Landscape

I dreamt my body was a vast landscape – the Earth. Sleeping on her side my skin green grass stretching over the curvature, bend and plateau of limb, torso and breast – to create Us. And I feel it. Feel the stillness and the being – the vibrant alive silence; knowing scratch of insect from hum of bird, trees rooting into my soil – and I am in love with them all.

These are my dreams of late.

Then I wake at five or five-thirty in darkness. The dawn approaches and I must prepare myself. Stumble for coffee, sit and listen to the nothing. Eat porridge. Dress in layers appropriate to whatever weather, six sometimes eight brightly coloured mantles. The colours usually reflect my mood.

This is every morning and getting earlier, as such I am adapting, and as I am adapting my perceptions are changing. I feel as though I am connecting into something women have done for hundreds of thousands of years. When I was a teenager I asked the Archbishop why I could not do this, this leading of ritual, he said it was not women’s place.

But now I see that my intuition was right – for 300,000 years women were the keepers of ritual, and we were the bridge in body. Archaeol ogy supports my claim, and so when it happens it is no surprise there is such familiarity – of meeting the Earth’s dance with my own.

Messages come from across the globe and they are my wishes also- serenity, joy, space, health, clarity and love… I reflect on what each request really means; to find more depth of meaning – the hidden qualities of our words that have been dislodged and are to be re-claimed. I feel these wishes immediately and so the dance is born in dark stillness as any child.

I exit to an emerging world.

Sometimes the light is darkness; dark grey canopy above my head, the electric stars light my way. Other days a waltz of pink, lavender and blue as an orange sun sends beacons of light like shooting stars for our new day. As I run or walk to the River I read the messages of the skies. I am learning this cloud vocabulary – and the birds join me in sound and movement. Sometimes they are waiting at my entry point to the River by the Quay; other times they are swooping above in great infinity signs. They travel from West to East with me on that River towards my dancing space. On many days a lowly crow caws on the lighting top as I reach the Broomielaw “CAW CAW, c’mon c’mon” she says….

Everyday the landscape it different, I might not have noticed it before, so closed to everything but the thoughts in my head; worrisome noise with little meaning and much squawk. Before with pods in ears, and head bowed low with direct military imprecision, my walk was a grey palette a ‘passing through’ never arriving. Now the veil has lifted, an infinite array of textures and colours create a spectacle of comfort and celebration for me entirely.

People pass me on my way. With many there is a recognition and smiles and good mornings, like old friends. I like this, instant community and the exchange of good-ness; we create our own river of early-morning happy.

I come to the dancing space and move my body according to its’ wishes, sometimes it’s easy, sometimes hard; the clatter in my head can be deafening with ‘worldly concerns’ having great import. They are not ‘earthly concerns’ with that I can relax and flow with the chaos. The concerns of the world can make me feel as a stranglehold, suffocating. I might be fearful of movement, stuck in working it our ‘in my head’ when my heart always knows what is not seen.

I do not know what people observe per se. They come and speak to me often, or wave, or smile, or mirror my movement. Others stop and share their stories.

Sometimes the birds are in synchronicity with the patterns I am making. For me this hastening of limb is releasing all ills and wakening the sleeper – who has been me firstly. I feel the stories of my sisters and brothers of 300,000 years ago in so much as I do the passers by. I am elated to remember what I was encouraged to forget.

It is difficult, not difficult, curious – what to do with this knowledge. On this narrow plane of existence – the madness of work and drive at the expense of all else is surely killing us all. But we are determined.

We forget our legacy. We forget the gift.

Kinesiology teaches us that muscle memory and response is not so linear- not singular- the human experience multi-dimensional and inherently we know what is good. Our sciences have proven this. So why do we continue to suffer, struggle, oppress… ourselves???

I do not know what my tomorrow will bring. I am caught in this trap as well this balancing between what I know to be good and society’s mantle.

People want time and space and they fear it to. When will we allow ourselves to be truly free?

One man said to me in passing “I wish I could do that”

I replied

“I will be your dancer, don’t worry”

And so I do.

In hope.

Miracle derives from the word meaning ‘to smile’ and so for Sunrise on that narrow stretch of earth, and for 2 hours a morning we, at the Glasgow Broomielaw are creating our own miracles -and dancing together the hopes and dreams of the world.

With much love and good vibrations for you and yours

Kate E.xx