dilate

mother's day dance today.

dropping into dance was thunder, rain sounds. a singing poem
about Mother, Shakti, giver, holder, source, beyond the beyond.

i felt the heave of how intensely undernourished i have felt for years, fast forwarding to the times of feeling like i was taking care of the household, being so tough, going without, waiting for attention, waiting for feeling good, doing things to earn love, feeling not good enough, unimportant, pushing hard, everything difficult & unimproved for so long

i hated pink
i hated hair products
i hated double standards
i hated menstruating
i hated my skin
i hated being a girl
i hated my mother

i was on the floor remembering these things, crawling with another dancer, feeling tears close. Samadhi dances up to me, smiling. i try to hold back the buildup i sense inside, to be strong & act as if i don't need anything. i think to myself "i hate this dance, i want to leave". but it is not the dance i hate. it's feeling pain & not knowing what to do with it. feeling like it will kill me. she bends down to embrace me & it all comes out. high pitched strained sounds that almost broke my heart to hear, oozing from nose & crying eyes, just like a baby. i felt how happy she was, her calming hands on my back & nurture noises. the only way through these emotions was to feel them. after awhile, she fetches tissue for me to clean up & i decide to get up & tone with the music, to let whatever is rising & shaking me & taking over my faculties to be dissolved with acknowledgement & movement.

i had an eye contact dance. we moved other body parts but were engaged in a fixed gaze, my vision focused on her right eye. i felt a feeling emerge, a feeling of wanting her to have everything, the feeling pouring from the heart. wanting her to be taken care of & have nothing lacking. i imagined this must be what a mother can feel - a deep desire to give everything to their child, their loved one. the depth of it was astonishing, an ache with sweetness. it comes from so deep within, and it is total.

during the dance 2 guys were sitting on the floor talking to one another; one of the biggest features of the dance is that it is NON VERBAL. it was comical that they were sitting & chatting as if music wasn't blaring & bodies weren't flailing about in front of them. i went up to one & covered his mouth mid sentence. the other one said "you're mean", and then i covered his mouth, smiling, feeling: "this must be what it's like to regulate, be boss mama!". i went behind them & pet their hair & played with their energies, each of my hands on each of their backs, working with the brow chakra, the places along the spine, base of the skull. grounding & soothing. the music became spare & sweet, my signal to go to the floor once more.

women are amazing creatures. how they feel, how they give, what they undergo, if they are a mother or not. sharing their core & giving all they are, letting go after such intense fusion with another, to endure the loss with grace. that their body can experience so much so deeply, their bodies that open to let life pass through, their hearts that open to let love through. i am in awe.

we closed the dance by saying our birth names & the names of our mothers. more tears.

Stephanie Shinta Hagakore, daughter of Elizabeth Laura Ciriello

it felt almost like the beginning of a eulogy,
each of us in succession naming our mothers
and the names they gave to us,
the thrust of a birth line, the push
from one generation into the next.
life keeps going, going, going
ceaseless movement & mystery,
and somehow, love is the point.