For this month’s Loft piece, Josef returns with further reflections and insights into his unfolding time here at Earthdance. Originally solicited as a summary of our recent fundraising BBQ, its length and quality felt more like a Loft piece. It’s been a deep and ongoing pleasure for me to recruit a divergence of voices and perspectives into these dispatches.
- Christos
The universe, is like a Barbecue - Que applause and a Nobel in poetry. Seriously, whatever you call that space between each breath you take, has the same intent as a barbecue. To give you what you want. And, we all want the same things…Too often we are given what we ask for and don’t recognize it. Captain Kale and Falcon the Amazing Boy Wonder fill our plate with food, glorious food and we are too focused on the screaming in our belly to recognize that our plate is full. And maybe, you were destined for greater things than to eat marinated chicken on a Friday evening with a bunch of beautiful, smiling people. The Infinite hears you, but you have to eat what’s on your plate first, to make room for what is to come. When you take that first bite of chicken, you might even realize that you already have everything your soul yearns for. You just need to shut up, and eat. We too often fall into patterns of waiting – I’ll do ‘X’ when I have ‘Y.’ Pardon the navel-gazing. My body is a mass of calcified scar tissue. You could cut the tension within with a knife and, at times, it closes around me like the carapace of some protean insect. I’ve spent most of my life not really noticing it…I even contributed to it, carving a symphony of murderous abuse along my limbs like they were scrimshaw. It’s no accident I ended up at Earthdance despite not knowing the difference between Contact Improv and “Whose Line is it Anyway?” And, I’ve known my body is the current priority in my healing journey. I’ve been waiting to work on my body until after I leave Earthdance. It could even be said I’ve been eager to leave the place so that I could go do that work. Curse words were birthed to go between “That’s” and “Crazy”, here. I was so focused on the fact that I’m not a dancer. (What does that even mean?) That I couldn’t see the universe was giving me what I yearned for. Space, time, freedom to cultivate vitality. We like fluff here, right?
I’ve often looked upon some of the men here with a quiet envy…not bordering on sinful territory, I just wanted to Be more like them. Brett is like a sacred beast. His body reflects his openness, and the fact that he runs naked in the rain. Speaking of running, I’ve walked while John sprints everywhere. One day, I thought. I will run, too. I’m not a big fan of watching people dance, and Levi captivates me. Over the past month(s?) I’ve been eating what’s on my plate… and I’m finally starting to feel what its like to be open, to move because it is pleasurable to do so, natural to do so, and not because I am trying to imitate what the grownups (children?) are doing. I think I hear what Levi hears. This Thanksgiving Barbecue – for in my world, the one can’t exist without the other – I’ve been very grateful that I’m here. I enjoyed the dance of participating while also working, and it was wonderful to see people we don’t normally see here. I had the impulse to seek DJ out and thank him for gifting me a job and to tell him how much I love him and our extended family. To thank him for the patience he shows me, as I try to fill Victor’s impossibly large shoes. Consider this, that. This story is an invitation to look at what you’ve been asking for. Love, freedom, time, space… and end to separation – for these are the core of whatever material guise your desire might wear. I think you will find that you already have those things, you just need to Be. You were destined for things beyond the horizons of your imagination… please eat what’s on your plate, so that we may all shift into a world where we all live our highest potential. The last time my words appeared here, there was an underlying understanding within me that I was still at Earthdance for reasons other than myself. First it was just chance, then it was just a job to pass the winter, and then it was a place to bathe in the moonlight of the single greatest source of external healing in my life. Now I know that I’ve always been here for me, and I’ve got nowhere else to Be. And, I am a dancer.
- Josef / Staff - Buildings & Grounds
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