Photo: Pam White from the rehearsal of Ghostdance, Russia 1999
Saw Footloose last night. Loved it – felt like I could actually see the dancing.
It brought to mind this delicious video how to start a movement from Derek Silver’s talk at TED.
Here’s what I love: movement as a way of connecting, dancing for joy, stepping out of the solemn body and into the rambunctious web of the group body.
Tell me how you move. How do you step out of your solemn body?
I heard this version of Gimme Shelter by Playing for Change on the radio the other day and it has me thinking about shelter.
In writing my book, Horse Dancing, many of the artists I interview speak of the horse as shelter – a place of refuge and comfort.
Up here in the Adirondacks, away from home, I am aware that shelter is all my absent four-footed companions, and the familiar colors and shapes of my home. I shelter differently in each of my roles: mother, artist, writer, rider, wife.
Shelter is improvisational too – we shape it as we travel, as we move from place to place, continually constructing little yurts, hollows, quiet corners in which to shelter.
Buddhists take refuge in the Buddha, the dharma (the teachings), and the sanga (the community of practitioners.)
Where do you take shelter? What is shelter for you?
I saw this baby at the Putney School Harvest Festival last weekend. He was part of a “display” of cows that the school has to introduce visitors their farm program. He and his slightly older black and white buddy were objects of adoration for the 2-6 year old group.
Even though my daughter went there for three years, and even though we loved the farm as an essential part of the school, this little guy gave me pause. There was something so unspeakably tender and vulnerable about him.
My daughter told me that the male babies do not become a part of the school’s program. They are meat. All the babies are weaned very early, and spend a lot of time trying to suckle anything in the barn: pipes, fencing, each other. In most ways the school is as good as it gets for farm animals. Many students love them. They have names, not numbers, and are teachers and friends for generations of kids. Last year at graduation, our friends Ali and Sam gave their son Max a Putney cow as a graduation gift. To care for, to work with – the beginning of his farmer life, perhaps.
This is hardly a new struggle for me. I don’t eat meat. I buy my eggs where I can see the hens in the yard. I live in an area where I can see the realities of life for a veal calf. And I grew up loving my visits to my Aunt Pearl’s farm in South Dakota above all else.
And then there is the face of this little one, reminding us to feel, to step into our hearts, even for a moment.
Pam and I are in the Adirondacks for a few days of quiet. Maybe too quiet. I miss the ruckus of our 8 cats and 4 dogs. Precious, Obadiah, Nikita, Musia, Bella, Magdalena, Tallulah, Pachi, Jules, Guinevere, Cho, Liam. I am not a minimalist in this regard.
On the other hand, this morning’s canoe and then long hike to the dam along the river was delicious. Something we do not do at home. Again, those cats and dogs. Diving into the silence, the stillness is hard and good.
Pam read this post by Jon Katz to me this morning. I am going to print it and read it every day. Thank you Jon. Thank you Pam.
