I feel your energy when I cross your threshold
Palpable
Washing over and through me.
Residue of the soul work
The breaking open
The seeds planted
And grown
in your embrace.
Cocooned in your
bright bosom, in an explosion of color
and texture,
you offer
A respite from the grit of activism
The physical strain of dance
The hyper focus of teaching
The synthesis of writing lessons
The drudgery of daily chores and gray winter days.
Here, enfolded in your luscious rug and
vibrant, petroglifed walls
There is space
And time
To simply be.
You hold me in your Crone stillness
Welcoming the waves of whatever needs to erupt.
Dancing sloughs off outer skin, peeling back layers, dropping in.
Sounding births
Small, unknown tears
That emerge from a place deeper than the heart
There is no need to know their origin;
Only to give them safe passage.
And though you fill me
There is another.
There remains a singular solace in the dance studio
A full body release as I find my X on the smooth floor
The expanse of empty space a blank canvass to carve and shape.
My body a brush
Movement its hues
Painting space with others profoundly at home in their bodies
and adept at connecting in this shared space.
I dare not think you could ever replace that first and lifelong love.
Still, some days I just need to sink my hands into the beans
Bathe my skin in their serene, exquisite form
Take in the water music of pouring glass beads
Or wrap my fingers around the warmth of a teal clay mug
taste the comfort of steaming jasmine tea
And hold space around the altar.
Some days that is enough.
Others, I yearn to paint large and wild and blind
My whole body dancing with the paper canvass
Paint roller
sodden
With intricate, chance layers
Of color.
You give and give and give.
And each time I leave
I exhale a breath of this rich permission
This vital indulgence
Adding one more mark to the nourishing manna of this place
To feed the next soul
Who crosses your sacred threshold.