A few things you might have missed

I’ll get back to more regular blogs here next week, but this week has been filled with bad sleep and a lot of nightmares. I hope that’s not the same for anyone reading this.

First, I wrote another post over on my Substack, Gladiola. Remember that it’s free to subscribe and will remain so. I am doing deeper writing over there and it feels good. This current piece, Watering Begonias & Singing, is about the importance of having even just one witness when you’re little and things are hard.

Second, another session starts next week, the week of February 9th. I know online doesn’t necessarily feel the same as being in the same room, but I’m so grateful for people who are willing to tolerate that difference because the work means more to them than the tech. Our new Wednesday, 10:15 to 11 AM Peony Somatic Dance has been a successful experiment and will continue to be on the schedule.

And finally, here’s the most recent movement mantra (obviously). Last week someone let me know that they used it for their phone home screen so they’d see it and think about it all through the day. I love that!

Speaking of movement mantras… if there was ever anything I would say in classes that really hit you in a helpful or good way, I’d love to hear so I can maybe use that someday!

Gladiola: my grandmother's garden and a new offering

When I was little, we would spend a lot of Saturday nights at my maternal grandmother’s house and then attend Methodist church with her in the morning. She was a teacher in the Sunday school.

Wilda Vickery Peterson was one of the kindest humans I’ve ever known, and my belief in a social justice warrior sort of Christ really comes from her (to begin with. Later in life, I found Merton and Day and so many Catholic mystics but that’s another story).

My grandmother had a large kitchen and in one section there was a chalkboard, which everyone loved, and a small table surrounded by windows. It almost gave a small sunroom effect.

And I would stand at those windows in the good weather and stare out at her large vegetable garden. What mystified me was this: at the end of that garden, year after year, there were always a couple of rows of gladiolas.

October 1917

Wilda was born in October of 1917. She was born into World War I still raging. She was born as the Bolsheviks were completing their overthrow of the Russian government. She was born mere months before the Spanish flu would explode all over the globe.

She would spend a big chunk of her 20s living through and having her first daughter during WWII. She knew what a victory garden was through direct experience.

And she would live through the rest of the century — past her own century mark — seeing too much change to list here. She would not pass from her human form until June of 2020 at the age of 102 and a half.

I bring all of this up to say that she saw more than what many of us are seeing. She, too, lived through times that felt “unprecedented.” Over and over, actually.

And yet she was covered in and surrounded by flowers on her wedding day.

And she grew those few rows of gladiola every year until her oldest granddaughter could stand and admire them out her kitchen window.

Gladiola — a “magazine” of sorts in her honor

I have been thinking for a couple of years of writing over on Substack. There were reasons why I kept not doing it, but I have satisfied my own sense of what’s right and good and admire so many writers over there that I know it’s time.

I will still write here and will replicate some of what’s here to over there and there will be material over there there’s not here.

I will write about movement and the body, of course, but also my love of literature and flowers and anything else that is feeling like it must be written, anything else that I am geeking out about and need to share for the joy of sharing.

And that space will be called Gladiola: Move. Write. Plant. (Click to go over and check it out and it would be great if you wold subscribe. That space will always remain free of charge.)

I realized that those two rows at the end of that practical vegetable garden are the perfect metaphor for the times we’re living in, when we can sometimes forget that beauty for beauty’s sake still matters. When we can forget that we must also feed the heart and the soul and that sometimes the best food for those things are often materials and experiences we start to think of as “unnecessary.”

Gladiola is also perfect for its meaning. Flowers have carried meaning for as long as humans have loved them, and the gladiola is about strength, resilience, moral integrity, and remembrance. Perfect things for Wilda to have planted in so many ways and a perfect name for what I hope to share.

My larger garden

And for those keeping track, this Gladiola will be part of a growing garden of my work: Peony Somatic Dance, of course, is my core passion and my true work in the world and is named for my soul cat, but there’s also Lillian Rose Movement Project, the name under which I create choreographic community experiences, which is named for my paternal grandmother.

May this garden continue to grow and continue to nurture others.

Movement Mantra Mondays

Every Monday on my Facebook business page and on Instagram, you will be seeing Movement Mantras. I won’t be sharing them all here so be sure to follow me at either of those places to see them.

They are a simple offering, but I think they can be impactful if you actually play with them.

I made these hoping they could provide you with a focus point for the week for your body/mind practices. And though this work will not save us from the rising tide of authoritarianism and the violence in the world, I know it will help use to have the energy to do the things that we need to do… to contribute in the ways that we can.

I’ve started thinking about my work in this way: tools for sanity and joy. Because we still deserve and need both of those things.

Like all the things I teach, these are inherently modified and can be used in a variety of ways. (If you find another way to use one that I’ve not listed, let me know!)

Ways to use Movement Mantras

• You could take these to your meditation. Whether you do seated or walking or some other form (like wrapped in a blanket and hiding out from the world for a few minutes), just add this mantra to your breath pattern and notice what arises.

• Most obviously, you could take the mantra to your somatic dance practice. Put on a piece of instrumental music and start to repeat the mantra over and over. You could say it out loud if you’re in a safe space for that. Notice how it feels in your body and then allow yourself to start moving.

• And you could use these as journal explorations. Start with the mantra at the top of your page and sit back and breathe for a few moments. Then start writing. If you get stuck, write the mantra over and over until something comes up.

No matter how you use them (and I suggest mixing it up), try using them throughout your week to see how the experience of them transforms over the days.

Back at it: daily dance and the problem of boredom

Though I had a week with an exhausting head cold that interrupted my new routine, I have been getting back to daily dance. I have been managing a half hour. And for working by myself, this is a good start amount.

In the recent past when I’ve tried to do this, I immediately feel a deep boredom, so I thought back to my practices years ago and came up with a couple of…

Key “rules”

• I can’t force myself into using music that I think I “should.” Yes, even I have this issue. I go into practice thinking I “need” to work on serious pieces. Nope. Whatever works is the best thing.

• So I’ve been using a lot of pop music for now. Like this list and also this list that triggers joy molecules from my tween years at the skating rink.

• And the most important rule of all: the second I feel bored with the music and/or my movement, I change the song. Sometimes that means fast-forwarding through a few songs at a time, waiting for my body to respond.

• Finally, I always start with seated tummy circles, like I start just about every single class I teach. Or if I’m feeling extra dull or sad, I start with Mud Body and then go into seated tummy circles. I ritualize the start of my own practice time just like I do classes and this tells my body, here we go, and it grounds me… helps me to let go of work or overthinking.

Other rules to keep in mind about this sort of practice:

• Don’t change your clothes if that’s getting in the way. Dance in whatever you’re wearing. Or maybe only change your pants. (I do that one a LOT.)

• Don’t fret about space. You can dance in a closet.

• Set time goals for yourself but don’t force it. But also don’t just give up. Find that delicate balance between the two.

• Maybe find a friend (like me!) who could help you with accountability.

• If you hear a song while you’re driving or doing something else that gets an immediate response from your body, make sure to put that on a list.

Let me know if you have any issues with getting into a daily practice or if there are any questions I can help you with.

Is my work even needed right now?

Trust me… I spend a lot of time thinking about the necessity of my work in our current context. I question the need and if it’s trivial or even frivolous.

Thankfully I have some good people in my circles who pull me back from that.

In particular, Linda Soto (whom many of you know), said something during one of my most recent moments of despair that has stuck with me and seems the clearest YES to my work:

What I do (and what she does) is TRIAGE.

Life is really hard right now, and if you’re paying attention at all (and really, that is the most basic thing we should all be doing at this point), you’re probably often feeling really beat up. Injured. Traumatized.

And we can’t function at our highest levels from those states, and we need to be functioning from our highest levels right now. All of us. With each and every one of our gifts.

Not everyone is made to or capable of going out and protesting in the streets but we all have something that is needed.

That’s where my work comes in.

You need to take time to process. To feel. To rest. To restore. And to feel some joy in community because joy is sustaining.

As usual, I’m running Quickie Kundalini yoga and a Thursday evening Peony Somatic Dance, but I’ve also added a 45 minute Wednesday mid morning Peony class.

Go here for more info and registration.

And if you know anyone who needs this work, please pass it along.

Special Event at OSU Open to the Public

That was a strange headline to write for this Penn State girl, that’s for sure! I almost couldn’t! HA

But I do live in enemy territory, I mean, Columbus… mere blocks from the campus. And I’ve been invited to lead a really cool somatic break during finals week that is also open to the wider public. Free. Just register here. (Make sure to register soon because we’re limiting the number and it’s filling.)

The super cool part of this is that I’m leading it in a great black box theatre space inside the Wexner Center for the Arts.

Craig and I attended a dance piece here about three years ago and I told him it was a space like I DREAM of teaching and working in and so here we are (photo from that time).

The idea of joybody arose from a lifetime of painbody

It’s been rainy here after many weeks of drought, and suddenly, my body is one big bag of aches. Dry weather is best (cold or warm/hot) and cold wet is the worst.

I’ve been thinking about this blog for some time, but the idea of trying to write out all the ways my body is a literal pain was just overwhelming.

I won’t be including the ways my brain causes me pain. Most of you know at least a bit about my history of depression and anxiety and there’s some of that in my about me. (And I also won’t be including anything here about a couple of chronic issues, including lifelong migraine.)

And I wanted to write about my chronic pain issues so that it makes more sense when I write about the idea of joybody.

My Original PainBody

When you live with pain from a young age, you don’t notice that you live with pain. It’s just always there. It’s the water you swim in.

Even just a couple of years ago, I saw a meme about a doctor asking a patient where their pain level was and the patient said it was about a four… you know… normal. And the doc said, well, no pain is what’s normal.

WHAT?!

I remember from a very early age waking up and pressing all of my fingers into the wall to “wake them.” They were stiff from the get go. As was a lot of my body.

There were times when getting out of a chair, it would take me a few steps to feel like my legs were “ready.” (This still happens.)

And don’t even get me started on my low back. Or my shoulders which started getting bursitis in my early teens. (I now know what it was. Then I wouldn’t have had that word and I wouldn’t have even complained. It just was what it was.)

The Weirds of My Body

I’m pretty sure I could get a fibromyalgia diagnosis. My pain points are that widespread.

But here are a collection of things that are actually wrong with my body. (And if you’ve been in class with me, you know I say, “I’ve never seen your actual skeleton so I don’t know your body enough to tell you what you can or should/not do.”

Well, I’ve seen plenty of my skeleton:

• I have congenital hip dysplasia on my left side. As a dancer, I used this for extreme flexibility tricks. Someone should have told me to stop. (This hip dysplasia will come up later in a significant way.)

• My right tibia is twisted inward.

• Which makes my right knee only point forward if my right foot is out a bit.

• The last vertebra on my right side overgrew and connect to the top of my pelvis.

• And all of my joints are hypermobile. Again, this was something that dance took advantage of and praised… oy…

Stepping on Nails

I lived with all of this pretty quietly. And it got worse over time as I got depressed and moved less and less. It got so bad that…

I was coming down the stairs in my house and I took a step and was 100% convinced I had stepped on a nail. I was convinced that when I looked down, I would see TONS OF BLOOD. But of course, that wasn’t what had happened. From this moment for the next couple of years, it would just randomly happen and I would spend too much time on the couch. I started to actually look into canes. In my mid 30s.

It would also get so bad that I would do the stairs on my butt… yep.

I’ve told this story a million times but in my late 30s, I met a PT at a party. I was talking a lot about my love of martial arts films, and she said, “Do you want to do martial arts?” And I said, “OH! I can’t… not with my hip!” And she said, “Yeah… I’ve been watching how you walk… I could fix that…”

I went to Cleveland to see her for three hours and it cost more money than I had and was worth ten times as much.

She taught me how to access my core while walking. I walked over and over again, slowly, around the small park in my neighborhood to retrain my body. It worked.

Until… it all started up again…

The Magical Doc

By this time, I was dancing many hours a day every day and teaching what would become Peony Somatic Dance. So when it started to happen again, I was devastated. I asked around and found a musculoskeletal doc.

And finally! He figured out my hip dysplasia was some of the worst he’d ever seen and that it was shortening my psoas muscles. He said he usually only saw it that bad in ultra runner types and that dancers usually had the opposite problem but thanks to my skeleton… again, ugh.

He believed that once I was armed with the diagnosis that I could figure out what to do. And I did. And I did the tings I needed to do every single day, multiple times a day, and if it even feels a teensy bit like that to this day, I go right back to those basics.

And finally tennis

I still have pain. I have days and weeks and months where I’m never pain free but I’m not in the kind of pain I used to be because of how much I move.

The more I move, the more I can move and the better my body and mind feel. There’s no stopping. (Except when there is and then the whole depression cycle starts up again.)

One thing, though, that I’d been avoiding for all these years was tennis.

I was afraid of getting hurt, because if I’m hurt and can’t dance, well, I’m screwed.

But after two frozen shoulders, I said, FUCK IT! I LOVE TENNIS! (And have since I was quite small.)

And that has been everything. It was the final key I needed for this body puzzle. I am as in love with tennis as I have ever been with dance, and it pushes me in ways that dance does not.

When I’m playing tennis, it is really clear to me that this body would have been so much happier in this world if I had not used my intellect as an escape pod from my life. My life would have been completely different if I had taken my physicality this seriously from the get go but alas… I am taking it seriously now and that matters.

My Point

I know pain. I know chronic pain. And I cannot overemphasize how much MORE important it is for those of us who suffer to find ways to move that are joyful.

We’ve been living, most likely, in a sort of fearful relationship with our body, which then affects our mind and the rest of our lives.

Gently and with patience we can come out of that fear relationship through play. Once we navigate through these early stages, we can start doing more challenging things.

But we must consciously take on this task. These choices we make right now will affect how we age.

I want to be one of those 90 somethings that is still playing tennis multiple times a week and of course creating dance. How about you?

Call for ideas

I’m going to start using my YouTube channel to create weekly movement challenges, and each month will have a different main theme. For example, September will be all about balance. And of course, I’ll be bringing my unique blend of science and woo and dance to each topic.

What would you love to see in this series? What things are creating challenges for you lately?

If you have never responded to one of these blogs, maybe now is the time. ((smile)) Let me know what you need and want.