Newborns

I feel like I have just given birth twice over the last two weekends. And as any new mother I am both exhausted from the birthing process, and excited to see what these babies are about. Excited to love and nourish them, watch them grow and see what they will develop into.

First came the baby one month overdue and fat from too much time spent in the womb. After a ten month rehearsal process (!) I participated in the first ever performance at a brand spankin' new space called The Sugar Space. This was by far the longest I have ever rehearsed, especially considering the size of the show. Forty-five minutes in length with just two pieces to show. Being in 85% of the show wasn't saying much. I looked forward to opening (and closing) nights with both excitement and unease. I had the opportunity to work with an artist just transplanted from New York and danced with some of my favorite dancers in this city. All loving and talented people, really, it was my interactions with them that got me through the long process. The choreographer being very meticulous and detail oriented, from day one, often frustrated me to the point of exhaustion. Being kinesthetic in my learning, I need an opportunity to do movement over, over, and over again to feel like I have any kind of body understanding at all. I didn't have much opportunity to do that. Ever. Not until dress rehearsal when we could run through the entire show without stopping for notes and corrections.

So this baby...what is she about? One of the greatest lessons borne from this experience was getting a very clear understanding about how I work and how I want to work. That I am far more interested in process than product. For me it was much less about what it looked like and more about what it felt like. Thinking about what I want for my future has always been a dizzying thought. I am unable to make any kind of vision of what that looks like, of what I am "going to be when I grow up." Life has been much more easeful since focusing more on the qualities I want my life to have and culitivating those on a daily basis, everything else unfolds without a thought.

Baby number two came one week later. A nine month course I took culminated in the greatest graduation ceremony I could ever imagine experiencing. Everything was perfectly in place, including a 75 mile detour through Preston, Idaho where I saw my first ever moon rainbow. Funny enough, part of our graduation was a re-birthing process. Emerging from nine months of learning I opened my eyes and was surrounded by love. Or LOVE, actually. There is not much that I can say to describe the weekend to anyone who didn't experience it other than to say this: Imagine 22 people in a room focusing pure and loving attention on one person at one time. Imagine everyone in that room receiving that kind of attention at one moment. Feeling drunk for a good few days after coming home I feel I am just now recovering.

What is this ripe little newborn here to teach me? That am a container that can hold THAT MUCH love. That I am worthy of that much love. That I am a power, a force in this world destined to do huge things that impact others. That sometimes I am special. Everything I have been focused on learning the last nine months clicked for me. I got it. I get it.

These two little newborns are still so vulnerable and sweet. I intend to give them loving attention so that they can grow into very healthy and beautiful beings inside me.