My daughter Liz tells me that she dreamed she lived in a house of bamboo. In the dream, Liz’s Grandmother (my mother, no longer living) visited and told Liz that the house was not really made of bamboo, but was made of her bones. Mom told Liz she didn’t need to be afraid. Because the house was made of her bones, she’d would always be present and there for her.
Liz’s dream story stayed with me as I left from the city where I dance often with the lake and with nature where I find it
.
When I visited the Pacific northwest (Washington, Vancouver Island) last month, I felt and saw my mother’s bones everywhere. I felt those bones in the red cedar, in the Douglas fir, in carvings in the museums, washed up on the beaches, and in my own body. (The older I get, the more I look like my mother and the more my hands and feet resemble the limbs and roots of a gnarly old tree.)
The rain forest is lovely, wet, and full of evidence that what appears to be dead is fertile, growing, very much alive.
The soil itself is clearly alive, and on more than one occasion the living dirt became my significant other dance partner. In my own practice I danced with the living giants (how could I ignore them?) and I also danced with the “dead” trees who nurse young new plants and critters and fungus and who knows what all else. As I danced I thought how nice it would be to belong here where the dead and the living support and nurse each other.
A message from my butoh teacher Momo reminded me “enjoy the nurse logs….they love you too.”
On the beach I found myself face to face and limb to limb with the bones of the Grandmothers, the trees, my significant others. During my dance, I found myself losing balance, struggling, stumbling and awkward before finally curling in their laps. I learned to be quiet and still and to let rare moments of sunshine bleach my bones.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I06VQmxwzlU&]
I touch you
I see you
I smell you
I dance with you
I taste you
Your bones are my bones
Living in me now
As I live in you.
As I dance with you.
Thank you trees, thank you grandmothers, thank you Momma, Thank you Momo and all The Others.
