Timelessness

ModernTanguera sparked a few thoughts... this borrowed from her blog post Observations:

An observation I just made: When I dance modern, or ballet, or pretty much anything choreographed, it always feels like the dance is over just as soon as it begins. It just flashes by. Even more so in a fast-paced, difficult piece like the modern one I just performed. But when I dance tango, I get so far inside the dancing that I feel like I've dropped out of time and am going to be dancing to that one song forever. I pretty much never have that "over in the blink of an eye" feeling with tango. I wonder if this is related to improvised v. choreographed dancing, or if it has to do with my inability to get so absorbed in other dances, mentally and emotionally. I'll have to ask my professional modern dance friends what their experience is.

There is a timelessness that happens in tango that I've only experienced in a few other places: When I am attending a laboring woman, when I'm lost in good sex, when receiving a massage, when my feet are dug deep in the garden, in the river. I'm sure there are more...

The common thread? These are all sensual exchanges that require me to throw away my ego. I have to release my ideas, thoughts, and immediate consciousness to feel the body, hear the underlying needs, respond with instinct.

With midwifery and laboring women, my entire being is listening to them and everything else floats away. For those few hours, when I am "with woman", there is nothing else outside of their reality that has importance (not even tango!). All spaces in my brain are engaged as I listen to her moan through a contraction, as I listen for fetal heart tones, as her body language tells me where she needs me to press, as I watch the partner to see how he or she is doing. It's a gift that they unknowingly give me: this break from life to become so part of theirs.

With sex, the exchange of wants, sensations...that delicious moment when I no longer know for sure when my body ends and my partner's begins.

With massage, the relaxation takes my total being and I enter a meditative state where the only sensations left are solely from my body. No emotion, no checklist of what has to be done; just the movement and release my body is experiencing.

The garden, and the river, require a consciousness expansion that includes connecting with things that are greater than, and beyond my control.

In the garden my feet and heart are grounded to the earth, and I all senses are engaged. I can see growth all around, feel the rich soil between my toes, smell the ripening tomatoes, taste the sharp sour of the sorrel, hear the sun baking the fence posts, and sense the wisdom and strength of all the others that have done the same before me. There's no thought in that connection.

The river takes it all too... sliding into a kayak and joining the flow. I'm not in the water, but part of it. We dance over rocks, flow away from banks, curl and jump and spray. I sense the motion and the feel and what is ahead and follow the request of the motion.

and Tango, ah...tango. The music, the embrace, the energy of a room of people. I have to listen to my partner, release my ego, focus on my body, feel the music...it is the ultimate of living in sensuality. Every second of it is about releasing into the senses.

Where do you find timelessness?