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| Your gut knows more than you give it credit for... |
Dance A's For My Own Damn Q's
VOLUME 3: CENTER OF YOUR UNIVERSE
What is center? What does it mean to feel centered? Have you ever felt this way? What centers you? What brings you back to a feeling of home base?
A plumb line down the middle. That's your center line. The intersection of imaginary dotted, yellow lines that criss-cross and dissect you...that might be a center of sorts. Center is heart, but also the belly. It's hard to choose between the two. Some days center is deep down in the bowl of your pelvis, driving the ship. Gut reactions emanate from your center, the middle of your personal starfish. You might think of it as moving through the molten, viscous layers--lava, magma, mantle, more, less--to the core. All the dots connect to the center. It's where we store our heat, a starting place.
Ideally, it's the awake hub of connection. It's how you stem forth. Creativity lies in store at the core. Impulse, a shifting of weight. It's deep, man.
But often we think of center as superficial. We think abs. We think muscles and six packs and simple-minded strength. It might be "fitness" or "fashion." It might be our self-inflicted judgement of our core. When we're operating on the surface layers of our body, of our emotions, we can't imagine our center as intelligence. Nevertheless, there they are, our Spidey Senses, our intuition. If we don't connect to belly breath, we can't fully embody our fingertips.
In my sweetly insane, psychedelic teacher talk, I call branching out from the middle "starfishing out." Like totally. Total connectivity. Firing on all your cylinders starts from a warm core.
Trust your gut, eh? It's true. You can go anywhere from center. But here's the thing. We block. We don't breathe. We clench for years on end. We hold on for dear life and don't let go and then can't feel. (Hands up if you're feelin' this...oh you in the front row...yes you! The author, hello! Yes, this is familiar. Okay, then. It's okay.). We miss subtlety. We miss softness. We miss shaping our torso to embody and enhance our moods. Our sensitive side bodies and dreaming back bodies are waiting. The sides of us we can't see. They need life breathed into them like a fish needs water. We lock center away in its own vault and hope we never have to face it--the contents, the emotion, the injury, the pain. We "hold it in," or more violently "suck it in." Ah, language. How you cut. But where does our gut go, let alone trusting it? What if we were to hold compassion at our core, or the vaguest inkling of it. The beginning. What if we could float and swim softly in the middle of things.
Try this. Stand up and close your eyes. Float for a minute. Let your body catch itself. It knows how. Yawn your arms way up. Climb an imaginary ladder. Hang from the sky. Let your arms sift down at your sides. Undo your mental belly belt. I take no responsibility if you undo your real belt. Let the corners of your mouth turn up. Know this. You have all the support you need. Breathe into the edges of your skin. Fill fully. Expand not just the front of your belly but the sides, the back. There you are. Hello.
When I'm centered, I feel heavy and light at the same time. I feel the earth under my feet. I know myself. I trust myself. I have access to and permission from my whole body. My blood pressure drops, my breath slows, my eyeballs soften in their sockets. I "see" in a new way. I am both clear-headed and full of creative energy. I feel ready.
So, yes, I have felt centered. But I don't give myself this opportunity as often as I should. I hold back. I keep myself away. Or I look for center in quick fixes...like 7 minutes before class. But, folks, here is what it takes for me to center myself...
- Lying on the floor for an indefinite amount of time
- Breathing slowly and moving just as non-fast
- Working through a series of subtle, serious, silly, sumptuous, stately, starfish-y moves
- My body's the boss...whatever it calls for shall be done
- Continue for at least 45 minutes
- Consider a down dog
- Roll up, stand and see who I am when I arrive on my feet
- Roll down and up and down and up the spine indefinitely until I feel a surge of something...inspiration, clarity or a true connection to core (an uplift and a downshift)
What centers me? Warm mugs on cold days. Hard wood floors and socks. Empty studios with patches of sunlight. Unexpected stars on crisp, clear nights. Hushed voices of trusted teachers. Green bell-bottomed sweat pants. Quinoa with chick peas and avocado and greens and good olive oil. Etta the dog exhaling. My old wooden spoon and making soups. Or lately, it's risotto. Homebase is the table that Tim built. A finally, consistently made bed. Our front porch light on. A clean kitchen. A set task...write for at least the length of this incense stick. Ok fine.
Center is breathing into my belly and just that. Center is the expansiveness of just this.
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