koans

Tonight at the studio, we got to remembering a brush we'd had with a spirit (of the male variety). Dancing in one of the studios many months ago, a couple of the ladies had commented after the warm-up that we weren't alone. That they had felt someone come into our room as we were soaking it up in our moving meditation and that he was sitting in one of the chairs in the corner. No one really took issue with this. It didn't feel dangerous, more like curious. In fact, seeing as how we're across the street from the Chelsea Hotel and there are probably a lot of restless souls on the move from that side of the road, I wasn't particularly surprised (plus, let's face it, if I were guy spirit with free-roaming capabilities, I'd absolutely go somewhere where luscious ladies oozing sensuality would be dancing). Class continued on and no real mind was paid to this presence, though at one point when I approached that particular chair, I did wrap around it and suddenly paid some attention as to what I might feel: a change of temperature, a breeze, a density. And then I couldn't tell if I was trying to have the experience. Was I wanting to feel it cuz all the cool kids were doing it? Or was I really that sensitive to the presence? It was as if I had no gauge because I was in this moment on my own.

How other's influence plays out the scene. One time when I was a little girl, I'd woken up and seen the shadow of a person against my second floor bedroom wall, seemingly standing on the roof doing what I thought was a windmilling of his/her arms. But I guess it didn't scare me because I went back to sleep. The next day when I told my mom, the look on her face told me everything I needed to know. Her quick-to-respond comment that I was dreaming matched by a certain frozen look in her eyes stopped me ever bringing it up again. But as I remember it, I wasn't scared until her eyes told me that I was supposed to be.

So how much of life is lived by taking cues from other people's responses? their eyes, their reactions? The planting of seeds sown by another's experience transferred and taken right into our own psyche? If I'm really quiet and pay attention to what I think, know, feel, will my life be lived more authentically? But of course I also spill out my own thoughts and judgments on my surroundings, most often without uttering a word. Just by a look, a move. And so much of it is simply fear of the unknown (not that fear is particularly simple. It does seem to override so many other emotions). But I'm curious that if next time I climb into the lap of that unknown, that I can't settle in and figure out for myself how I feel about it. good, bad or otherwise. Just wondering.