our shared contact dances, to his performance troupe. Next, I embraced Mel, who had just returned stateside after having spent six glorious weeks in Thailand.
For years, Mel had held this communal, healing space on his own. We taught him to believe that a community of people can sustain this weekly event. With some reluctance, he took a long-overdue vacation. Now, he looked, and felt, rested. The dark lines of tension and stress that usually surround his eyes were gone, and his hair was cut back to an easy-to-manage, no-maintenance-required length. He had removed years from his short, broad frame.
Charlene, a Bu’toh dancer and performer, was the fourth member of our circle on this particular evening. Just over one month ago, Charlene was bitten by a rattlesnake. It took eight vials of anti-venom to reverse the effects of the reptile’s poison. Her lower leg ballooned up. She was swollen and sick for weeks, yet here she was, - ready to once again engage.
While we were waiting, Kirk shared with me that he went into his rehearsal, the weekend before, as he never has before. “Usually,” he said, “my energy is just-got-out-of-bed dragging and my teacher always reprimands me for my lack of vigor.” Last week, however, he said that he was still so high from the experience of the night before that his teacher was moved to tears. He described the dances from that evening, and the fleeting sensation encased in those moments of time, as being “bliss.” I contracted at the comment. “Bliss,” – my mind drums up a hippie-dippy, esoteric image when it hears this overly used term that attempts to describe something that is, perhaps, beyond definition. “Language is where the difficulty lies,” I responded after giving voice to my discomfort over the word choice.
At five past eight, we moved into a circle in order to share a group warm-up. In my mind’s eye, I vividly saw the way that I wanted to begin the class. I was moments from speaking my desire when I breathed in, and looked around.
Sitting on the floor,
facing each other,
Charlene and Mel’s legs were already spread
wide,
and in a V. Their toes were reaching for one another’s. The momentum had already begun. My job
now
was to follow it.
I breathed in.
“How about we spend the next forty-five minutes together,
without language?” I asked.
Silent, furtive glances and eager nods gave way. We stretched our limbs, while looking to one another for a cue as to what would come next. From sitting to standing, we evolved. Together, we swayed. The rustling branches of one growing tree reached out. We came together, and then we separated, - first into two groups of two, and then, as individual entities. Stepping out to look in. Looking out, to step back in. We paused in our moments of reflection, sparks of time when our minds once again clicked in and we wondered, “what am I doing” and “where do I go from here?” The constriction of breath was just as palpable as the release of it.
We fumbled around one another’s bodies. Grasping at legs, rolling onto bellies, and tucking over an extended thigh, back, or shoulder. The airy room, at times, alternated, between rolling with us, and then also providing hard planes with which to push off of and leap from. Hands clapping and feet padding created a soft, muddled soundscape. Together, our collaborative breath grew to include hissing, shushing, laughing, and other imperceptible noises. All of which communicated effectively the moment at hand, yet refrained from narrowly placing it within a stifling box of labels and descriptions. 2/3 of the way through our time, our moments of deep engagement and reverence, our seconds of disengagement and personal autonomy, we arrived at the place where I had initially wanted to begin. Sitting back to back to back to back, and
shoulder to shoulder to shoulder to shoulder to shoulder to shoulder to shoulder,
I laughed, quick and brief,
deep and guttural,
mimicked and sought after,
at her words which I knew were soon to come.
“If you follow the breath, you’ll end up where you want to go.
This is prana, Cara. This is the life force.”
Outtttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt.
