Letting go of a 1000 day commitment…

I have let go of my 1000 day of dance.

Eeek.

Yes I have.

As I write this I feel my heart beating faster, my face flushing.
A part of me is so not okay with this.
A part of me wants me to continue the 1000 day commitment.
To go ALL the Way.
This is also the part of me that I am learning to embrace, hold gently,
allowing her to experience resting on the earth,
rather than trying to carry the world on her shoulders.

I recently completed my Apprenticeship with the School of Movement Medicine.
I will continue to be in learning with them for years, but the first formal apprenticeship is over.

A big part of my journey has been to discover a little girl inside me
who has learnt that to survive
she needs to rescue the world.

I have danced with her

I have danced with her into my brokeness
I have danced with her into my wholeness

In the dancing, I have also discovered
that Mamma Earth, Mamma Africa,
and the Ancestors at my back
don’t need to be rescued
(this came as something of a surprise!)
and especially not by a little girl.

They are here to support me.
(imagine that!)

They want to support me.

They invite me into an equal partnership.
They invite me to step into my Power
not to rescue Earth or Africa or Ancestor as victim
but to learn to dance with them,

to dance with a being, a force of equal Power
in my power, and my vulnerability
We are really One

In trying to rescue, I am separating myself from that force.
In trying to rescue I close myself off from receiving support and nourishment
of Mamma
of Life

My journey towards 1000 days of dance ( 767 days on the road) have been an invaluable gift of Life
And had become in a way – a holding up of the world
A compulsion

Dare I trust that I can rest even from this gift?
My beating heart and flushed face aren’t sure..

But in the shift I already see new gifts.
Unexpected gifts of community

Instead of waking a 5 am to dance before the beginning of my day
I am waking at 6 with my children,
Then, after they have left for school
I go down to Kufunda and do my morning practice in the Dare (place of meeting)
with whomever wishes to join me.
Together we dance, 5-10 people, greeting the new day, in community
We dance like this perhaps 3-4 times a week
Creating joy and light and spaciousness together

Yesterday in leaving the Dare and the dance
I realised that for something new to be born, something always has to die
Releasing my solo commitment to a 1000 days
has opened a new possibility of a lighter
and just as delightful
collective coming together in dance

So here I am curious
curious and hopeful
And the little girl is learning
ever so slowly
to release the weight of the world
and begin to trust
that the world is in fact
holding her