Dance Retreat

Last weekend I took a retreat. It was the 3rd year that I went with Core Connexion to the Land of the Medicine Buddah for a weekend of movement and authentic exercise. It is in the Santa Cruz mountains; beautiful land, hot weather, delicious vegetarian food and a peaceful community. Eva creates a space where I feel comfortable to be myself and feel what's true. I hesitated to sign up this year, given how tired I'm feeling from the radiation. But then I remembered what was going on for me last year. I'd just celebrated my 50th birthday with a blow out party in the rug showroom. I had put all my paintings up and had over 90 people come to help dance and celebrate. It was a blast and I felt 50 and fabulous. But a week later at the retreat, I was again feeling the pressure on my chest that I hadn't been able to shake since it started the previous August. During the first or second dance session last year I had had to stop and step out because I felt like a boot was standing on my chest. It was painful and scary. My friend J had recently experienced a heart attack and I wondered if my heart was diseased or compromised. When I got home, I saw my Dr. for a physical exam, an EKG to test my heart and a chest x-ray. Everything was fine and the only explanation for the pressure I felt was stress. Now here it was a year later and I was back at the dance retreat after two surgeries to excise 3 cancer tumors that were right at the spot where the boot pressure had been. Interesting.

So despite my fatigue and increasing burn pain from the radiation, I decided to go. I didn't have the same joi de vive that I usually exhibit, in fact, during each of the 4 dance sessions I had to step out for the high energy songs, but Eva was so understanding and gracious to accommodate whatever I needed and to let me know when to come back in to participate in the exercises. We drew with pastels, witnessed each other dance, wrote words for others and then poetry from those words about our dance. Very powerful and fun to spend time in that deep world of somatic expression.

Saturday afternoon R, a fellow dancer, offered me a healing session. I had no idea what that meant, but I gratefully accepted. I layed down and he sat next to me with his drum. He coached me to imagine going underground to meet my spirit guide. I chose a spot in Joshua Tree that had held me a few weeks ago and I visualized going under ground there. I met a wolf and it seemed so predictable. I asked if he was my spirit guide and the answer was no. I met a fox and it seemed too sneaky, and the answer was no. I saw a cobra snake and really wanted it to be my guide, but I figured I had created that image out of desire and maybe it hadn't presented itself authentically, but as I continued, the snake wrapped itself around my ankle and tripped me. I tried to get up, but instead the snake and I were swimming like dolphins in a cave. So Cobra snake as spirit guide it is.

Wednesday's dance theme: "To hold space for yourself and the dance..."

I tried to hold that theme in mind as I went into the studio, but I really wanted to paint a snake. Now I can see I did paint a space for myself and the dance, in a container with a wide brim and a snake to hold me. To dance and be held, yet open to possibility. That is what i love and that is just what happened. Thank you Eva and the Core Connexion community!