As I said in July, I want to live at Kripalu, the yoga retreat center in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. I’m pretty sure I’ve always felt this way but recently I am more and more aware of how much happier I am in the physical realm. Embodied, connected to all of my senses, super conscious of exactly what feels best there.
I don’t know about you but I’m tired of my brain. Yes, I do sometimes love dwelling in the cerebral.. thinking and analyzing and being oh-so-fascinated with what goes on up there (plenty… I have a busy busy mind as so most of my clients, endlessly fascinated by every little thought and belief tromping through…). But it’s such a relief to come home to my body, to live in the feeling state of consciousness.
What I am remembering really powerfully lately is that I am happiest when I am in my body, in the physical, feeling versus thinking. When I was 14, a camp director turned me on to dance. I fell deeply in love with her mix of jazz and modern dance and with the new awareness that my body could do these things, could be graceful and strong and expressive. I danced my way through high school and college, danced my way through the high-impact crazy of the 1980’s, which led to 2 serious knee surgeries from “overuse”…I loved class so much I overdid it, my addictive more-is-more nature lit up with sometimes twice daily classes. Until I literally couldn’t move I was so injured.. and then those surgeries… sigh.
I got to dance again over the long weekend at Kripalu…even paid for an extra half day beyond the program I was attending, so I could get in the Friday dance class. This is deep true happiness for me.. joy actually. The three classes I took over the weekend were different, reflections of each of the teachers. One even had the Kripalu Drummers and the pulsing primal beat shaking the room, the dancers attuning perfectly to the thrill of the rhythm and the sweat and the collective energies created. Blissful for me…so much so that I cry at some point in each class. For the joy of it, the freedom of it, the returning home to my body and the passion of it. For the connections to all of the others in the room, sometimes over a hundred of us.
I fall in love with bodies at Kripalu. So many bodies all relaxing and returning to themselves in such beautiful ways. I notice these things, look at the way different women hold themselves, how they adorn themselves. What they eat and how they eat it. I am fascinated by all these things. There were four women, between approximately my age through their 70’s who although they kept their hair long, had let it go gray. This also fascinated me.. they were so beautiful and I tried on the possibility of just letting my hair be whatever color it is, probably considerably gray now.
Everything slows down when you return to your body in this sort of environment. It’s bliss and truthfully, returning home is a challenging kind of reentry for me. I want daily dance classes.. a perfect buffet of healthy food and beautifully cooked greens, lots of interesting women and men to talk to, the stimulation of new material in the program I took (more about that another time).
I loved it all and am still trying to transition back.. it’s not easy. And so I am signing Andy and I up for the dance weekend over New Year’s where I can immerse myself again in the realm of the physical. In the meantime I will be doing my best here on the home-front, but it’s not the same.
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