Today’s movement spun last nights dream into memory.
I used to keep a dream journal and court my dreams into lucidity. I’d have long, magical dreams that would linger into the day and make me feel connected to the liminal spaces of manifestation and medicine.
I’d also have stressful dreams that taught me of my fears and past traumas. All in all, I’ve had an impactful relationship with my nighttime consciousness.
I don’t remember my dreams much anymore, what with having a baby and all the scattered sleep and before-I’d-like risings. I wake and am in mom mode. I wake and drop sleep for hugging my little one close.
What once was a delightful partnership with dreams is now a required recharge. I’m not complaining. I still have a love affair with sleep, it just looks different for now.
More recently, I’ve been able to grasp a glimpse or two of what transpired the night before. As soon as I go vertical it tends to all drop away like vapor flowing out from dry ice onto the ground.
Last night particularly, I had some clear images that hung over my pillow while a slow-rousing was possible. I woke with at least three moments of embodied images and then was only able to remember one, the last.
That is until I did my movement practice this afternoon.
Spinning.
I was spinning in my dream like a whirling dervish.
One hand extended up towards the heavens, the other towards the ground, like the magician in tarot. My feet stepping, arch outwards, matching heel-to-toe forming a tight square beneath me.
I was becoming weightless and lifting off the ground until I had to use my hand as the pivot point on the ceiling above me and it started to feel like gravity had disappeared.
I remember a sense of power in self and spiritual connectivity and also a bit of fear and loss of control.
Today, when my movements had me turning, I suddenly remembered those feelings and embodied a confident spin until I felt firmly grounded, graceful, and elevated. I didn’t whirl like a Sufi today, but I found my own turning.
I took that sense of lack of control on the ceiling in my dream and alchemized it into lightweight and embodied twirls. It felt right to consciously turn with that collected sense of connectivity.
And something shifted in me, a picture coming into focus, an embodied wisdom, a generosity of acknowledgement to the abundance around me.
I’ve been thankful for the many blessings, the literal dream I am living. But, maybe you can relate, it can feel disembodied a lot of the times. Probably because of exhaustion or endless task lists or feeling “on” all the time.
So, I wrote a goals list for the rest of 2024. Then I walked away. I revisited it later in the day and realized that more than half of the list was already happening. In process, in progress. That’s a success!
Plenty of work to do ahead, yes. It never ceases.
To take a breath and break in the moment to acknowledge I’m on track, if even in the smallest ways is a win.
And, to connect beyond, through play… it’s necessary. This dance, it’s play for me as much as it’s also a contemplative embodiment practice.
It’s all a practice until it becomes effortless. Then, the meaning behind the word “practice” shifts. There will be moments of ease, of connection, of frustration, of all things. And we keep coming back to what ever it is that makes us feel alive, grounded, and authentic. Maybe even playful.
Wishing you patience, compassion, and resilience for the work that makes you glimmer.
Ephemeral Movement 