The Reflective Face

As masked women in the circle, we wear our secrets and our feathers. Bird-wing women. Masks represent ways we hide our feelings. We dance. Spontaneously a masked woman enters the circle, slowly or spinning or high stepping. At the moment of uncovering she removes her mask to reveal her reflective face. As woman after woman enters the spotlight of the centre of the circle dancing and strips her mask, we cheer. Vulnerable without what hides us, sweat, and crease, and laughter, we: flash glitter dancing glyphs; we: body poetry.





The Reflective Face, 2009, 13"x16"; 33cmx41cm;
India inks, oil pastels, acrylic & dried leaves on archival paper (on right, earlier version; on left, finished, with leaves dried nearly to veins, gloss, and more paint added -click on images to see larger versions)

I didn't like the finished painting, so have played with it in Photoshop. The original is varnished, very high gloss.

A poetic response to one of the exercises Erica Ross facilitated during her Dance Our Way Home session, 'Honouring Your Feelings,' the second session of the Nest & Nourishment series, last Saturday. She offers the same class each Wednesday evening.

I wished to write about the dance of the masked women and thought to paint a feather mask to illustrate this post. Because of the way the paper buckled with the wet paint, and the shape of the neck, I think it is a man angel. I call my masked man, or perhaps beneath the mystery of the mask, woman,  The Reflective Face.

NEST & NOURISHMENT

A woman's sanctuary in the heart of Toronto.

Location:Dovercourt House, 3rd floor

                                                

Where Butterflies are Born

When my own dance began, oh, it was hard. I lay on the floor, like a grub. I crawled forward following a line of sun that fell across the floor. I crawled forward and was pulled back, again and again. On I struggled, slipping back, pushing on. I fell off the path. Defeated. I pulled myself with pain, effort back to the track of sun. In the whole dance I made only an inch of progress, until I gave up. Almost by levitation, I felt myself rising. As if strings were attached to my arms and back and head. And those strings were pulled by higher forces and I began to dance like a marionette, shaky and wobbly on the floor. I was uncertain, but felt guided by unseen masters. It was a happier dance than the hard journey on the floor had been. I jumped and writhed and flopped and flounced like a puppet on strings, only I distinctly felt that I was achieving what I most wanted to achieve, and I only achieved it by letting go, and trusting. It was a strange, ecstatic feeling, perhaps like a newly emerged wing-wet butterfly trusting inborn instinct, rising and flying.

I'm writing about last Saturday's dance, 'Honoring Your Feelings, in the DOWH Nourishment series that Erica Ross offers. She is offering the same class this Wednesday evening.

NEST & NOURISHMENT

A woman's sanctuary in the heart of Toronto.

Location:Dovercourt House, 3rd floor

At this point in the DOWH session, we were partnered and I was dancing what I was feeling while being witnessed by my partner. It is surprising what insights emerge in dance, isn't it. We bare our souls; we find kinetic metaphors for where we are on our life paths; we move through huge issues, blocks, grief, things that seem immovable. Like many, I couldn't live without dance. On the dance floor we support each other's processes. We give space to our intertwining energies. We enjoy our mutual beauty.

                                                

The Octaves

Melt into the edge of the room. Eyes shut; no-one can see me. Slide along walls, over chairs, until the table. Where I was going, I realize. Varnished wood, thick, old, probably Walnut. Carved in a carpenter's studio, perhaps. Legs spun on spindles. I imagine the tree who was stripped for the table, sawed into planks. Centuries old, sap running through limbs, leaves drinking rain and sun, rooted in earth. I hug the table, in the dark of my closed eyes. My chest to the tabletop, beating, then turning over, until my back lies flat. Reaching forward and down, from the safety of the wood, fingers groping air, the unknown. I cannot touch floor. It is the end of the world, the emptiness of the universe, nothingness. Only the wood holds me here.

The octaves. I am a child on a swing, flung out past the boundaries. My long-silenced throat clears, a tiny AUM. Louder. A simple scale, up and down.

I hope the others in the room, for we all move with our eyes shut, dancing our internal dramas, aren't irritated by my sudden child-like joy, the octaves.

I release the table, roll on the floor, light laugh,
humming.

Flying Earth

Authentic Movement workshop this evening with Gennie, amazing expressive witnessing releasing deep painful joyful wisdom powerful.

Gennie was wonderful, witnessing, giving us her responses, the woman is a seer, a poet, she is. We got into some pretty deep stuff, some of us. Yeah - I sorta was rumbling by the last set! Authentic Movement is a beautiful process. I'm always amazed at how deep everyone can go with it.

It felt strange, for me, who is so private, to cry before others, and yet I did, and I was grateful for the 'river of life,' healing, survival, continuance, profoundly so for love, loving, and then out to torrential rains, wet-through by the time I reached home, and a fresh umbrella and a 2km dog walk, she in her leaking red nylon dogcoat, my boots leaking near the end when we came to the park, both of us waterlogged, the rivers pouring from the sky...

Post the little pastel I did after the middle set, which I won't get into, but, ahh. Well. I literally had to force myself to go to the workshop, held in my area, so close by, I've been cloistered and very withdrawn of late as I come to terms with everything that's happened.

The nearly four hours we spent together, the small group gathered, the facilitator, her perceptions, compassionate, non-judgmental, helped.