I had a wonderfully rich childhood with music lessons, and dance classes of all kinds. I took art classes from a local artist. I know mother wanted us to be cultured. We had classical music in our home. There were classical books. She inspired us to be creative and I soaked it all in. Winter was filled with such things. I was a spotlight solo ballerina one winter. Although I was not limber, as I got older I could actually lift my legs up behind my head. Then I matured and filled out and I could no longer do it. My solo dance was at the end of a time I could easily bend my frame to fit the graceful movements of ballet. I dance to “My Sweet Alice Blue Gown”. Although I seemed to be an extrovert, inside, I was painfully self-conscious and vulnerable. Most never saw that in me, but it took every bit of courage to dance on a stage in front of several communities who all had children in the recital. It was, then, I perfected a personal disassociation where I could shut out anything but what I was doing. I lost myself into the dance the same way I lose myself into art when I am doing it.
For me, dancing was losing myself in the rhythm, the movement, the story of the dance. I was as complex a child as I am a complex adult.
I loved to dance all my life. After 1984, I did not have a dance partner any more until my sweetheart and we danced in Mexico, we danced at my daughter’s wedding, but my most favorite adult dance was the dance with my sons at ShirRae’s wedding. I had never danced with my sons before. It was a sacred moment to move so precisely in unison to beautiful waltzes. Those were the only two times that I was in perfect harmony with the rhythm within.
As I wonder why this thought came to me, as I collaged this art journal page, I realized there is always a story or a symbolism in all my art work. It is good to look at what you have created in terms of a lesson, a message, from one’s beyond. For me, I see an old woman looking into her past and the fading memories there. Although the die cuts, added, are stylized fancy-dressed women, it immediately had meant ‘dancers’ to me. I sought the meaning of dancer and realized that, as a dancer, we move to the harmony. Am I living in harmony in this space of time between past and present? Do I remember to move into ancient rhythms of the Divine Feminine. No! I forget to express my Divine Feminine except when I am ‘arting’. How do we express that in our lives, and amidst all the chaos and the exterior noise?
Today, a pirouette happens if I turn to quickly, and I find that rhythm and harmony, now, when I escape into the world of creating. It is my sacred space. It is the rhythmic brush of paint to substrate.
How do you enter your sacred space in your everyday life? It Is there. Can you find it?
©Carol Desjarlais 2.22.22
What would be the musical score you would dance to.
Mine would be SHE.
No comments:
Post a Comment