Why was there silence?

I haven’t been writing for a long time. Today is the third week so I haven’t been writing for the past two weeks. The reasons are many. I let myself be drawn into being non-productive. 

Was there really silence?

During this period I was immersed in taking care. Taking care of loved ones who needed the care. I lost myself in that space of being present with them, and I can say for once I lost myself without being in action, just being there with them, holding hands, hugging, sharing silence, sharing sentences that necessarily didn’t make sense, but that surely made sense for some moments… I lost myself in sharing meals together, in diving into conversations, full of love with dear friends.  

The silence existed in between words and my fingers putting them on paper. 

I had the space in me to reconnect again to the beauty of the work that I’m doing. I am always spellbound to see how wonderful it is to witness bodies in motion and I will explain why.

I’m always astonished to see how the bodies start opening up or start revealing things while they’re moving when they are in a safe environment. Usually my role during the work is to create that safe environment and to make the participants trust that it is safe, that they can of their own will and at their own pace and desire OPEN something, or allow something to open in them. 

I frankly don’t know how this opening happens, and I’m happy with not knowing. We (participants and I) just feel it when it happens when that beauty manifests itself not in words or images, but in pure sensation.

We work in the concrete and in the physical respecting principles of healthy movement , we stay loyal to all the exercises, we actually demystify everything so we know how the body functions, we learn, or we know how weight relates to gravity, how muscle power and willpower can help us to build up a stronger body and to create perfection in movement… We know all this, and yet it is so magical when we forget this demystification and willingly and consciously create the space for the mystical to open in our awareness. 

We  don’t really know what makes us move. 

Why do we move the way we move? 

We may think that we have ideas. We have images, we have motivations. We have intentions. We have desires, emotions that make us move, but yet we really don’t know why we move in a certain particular way at that very moment. 

The movement or that ensemble of movements just evaporates and it’s gone once it is shaped. 

It’s as if the subconscious is speaking through our movements (according to thinkers and writers of dance, and I deeply agree with this), the subconscious moves us maybe, but what is really there and and why it somehow chooses to manifest itself through the movement we don’t really know; and I think the beauty of it is, to be able to stay in this not knowing with curiosity.

Letting that beauty flow into us from the unknown parts of our beings, the unknown spheres of existence is just so magical, witnessing the bodies unfold, feeling that stream of energy flow through them, bodies who are alive, who are unique in that very moment…

This is what happened in my silence of words the past weeks in the lessons and workshops: I had the chance to re-experience this!  And I had the chance to feel this gratefulness in every part of my cells.

I feel grateful that I can do this work, that I can be trusted by the participants in the workshops or in the classes, that we can open that space where the unknown can happen although we start from very known and physical and very concrete principles.

And although we do such concrete and simple work, the unknown really happens, the unknown manifests itself, and we don’t have the need to define what this is or what it means.  

We can stay in this undefinable moment and dance through the unknown. 

I have been thinking a lot about the book and why I cannot write, why I stopped in the past 10 days although I had made a decision to write every day.  I just couldn’t, but I’m sure something is building up in me. And right now, with today’s mood and today’s sun and the sound of the birds, I can maybe find that strength in me to start writing again… Actually I’m sitting on a bench at the top of the forest as I am producing these lines on my phone. I am sitting watching the fileds that have been freshly ploughed, smelling the earth and watching the blue sky. 

I will rush home, take my time to work and gather my thoughts, write some emails and then I will write. What a day!

Stay well and feel good.

With love

As always

B