The Summer Long Dance

It started with me feeling small, imagining that everyone else had been here so many times before, that they all knew what they were doing, that they all belonged and that the knot in my stomach was the only one in the room. I had arrived tenderly and unsure, to this beautiful valley in Devon. Green, quiet and far away from everything I knew. I met some good friends with whom I had travelled with on this Movement Medicine journey so far. I stood close by them for reassurance and for company. We pitched tents, found our way around and both literally and figuratively, got the lay of that land. We ate together in a beautiful barn. We gathered on the grass and benches around the campfire, close to the river and sauna and surrounded by big, old, beautiful gnarly trees. The marquis, in which we would spend most of our time, was across the small river by the stone circle. Yes, it really was as magical as that, stone circles and gnarly trees.

We spent the first two days preparing for what was to come. This involved, talking, listening, of course dancing, eating together and learning the roles we were to take. For me, the preparation also involved looking for my place in it all. And while finding my place took more than those two days, I did some good groundwork. I had arrived, as I do so often, full of anticipation but with no conscious intention. Yes, the Long Dance had been rumbling around inside my mind and body for a long while now (perhaps it would be true to say the last 3 years) but in a very practical way. Instead of wondering what my intentions were, I had been wondering how I would manage it and if I even liked the idea. What finally got me over the line was the idea of dancing everyday for a week. That sounds like pure pleasure to me and the distance I knew it would create from my everyday life, that I would see myself and my life from a different perspective but mostly, that I trusted the process.

The first question they asked us was ‘why are you here?’ I had no idea. I’m not even sure if I know now. I don’t believe my reason for coming or set intention could have been big enough or wild enough to be filled by what was about to happen. In those first two days I took the discovery of my intention very seriously. Every conversation I was in, I listened with a third ear, as if there were divine nuggets to be caught in everyone’s words. I mean it, ‘Divine’, in the true sense of the word. There seemed to be a power in the concentration of intentionality in the air, of purpose and that seemed to unwittingly support my inquiry. I was building, questioning and rebuilding the answer to why was I here? Why had I come, why had I paid the money, booked the flights and left my family? For what?

I’m not sure if I ever really figured it out but I got much more than I could have hoped to get.

With the preparation done, altars created, roles assigned, journals and sheepskins in hand, we met on Monday at noon in the barn to begin the Ceremony that was to last 3 days. We gave thanks, tuned in, and walked together, in silence, through the woods to the marquis. The tone was serious and reverential. We were welcomed into the marquis one by one, gathered with our support group at our base with chairs, mats and blankets that would be our home for the next three days. These support groups were of 3 or 4 people and together we would navigate this journey. We would rotate dancing, witnessing, resting, dancing, witnessing, resting and so on. There would also be frequent times where we would all dance together and the rare times we would all rest together. This was my family for the crazy commitment I had made. What a beautiful family it was. 

And so it began. I was a mess of intrigue, curiosity and fear. Fear of the unknown, and very much fear of fasting. We were to be in Ceremony for 19 hours of the day and therefore only get 5 hours of sleep a night. While I value my sleep, that didn’t worry me quite as much as the fasting. I think it was really a fear of starving. Of course, I wasn’t going to starve in 3 days but you try telling my nervous system that. I had opted for fasting help, which meant eating. They were to supply us with nuts and dried fruits. I had an image of small trays of food, always full, outside the tent that I could go to whenever I needed. The truth was very different. 

That Monday at around 6pm we were invited into the Earth yurt to eat our meal and I would have loved to be able to see the look on my face when I realised how little food was available to me. Not only were there no nuts or dried fruit but I was shocked to find that I couldn’t even have as many carrot sticks as I wanted. There was an abundance of food on the table but there was a limit to how much we were allowed. That was a real shock, I mean, considering this privileged world that many of us live in, with kitchens full of food and restaurants that put so much on our plates we can’t finish it and here I was, with what felt like no choice. Me and my buddy looked at each other and laughed. And the indignation we felt when we saw someone with a third piece of carrot on her plate. We would have paid for that extra stick, only to realise that she had traded it for her piece of raw broccoli. So powerlessness, scarcity and inequality were all triggered in the first evening meal time and by the way, we had had a fine breakfast that morning, starvation was far from likely.

Once I knew the score though, I felt much better and by mealtime the next morning I was so grateful to receive what I was offered that the link between food and nourishment deepened. Although, I did have a moral or maybe ‘good enough’ dilemma around this. I am a funny mix of a rebel and a rule follower. The more I respect the person who makes the rules the more likely I am to believe in the rule and want to follow it. The less respect I have, the less likely I am to believe in the validity of the rules and more likely to break them. This put me in a pickle. I have great respect for the creators of this event and yet taking care of my body obviously topped their suggestions. And let me be clear, no one ever told me that I could not bring food for these 3 days and eat it in my tent. BUT I internalised it as a rule, and broke it anyway (date and nut bars, phew). It did bring up  ‘not committed enough’ or ‘not strong enough’ thoughts and therefore ‘not part of the gang’. These thoughts didn’t last long, but it is interesting to me how I always feel that I am on the outside, no matter what part of society I include myself in. For me, it is clear that I do not belong in mainstream society and yet I am not sure where I do belong. Sometimes I think I am cursed with the feeling (not necessarily the truth) of not belonging, so it doesn’t matter what group I am with, my story is always the same. They have all been here before, they all know each other so well therefore I am on the outside. But in recent years I have come to the conclusion that a lot people feel this a lot of the time and that it is not a sign of being on the outside but is in fact a deep and beautiful longing, to be with our tribe, to feel safe and secure and uplifted by the company we surround ourselves with.

The music was live! This was the first time I had ever danced to live music in this way (sober). Movement Medicine is a dance that is drug and alcohol free and what a gift that is. It was thrilling. There were drums, (the tribal kind), keyboard, sax, flute, guitars, shakers and voices, beautiful voices. I wanted to watch instead of dance. It was magic happening right in front of my eyes. Watching Susannah DK conduct or guide the musicians in response to the room, tingled me to the bone. Was she guiding them to respond to us or to bring us somewhere, I am not sure. I think they are one and the same, an infinity loop of reciprocity. An unfolding and following and if anyone knew where it was going, it certainly was not me.

This Ceremony was not just a dance, it was a 3 day prayer. I had heard this before but the depth to which this was intended was more than I had understood. While we had personal intentions and prayers, there was a collective prayer, specifically for the protection of the Amazonian Rainforests, this rich source of Life, of biodiversity and of the indigenous communities protecting it. Chumpi was with us, representing the Achuar people of the Amazon along with Belén Páez, a global leader in sustainability. They shared with us their stories, dreams, prayers and songs, straight from the heart of the Rainforest. This prayer was woven throughout the whole ceremony a we danced through the 5 dimensions of Movement Medicine. There were with our relationship with Self, our one to one relationships, our community, the invisible and ancestral world and finally, Spirit, again and again in different contexts. These too, were all prayers. 

Being on this journey with the dancers and musicians, this infinity loop of energy, this rise and fall was often glorious and sometimes not. I still had my internal stories, I still had my discomfort and was finding it hard to get out of my head and into my body. Eventually, I got there but I’m not sure at what point because instead of being a journey through time it was a journey through states, mostly I think of varying degrees of connection with myself, the room and many things invisible. I was lucky enough to have had a healing with Susannah, which is a story in its own right, but I will say this, it was deeply comforting, ‘womb of the Earth,’ stuff. It gave me the relief and release to be able to let go, perhaps of the story of not belonging and perhaps another story or two. I gave way and rested into the holding of something bigger. Thank God! It brought me straight down into my heart and my body and I danced from there. I felt incredibly complete, fully in myself with no stories (until I made up some more!)  and there was a clarity around me, an opening that began, for me, what was the next chapter of the long dance.

The serious and reverential quality did not exclude play, curiosity, joy, sadness, grief, exhaustion and therefore rest. Funnily, some of my favourite moments were the ones when I couldn’t dance anymore. The internal battle that would try and ensue but quickly give way to rest because I was too tired for anything, even a mind melt. And then, so shortly afterwards a beautiful battle would begin where the music would infiltrate my mind and body and I’d feel it coming, I’d groan and roll over in refusal. But something would stir from somewhere within me and like a puppet on a string was pulled back up to my feet. “Ok, fine,” I would say out loud to no one or to everyone. And it would begin again.

It was by no means always fun, or pleasurable. I spent a lot of time thinking in the first 2 nights that the whole thing was stupid, as were the organisers and the dj’s and everyone else there who was still dancing. I wondered if anyone would notice if I just slipped off to my tent. But something in me wanted to stay, to understand why it might have been a good idea to fast, to sleep little and to exhaust ourselves. But that didn’t happen. If you had seen the marquee on the last night, exhaustion is not a word that would have run through your mind. 

There is so much more to say about the pain and the discomfort, also the expansion and the joy but not now. So, I will say this, my over-riding experience through it all was Great Connection…great connection. On a new level. It was as if the sky cracked open and I could see, feel and hear things that were previously inaccessible. I’m not sure I can explain this any more clearly but it was like being my strongest self. You know those times where you are so sure about a thing, where it is so clear that you just step forward into it, that your whole body knows and your mind kind rest. You are so sure in fact that trust is not even necessary, it is a knowing. That is what accompanied me home on my travel day and the days after. And still now, but to a significantly lesser extent, amongst the mundane (but beautiful) privilege of being alive. The days are filled with crazy synchronicities and support of all sorts and for that I am so grateful. I have more access in to myself, my state, my needs and more. I feel like I can put my load down a little more than before. This makes ‘easier’ a little more accessible, ‘pleasure’ a little more accessible, and of course, Love.