Sunday, June 18, 2006

My Dance Teacher # 2

“I want you to take the pose of the divine,” she told us at the beginning of class. “Show me the posture that connects you to the divine.”

I closed my eyes and instinctively threw one hand straight up toward the heavens, then put my other hand behind me, thrusting it down past my butt like a tough little rooster tail, grounding me to the earth. This was the divine.

“Now I want you to take the opposite pose,” she said, “the anti-divine, if you will. Show me that.” I concaved my chest and curled in, my hands at spastic angles in front of me like arthritic branches grown wrong, my face contorted and twisted in pain.

“How do you know that’s not the divine?” she asked, as we stood there in our contorted postures. “How do you know that’s not the entrance to the divine?” she asked again.

16 comments:

Dale said...

Oo. good question.

Is this the one who said "stop being above it all!"?

dweezila said...

Yes, that's the same teacher. It's a dance class and so much more.

deezee said...

this is just the best perspective, and one that helped me down my bumpy road last week. so glad you shared it. could be added to the list of smile inspiring mantras...

snowsparkle said...

love this... the entrance to the divine! what an incredibly wise teacher for the dance of life... and what a fine and worthy student as well. thanks for this... i've read it over and over... love it more each time.

Anonymous said...

The challenge will be to ask myself this question sometime (because it's a doozy)...trying not to remember YOUR poses. :) GREAT question.

Anonymous said...

On the other hand -- if we don't know this, how do we know anything? Assuming the divine is within us (and within reach!), this is one aspect of our lives about which we ought to be fairly confident.

Neoma said...

Good Question, I took ballet for about 5 years, my teacher was NOT this good. She never challenged the thought process or our own creativity. It was strictly learn by rote.

I guess to reach "the divine" we each need to give thought to the process. Nothing worth having comes easy.

Neoma said...

PS. I loved your description of your blog and yourself, middle age is not years to waste.......and many do, fantasizing about either life passed, or life they see on TV. Neither one worth the powder to blow them up. We got some good years left use em.

Kathleen said...

where are you?
sigh...
i keep coming back here to see if you've written again.

so i re-read.
and wait.

it is worth it.


i hope your summer is going well and you are taking care of you.

kelly rae said...

love this. it translates to life so well, doesn't it. our pain, our struggles, all entries to the divine.

Kathryn said...

wow! it sure has been awhile.

artmommusings said...

Won't you please come back to us? I think of you every day and long to know what you are doing, what you are thinking and feeling....

dweezila said...

what a nice person you are...thank you for inquiring. I will come back. Promise. Just sort of assembling myself, landing on my feet, thinking about writing for sure. Thanks for your sweet call.

Kathryn said...

ok good.
hurry back. :)

Anonymous said...

dweezilla

it's nice you're on a sabbatical and probably doing all kinds of constructive other things but gol it's hard to have you off the airwaves.

Kathleen said...

hope you are doing well.
we will be here...biting our nails...
waiting patiently...hee.

be good to you.