A New Day, A New Tomorrow

This morning while working my shift as a caregiver at hospice, I stood near the bedside of one of our residents while she passed away. To me, death is a very mysterious thing that connects us to all that is living on this planet while bringing us in more of an awareness of our humanity. The peacefulness of this passing combined with the hopeful and mournful expressions of grief and transition in the life of our resident's family gave me a deeper look at the experiences we feel from the overwhelming emotions of life's permanent changes.  Rains can fall for a long time, but when they clear leaving a misty cloud or rainbow so that the sun can open the heavens to the clear skies above, they show the hope that life can continue to grow and emerge after the water has nourished and strengthened our souls.

Our lives are never just one experience after another. One forms while another one is still continuing to shape our life. It's almost as if the ambiguity that allows us to feel hope at the same time we feel fear is the antidote to creativity that may be stunted by boredom. It creates a greater sense of humanity as the complex assortment of our sensory experiences is our entryway to being our truest self.  It changes everything as the light of day becomes the sunset that bridges the gap between day and night in our temporary moments.

As time comes and goes, moments are found to be measured in what we feel, what we live through, and what we remember.  It's as though the present becomes our forge for memories and our perspective, what we choose to do with what we have and how we learn from our past. As Calvin once told Hobbes as written out by Bill Watterson, "the problem with the future is that it keeps turning into the present." Perhaps, though, this conundrum is not a problem, but a chance to take hold and live for the present where everything becomes clear for what has been and what will be in how we experience our lives in our interconnected world.

The rain clears slowly while the sun becomes a source of hope as the love we can feel brightens our fear.

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