A practice is a process of bearing witness to all of the self, not just certain moods.
A Dancemeditation practice is dancing/moving regularly, with awareness, patience, respect, and appreciation. We go beyond habitual impulsiveness to a mature, sustaining relationship to our embodied consciousness.

Developing a practice takes years and years. I don’t know anyone who hit on it right away then kept it going forever after without cessation or resistance. I don’t know anyone who fell in love with the toil of regular practice. But I know many people who have fallen in deep love with the  totality of their practice over time.
We appreciate the insights.
We savor learning about who we are.
We treasure the safe haven for de-bugging ourselves.
We have no words for the preciousness of our Intimate corner with Eternity.

I’ve repeatedly taught several practices this past month that I find myself running through, like a laundry list, as I do my own work. Shadow & Light is one of these. Who can’t relate to their differences? We all have them, are are trained into them.

Its charms and powers grow in me as I explore my body through it. My right side is so battered: paralysis, organ removal, repetitive injury, all on the right side. When I close my eyes to feel and inwardly see this side, she is murky and monstrous. Yet she has power. Perhaps rage, really. I’m just starting to pay closer attention. Her time is now. I think her pain-body. (She has one all to herself?) can be healed. My bilateral contrast is interesting. The left is quite content. She is pleased, fluid, connected.

Now, I know that all my tissues intertwine; bilateral movement focus is arbitrary, not how I’m actually stitched together. But the imaginary line down the middle produces two differently perceived interior people. So when I say that my ‘pain body’ is mostly on the right side and not on the left (no political pun intended, though actually…), it sounds bizarre.

On page 116 in Skin of Glass I write about discovering that the latter stages of in-utero fetal assymetry (from being increasingly crowded inside the womb) have set spiraling spine patterns in place before birth. This is one possible root of my bilateral imbalance. Then pile up the scar tissue and revised neural networking from collection injuries and surgeries and, voila, a Frankensteinetta is made! My lovely Frankensteinetta.