Good Morning

The Earth travels fast, and life with it, moves rapidly to make what has been our life. The day begins and before we can even wipe our eyes to greet the day it is time for the afternoon sun to fade into sky. If the morning is our first glimpse of the day, the hours can be long and measured, as though we have a blank canvas drawn out in the sky inviting us to share in creating something new and great. It is a chance to live with the uncertainty ahead.

New beginnings are always upon us, not just on January the 1st.  Even as new beginnings take hold of our lives, endings are wrapping up all we once knew in one moment of collision and transformation. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good night.  Do we have any greeting for those of us awake in those hours between dusk and dawn? Is it any wonder that as I let the my mind wander forward or backward, my life is still there wherever I left it? If I continued along with my life one experience followed by another, I'd be more understanding of the change that is always happening around me. Try as I may to keep up, I may as well live with what I can do with what is here. Just as light and shadow dance through the trees swaying in the wind, I inhale to take in what is fully present, the full reality of here and now. Its power comes from the interconnection of the elements of life's lyric echoed in a chorus of birdsong and commute. Repeat. This day is like yesterday, but it is today, creating its own verse in the midst of the metered pattern of life and death.

The path of life ahead is fraught with mystery. We may try to understand what will happen entirely with science, religion, philosophy, or an interpretation of history that is like today. Taking from these to form some of our picture of today,  the only sign of what we do tomorrow is what we do today. Life doesn't take place overnight; living does. Living while taking in the dynamic force of movement comforting us with the constant charge that flows freely as life again takes shape from what has been.

And so as I stood by the bedside of a dying man, massaging his shoulders, holding his hand, I looked into his face and saw his beauty. His life culminating in seasons of laughter and wonder, conversation and delight that formed him that day. These were the moments that I never saw take place, but was able to witness in the color in his cheeks and the vibrancy of character. In memory of our moments of listening, I hear the heartbeat of life creating the rhythm of the dancing that takes us all to experience.

          

    

These photos take me back to where I have been and saw that it was important to be where I was.  They are periods of standing in a place to witness the world around me which left me feeling my connection to it. Such places moved me with the rushing current of life has left me present to the unexpected that is always forming. I am ready to be a part of it. I am as ready as I'll ever be.

Outstretched Hands

What we touch often with our hands, we feel, and what we feel gives us our experiences of life. We open our hands to embrace our neighbor who is grieving or our family who is celebrating. We extend a hand of welcome to the stranger who seems out of place. We create and build our lives with our hands. Most of all, our hands are often our connection to the surface and depth beyond what we directly sense immediately.

When we cannot walk barefoot, or do not want to, we sense our touch with the way we use our hands and if we do not have the use of our hands, we compensate with how we hold onto what we need. Our hands can create or destroy and the choice is ours in understanding which we will do. Hands are often a symbol for community when they hold an outstretched hand of another person in their midst or for building community through our relationships and our work to make the world a more livable place.  The dance of life is led and followed as it ebbs and flows through the nights and days we form and create in beauty and wonder.

I was inspired to write this post by what I saw in a compassionate action that could not have been done if we did not value the role our hands have in shaping life. In caring for another person in a more difficult place in life, a friend was able to provide dignity and a sense of cleanliness and beauty to a woman who needed a bath. While doing this, she soothed this woman's skin and provided love and care with gentleness and patience that transformed life for both women. This act in hospice care is simple, yet very important to giving and providing life-filled moments. We can beautify our world by holding our hurting sisters and brothers, picking flowers and brightening a dark day, welcoming a new friend into our midst, tell a story that will change lives, and shape our days one minute at a time as our hands direct the path we choose to live.

Flowers picked to fill the room with color.

Free

Though we in the United States often talk about freedom, we don't often talk about feeling free because quite honestly, we are usually bound by the fetters of insecurity, regret, and worry. All these things make it impossible to be truly free, and similarly, make it impossible to feel free to be yourself; the person you are and no one else. Yet, when we let go, being free can release us of those persistent pieces of our thoughts that edge out the moment where we can create our present which gives us permission to shape our future.

Moments of freedom come from this release, and can also be available in activities where we must focus on ourselves and our surroundings or find ourselves missing the way forward. In contra dancing, each move is part of a sequence, both alone and with a partner and other pairs of partners that are part of a certain timing. Although there is often time to catch up if something is missed, it still alters the flow slightly. As such, flow allows for moments of freedom within contra dancing. Even the music allows us to breathe and move in to community with ourselves and others sharing the set with you.  Recently when I was dancing, there was a moment between the neighbor whom I balanced and swung with where the rhythm, movement, and connection provided an interpersonal oneness that was not necessarily spiritual, but understanding and knowing. With worry and doubt, this couldn't have been experienced, but in the present, we can take what we bring to each interaction and allow it to shape both our reality and thoughts towards what was and what is so that the past doesn't always have to be a trap on our present.

These minutes of dancing can be short or long, and they can release me into a freedom of joy and deep contentment that leaves me accepting the future and the past as beautiful parts that are shared in the present. By sensing the beauty of life in its freedom that you must give yourself permission to experience, the way through to the future is unlocked by release and embrace.

Contra Dance at Cornell University - Ithaca, New York