Living into Wholeness is Holy Work

I suppose one of the skills I’ve developed over the years as a dancer has been observing people, trends, and human behavior. Lately, my observational skills have drawn me more acutely toward witnessing people nearer to me who are experiencing a string of ailments, high level fear, and deep feelings of sadness and separation. I sometimes have difficulty ordering what I see all around me against my perception of Truth. Establishing a framework for empathy and compassion I view things through the only lens I know how, embodiment, but other sources, too.

Like the joy I felt in a note from my brother who stated, “It’s great to be 76, I’m wiser and don’t take anything for granted.” And the exuberance of my friend, Cynthia Winton-Henry who just completed a book publishing project with this exclamation, “Ta da da da!!! The Playbook Goes Live!” The Art of Ensoulment: A Playbook on How to Create From Body & Soul is the result of months of work with feedback, edits, and numerous revisions. I have many more examples, but if I only had these two it would be enough to incite in me a sensation I want to cultivate and emulate for the rest of my life. I recognize their states are not a fluke. From a dancer viewpoint, being fully embodied is essential to my life’s work and fulfillment. You could say, I feel whole when I’m dancing!—movement is the lens through which I perceive much of life.

Perhaps, intuiting a need for encouragement in the years ahead I designed a reminder of living fully in Christ until the end. On my writing table sits a collage card, 5 x 8 inches centered around movement which I designed a decade ago. The images and words are representative of active older women—in shapes of sheer abandonment to sedate, elegant postures. The development of this card, in part grew out of a quote by one of my favorite dancers reflecting on her sixty year career, a period long after most dancers have retired and found other means of expression and earning a living. Carmen de Lavallade says:

Dancers are peculiar. They don’t see the world like most people…. If you have a desire, it doesn’t matter what the world thinks, you’re gonna’ do it. I guess God put me in this crazy jigsaw puzzle, and I like it.

It’s the experience of “you’re gonna’ do it,” that I keep living into as I continue working in the dance field and discerning from where true joy and creativity emanates and how rooted in dance and maintaining that frequency facilitates my connection to God. I received and accepted the calling imprinted in me during early dance experiences, in what seems like eons ago. Experientially moving beyond my comfort zone and physical limitations, sometimes through default and in other instances more deliberately I recognize myself in God when the body becomes the vehicle toward wholeness holding the sacred space at the conjunction of soul with body. For me each encounter in the dance studio becomes a meditation of creative expression through the human form, a holy endeavor.

On the collage card from the center quote the eye is drawn out and down to the only color photo on a bright white background. In the lower right corner is a trio of dancers, one floating above two others. Captured in mid-air, head upward and pony tail flying away from her back, arms and legs thrust backward, bare-legged and barefoot, a blueish green and white print skirt aflare with a barely noticeable orange underskirt, contrasted against a green tank top—an effervescence flows through her body. To complement her airborne position, are two dancers, one grounded on the floor in a navy blue gauzy floor length garment. In a sideways lunge one arm touching the floor, the other curved out to side, shoulder-length, dark curly hair loosely framing a dauntless face speaks a posture of adventure. Slightly behind her is another dancer also earth-bound, legs extended along the floor, torso in a backward arc, one arm folded at her lower back, palm outward, the other arm extended palm opened reaching toward the audience. With hair cropped closely to her head, her eyes demand attention with a facial expression of distinct valor.

Moving clockwise and connected by the words: “It’s never too late to be great,” another photo in black and white, a bit larger in stark contrast to the trio is a single dancer in a stunning pose. Costumed in a flowing dress is Martha Graham on demi-point, her other leg extended over her head, arms lifted away from the body, both hands flexed, palms facing outward one over her head and the other at heart level demands authority. She was a woman of incredible vision, ingenuity and a free spirit performing well into her 70s, and premiering a newly choreographed work Maple Leaf Rag at 96.

Red lettering announces the deliberate and heroic feats of a couple of other women, 91 year old Hulda Crooks, affectionately known as “Grandma Whitney” climbed Mount Whitney to 14, 505 feet the second highest peak in the continental United States. She was a mountaineer, dietitian, and an advocate for vegetarianism.

Eleanor of Aquitaine who could be called the matriarch of medieval history served as queen of England and France at different times, of course, and parented a number of queens and kings. She could easily be considered one of the most powerful women in the 12th century and accompanied Louis VII in the Second Crusades. At 78, Eleanor led an army in a rebellion against her grandson King Arthur, later seeking a more tranquil life as a nun at the Abbey of Fontevraud.

Circling around near the center of the assortment of words and photos is one of me in an ankle-length dark colored dress, poised in a subtle backward arc. The shape is aided by a forced demi-pointe of the back foot, arms sweeping across the front of the body at hip level both palms up, the left arm completing the sweep out to just below shoulder level toward the viewer in an unfaltering facial expression.

The costume was worn for The Bleeding Pines of Turpentine, a 2013 cultural theater performance based on the long leaf pines of the Sandhills region in NC. At 60, I danced and choreographed in the original production with other performers travelling to Ireland.

That I would count myself among the women showcased between 70-96 on the card is purely an act of humility reflecting on both the fortitude, patience and gentle physical training the endeavor required. It is also a statement of raising to consciousness the celebratory and reverential aspects of aging, mobility, and the arts.

Bringing to closure your tour of the collage card are additional decorative elements of tiny clear bars placed to attract light horizontally and vertically perhaps representing a ballet barre or obstacles along the way. On the very edge of the right side of card in bold letters are the words ”Be present, Be Healthy, Simplify, and Keep moving.”

I don’t recall what I may have been thinking during the original design process, but as I step into my 72nd year of life in this divine/human body, I recognize the achievements are of less importance than the new questions, quests, and challenges arising before me. There is no less joy and curiosity in the journey filled with uncertainty and risks. The body still moves, the muscles still respond, the mind and spirit still yearns for communication without words, albeit differently and with adjustments.

And perhaps most urgently, the collage is a reminder to take hold of each precious moment and to live fully as long as one is capable because the journey is ultimately toward wholeness—both inward and outward— and at times feels very holy.