Swimming this morning, the clouds were soft, fine,diaphanous. My body in the water felt soft, fine, diaphanous – boneless, like the water, like the clouds and the sky. No separation. Monty Roberts calls the moment of connection between horse and human “join up.” I am looking for join up all the time, with everything. It’s like a sensual prayer, a bodily invocation. Like making an effortless wireless connection with the universe.
Ingrid Schatz, who has danced with me for the past 15 years, told me of a recent study showing that movement improvisation has been shown to be the greatest antidote to dementia! Nearly four years ago I lost my mother to Alzheimer’s disease, after eight years of losing her piece by piece in excruciating increments. I wonder what might have been different had I engaged her in some kind of movement play. Improvising turns on the brain’s circuitry, creating new pathways and connections. Improvising, we don’t now where we are going, we are traveling through time and space without a map, following the wild and ragged heart of the body. Horse Dancing at its best, really. The continual, present-centered, unfolding bodily conversation with yourself, a horse, a lover. A way to get unstuck from the rote, the habitual, the usual. Try this: take five minutes sometime today and lie down in a quiet spot and just let your body move in any way that it wants. Little, big, fast, slow – doesn’t matter. No editor, no instructor, no judge. Listen to the body. Let it speak.