Stillness

I have always thought that stillness requires emptiness. 

Not that I even thought about it that much before, until a few months ago. 

It was simply implied that stillness equated shedding, letting go, emptying.

A few months ago I went to dance with the rhythms.

A swirl of a day, emotions running high, anticipation, excitement, fear, for millions of reasons. I REALLY needed to Dance!

And yet, we make plans only to step into the chaos of having them torn apart.

The Dance was different than I expected. 

A last minute substitute! I don't do well with subs, especially last minute!

The teacher, the music, the mood was different. Another chance to meet another part of me. 

I stepped in.

I was met with wild energy. 

Exuberant  Love for every being in that room, ecstatic with the frustrations we all shed,the dross we burned, the cosmic wave we rode. 

Pulsing, masculine, linear, limited, charged rhythm that made me taste the chaotic, feminine, wild swirling parts of me. 

Tasting the infinite, mysterious, delicious darkness of my existence. 

Different and free, I felt different and somehow free of expectations. Wildly emancipated in my own limitations. 

 A new perspective on the Dance, the Rhythms, Life. 

After all, that is why I Dance.

And something stuck with me. 

"Stillness" he said" is fullness, wholeness,completeness"

I never thought of it that way. 

I always thought stillness requires us to empty ourselves and detach from who we are. 

To become an empty vessel of stillness. 

I realized I equated stillness with emptiness. 

I was wrong.

Stillness suddenly filled with joy, mystery and intensity. Stillness filled with emotions. 

Stillness became utterly profound, vibrating with possibility. 

Stillness.

Everything, every part me, examined or still undiscovered, well known or mysterious, brightly colorful or darker than midnight was held inside. Held still, yet pulsating with intense possibility. 

Stillness. The moment before the action. 

The sweetness of timelessness, the frustration of immobility, the anticipation of opportunity, the delicious release of what could have been, all dancing together in me in a moment of infinite possibility. 

Stillness- the wholeness of existence gathered in one potent moment, ready to be born in an unpredicted, never before tracked, unknown direction. Stillness became the moment of unmanifested, unlimited possibility.

A few nights ago, I met stillness again.  A different side of it.

Stillness was clad this time in wild confusion.

Confusion of what I was experiencing, what I was feeling, what I was thinking.

Shame, desire, curiosity, fear, embarrassment, indecision, guilt. 

Everything scrambled together in one furious ball of intensity and came at me roaring, threatening to overwhelm. 

So many feelings all at once.

I felt frustration at my inability to direct my thoughts, at my confusion, at the need to think and control my emotions. 

I wanted so badly to release and empty myself of all this craziness. Of all this confusion. I couldn't comprehend. My mind fell to tiny.

I dropped to the floor in tears.

There was no relief in tears.

And as I sat there, in torment, I considered the possibility to simply hold it all. And allow it to exist together.

Inside of me.

All of those emotions.

All of the thoughts.

All of the frustration.

Just pause and sustain.

Stillness.

It didn't matter where all the thoughts came from. I suspended them in time.

It didn't matter who or what provoked the feelings. I held them without desire to control.

The frustration. I embraced it.

All of it. At once.

Holding a blazing fire ball in my hands.

Crumbled on the floor sustaining the intensity, the wilderness of my heart.

Without attempt to control.

I sat still and waited to be overwhelmed by it all. 

To be washed away. 

To Crash.

Stillness.

I rested on this moment of possibility.

Without an attachment to the outcome.

The Wave crashed without drowning me

My mind wanted me to move.  Wanted to distract. To escape

But I couldn't.

I kneeled there, allowing the rhythms of human bodies to move me.

I kneeled listening  to the groans, the breath, the screams, the stampede of feet.

I kneeled perfectly still. 

Resting on all of the emotions coursing through me.

I let them hold me. I leaned into my feelings and my confusion and let them carry  me through the moment. Eventually time started moving again.

After some time my feet found the ground. My body parts found some movement.

My breath released. 

The stillness stayed with me for a while before I re-entered this reality.

I emerged back here or in a parallel universe.

Slightly frazzled, vastly different, still confused.

Nothing had changed.

Yet everything had changed.

In just one tiny, infinite moment of Stillness.