I have always loved to move my body, but to call these movements dancing would be an overstatement. The instruction to dance as if no-one is watching is easier for me when no-one is actually watching. In a conversation this past week I learnt of women who danced to a DJ hidden behind a screen while they removed their veils and danced wildly and inclusively with women of many cultures. And then last night I had the opportunity to dance with women from all over the world and together we laughed and moved easily between and around each other in a universal language of movement. The evening ended with Shania Twain’s “Man I feel like a woman!” With around 50 nations represented in the room the whoops and cheers and freedom expressed moved me to tears. There was a glimpse of living like it’s heaven on earth.
Sing like no one is listening.
Love like you’ve never been hurt.
Dance like nobody’s watching,
and live like it’s heaven on earth. – Mark Twain
I am wobbly and finding it hard to find solid ground. The earth between my feet keeps shifting despite my attention to the horizon. Looking up helps. I know singing helps and last night I was reminded dancing helps. The global sisterhood helps. Family and friends help.
In a week where I have drawing from a well of women’s wisdom (at the Global Summit for Women) and a week where famous men have been on trial with one notorious conviction completed with a sentence, my heart and head turn to the women we are for each other and in each other’s lives. I was honoured to hear from the first woman President of Kosovo Atifete Jahjaga tell her nation’s tale of systemic sexual violence and how she has led the movement for this taboo to be lifted by recognising this women as war heroes and survivors alongside other veterans. The women who survive domestic violence and those who stand alongside of them in the law, the shelters, the support services, in the hospitals are the foot soldiers in this everyday battle field where power plays out in the bedrooms and kitchens all around the world. This past 12 months has been a watershed year with campaigns like #metoo going like wildfire around the world aided and amplified by social media and the bravery of women speaking up and telling their stories.
My inner work is solitary and swirling. More discoveries every day seeking to be banished but not before integration, feels like asking canker to make a home before it is treated. Canker in birds is an ancient pathogen that goes back to the dinosaurs. The pathogen has patriarchy in its DNA and infects my heart and soul. Patriarchy needs to be as extinct as any dinosaur. There is an antidote for pathogen and I have a suspicion that dancing’s healing powers might be part of the medicine. My privileges are many, and call me back to reality. all the while I am on one hell of a personal journey. I am a reluctant traveller on this road, but whether I want to walk it or not, the path unfolds before me.
Time to dance like no-one is watching.
Photo by Levi Guzman on Unsplash
Letters to 