Category Archives: the dance

Jan14

the herd

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I went to see Nelson, and toward the end of our time together, my friend came down to say hello.  As she and I stood outside his paddock, he hung out with us, nuzzling the fence, poking his nose through – participating in our conversation.

Nelson is a lonely stallion.  He does not get to hang out with a herd.  In captivity, we usually isolate stallions because they can hurt each other.  We don’t want them to work out their territorial, sexual stuff on our watch.  So for the time being, we humans are his herd.

I have been thinking about why I am so much more comfortable with an equine herd or a dog pack than I am with most human herds.  Maybe it is because I feel so clearly the lack of agenda or concealed intent with the horses and dogs.  Maybe it is that as a dancer, movement and touch are my first language, and that is where the horses live.  Language is not weaponized, and the communication feels more honest.

It is not always simple.  I sometimes have to spend a lot of time parsing what my Andalusian gelding Amadeo is saying.  He is a flighty boy, and like some humans, his language (a hoof, his teeth) sometimes fly out before he has really thought things through.  Nelson is more straightforward, more willing to tell it like it is.

I am also thinking about what is essential to me in a day.  What I come up with first is four legs and a soft nose.

What about you?

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Jan11

the looking glass

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Photo:  theredmenmovie.com

Yesterday I wrote about how the horse mirrors us and asked, “What mirrors you?”  Here is another take:

This is always true: What I think and how I feel, and what manifests, is always a vibrational match. But here’s the big kicker: What manifests isn’t manifesting instantaneously. So, you’ve got all this buffer of time leeway that makes you sloppy… If you thought a negative thought and a brick would instantly fall on your head every time, you’d clean up your thinking. But you’re not here to be punished about your thinking. You’re here to use your thinking—and your focus—to create.  Abraham, Excerpted from the workshop in Washington, DC on Saturday, May 7th, 2005

Today when I woke up I could feel myself looking for trouble.  I felt it through breakfast, and pretty much through most of the morning.  This is not my usual state (any more), so I was well aware of feeling edgy, cranky and like if there was poo on the road, I was going to step in it.  Which is, metaphorically, pretty much what happened.  A nice blow up with my daughter, and a raging neck ache.  Trouble delivered.

What I am practicing now is using my focus to create how I want to feel.  This is my recipe:  hug my daughter (done); take some motrin (done); pet a cat (happening now); take a bath; eat the beautiful dinner that raw chef Stacey Stowers is preparing for us tonight; watch Downton Abbey online.

Begin again.

Jan10

what they teach

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“The greatest language is that without words. Communicating with a single touch that which delivers the energy of a message is always understood, a vibration of the vocal chords to gestures of the body. The forgotten wisdom in this primitive relationship we share with animals is so important. We tend to take advantage of our ability to communicate verbally with each other and often ramble on aimlessly without purpose and thought in our words. “It’s okay to be quiet” I often hear myself say while others addictively babble on. I seek refuge in the company of my teacher, the spirit of the horse who quiets my mind down, for I have learned to communicate calmly with love and attentiveness.”   Ariana Waite

 

These words were written by a young woman who volunteers at Blue Star Equiculture, a loving sanctuary for retired or rescued carriage horses in Palmer, MA.

Today when I was with Nelson, I opened the gate to his catch pen so that we could continue our movement conversation in the big six-acre field where he lives.  He started to leave, and then I raised one hand, really just a shadow of a gesture, and he curved his path around and came back to me.

Then he did something surprising.  Without my asking, he walked into the big round pen that is in his field.  He stood there quietly while I untied and then closed the gate.  Understand that Nelson does not like any kind of confinement. I then began to signal him to move around me and then come back to me – a continuation of last week’s dance.  Today, my hand signal was subtle: a kind of light, curving whisper of a movement, which, brilliant decoder of movement that he is, he read perfectly.

We did a sequence of moving away, changing direction, coming back to me, moving away a number of times, each time, I could feel the dance between his body and my hands and body become more like a quiet, elegant, listening tai chi.

I remembered Anat Baniel’s words:  “More force is the definition of less differentiation.”  And Linda Tellington-Jones urging us to feel more by making our touch lighter, slower, more subtle.

And here is Nelson, telling me, “Yes, that is right.  Less is more. I understand you perfectly.  When I don’t, I will show you.”  And indeed that is true.  When I am unclear, he mirrors that.  When I am nervous, he mirrors that.  When I breathe, slow down and feel, so does he.

Who mirrors you so perfectly?

Jan9

finding the light

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Photo:  Jeffrey Anderson, from RIDE with Escorial and Deanna Pellecchia

I spent the weekend in the theater, directing Ryder Cooley’s production of Xmalia.  For the past number of years, my theater has been the arena, dancing with horses.  It is good to get back inside for a bit.

The theater is a good place to look for light.  Literally, figuratively.  My focus with this production is to find the light within the dark themes of extinction and mourning.  To bring each of the performers into their individual, specific lightness of being.  And doing that in such a way that the shadows are also revealed, the spaces between, the interstial illuminations.  That is how the work can surprise us with little moments that shake the heart, as well as the big ravishing ones.

How are you finding the light?