“Straight up. Straight in.”
Power tripping.
Where do you find your power? Is it in your voice? Do you plug in through the walls of your home? Is it in your history or legacy? Perhaps it is in good health, strong muscles and bones, ease and flow. A healthy bank account? Education? Do you need others’ praise or encouragement to find your energy or to feel good? How about with your job, or your passion? When you dive in, do you feel powerful or full of energy? Maybe it’s in the success of your loved ones? Or in your wit? How about your ability to infuse others with light — like laughter shared with a stranger you meet in line? Perhaps how you bring others to tears by reaching out? Is it a thumbs up when words can’t begin to convey all that you wish to say? Yes, Love. You, Love. What lights you up?
And if your energy is zapped or your navigational system is off, who is in charge of getting it aligned with your true north in this life trip? When these hands dance with others for the first time I often see energetic lines flipped off like breaker boxes that have been tripped. What do you do when you’ve been tripped? How do you find peace?
Again, I’m writing as I’m flying, this time from LA to Washington D.C. Two weeks ago, I wrote longhand as I flew from LA to Rhode Island to a packed schedule of art fun and dancing hands sessions. As I shared last newsletter, I had been unplugged from much of the wild news for a variety of reasons, but this left space for me to write in the car as we drove in the night. Slower than this plane, yet faster than my ancestral wagon train, it was a luxury to be curled up in the passenger seat freely writing the energy flowing through my hands in their first language. I was like a puppy with her head out the window. I even rolled the window down a one point, bundled up against the cold wind, and for a long time, head back, I drank in the whirling stars as we wound through the curves of the mountains. Oh my stars! Oh, this sky! I purred to see the beauty. My mind spun, settled, and tried to distill this journey — dancing hands and dancing heart.
Maybe you heard me sigh over and over again at the beauty as we crossed the US — from the narrow corridors of New England’s just-turning autumnal trees to New York City’s strangely glistening corridors that forced me to look up at her puffy clouds floating in such startling blue. After dancing in the happiest little oasis of love in Harlem and filling our spirit with the many stories we gathered from the dancers as well as those from the artists of The Met the next day, we mapped our way from Loves to Loves to Loves across the flats of this vast, great country. Friendly folk abound, friends. It was wonderful. We changed lanes and exchanged stories with fellow travelers, tasted the local eats as much as we could, shook hands, asked tips, and delighted in the accents from state to state.
As I mentioned, we had a spontaneous stop at the Cahokia Mounds, (a beautiful sacred Native American area along the Mississippi, also known as a land of giants), where I danced a new place of big joy in the grid of JDH journey. My heart and hands stretched to dance and sing gratitude and I felt beloved Topanga, Mt. Shasta, and Mauna Kea, too. Funnily enough, here, I “lost” also my prescription sunglasses in a blink of the sunset. We searched everywhere for 30 min. Somewhere between the dimensions we suspect there is a giant wearing tiny glasses, grateful he can see a little better from the slow lane.
Driving on under the wide skies we sang cheesy 70’s songs from our youth, chatted about life, love, big dreams, and sometimes just conversed in the language pouring out of me constantly — in song, or in what feels like lullaby, prayer or gently and emphatic encouragement to all who are within its tones, trills, clicks and rolling rhythms to keep on. Peace wraps. We sifted through our beliefs, theories, spirituality, and politics, too — not easy subjects these days — but these must be fleshed out as best we can in respectful partnership here. Wounds beg flushing. A new path must be charted. Inspiration winks.
Sometimes as we took turns driving, we simply meditated in silence upon the vastness of this Universe — necessary mind rest when traversing ley lines of the earth, heaven, or what brought us here, and how we might be able to love it all into an even sweeter way. Do you get these times of necessary dreamy rest, too? Are you plugging into real life enough? If not, consider taking a date or a road trip with yourself and just unplugged BE.