In a recent movement workshop, we were instructed to walk, skip, leap in whatever direction at whatever rate through the studio. I sped up. Nearing a wall, I'd push off with my hands and ricochet in another direction. Walking fast backwards, we were coached to say "thank you" if we and another collided. It didn't happen. Without knowing each others' ever changing trajectories, without disrupting my instinctive arc, I kept finding the open space to move into. I left open space in my wake for others to enter.
Why doesn't this seamless hive intelligence happen on the street? I believe it's because we often tune out our awareness of being part of a larger group. Cell phones exacerbate the situation. In individualistic driver mode, we don't necessarily look for openings, but wonder why everyone isn't getting out of our way. In our public life we don't have the same agreements or intentions as in a movement workshop.
It made me remember other larger groups, other dance spaces filled with forty or fifty people zipping across the room, nobody colliding. It's as if we were all aware of being in relationship to the whole. My small 't' taoist friend Howard often says that he follows the openings, looking for where there's already flow and movement in his life. That's what we all were doing in the larger dancing group and so the whole group body flowed.
I like that, being welcomed forward by the seemingly empty space or life openings. Opportunity knocks and we answer or we don't. Nature abhors a vacuum, so invites us to fill it momentarily by our stepping forward or leaping into it. What openings are beckoning for you? What invitations do you ignore or resist? Do you get stuck in setting your trajectory to where your way is blocked?
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