daughter of mary, mother of binah

OSA 109
August 4, 2007
9:41am
St. Stephen Church Auditorium with Ma and Aaron
Last Day of Summer Dance Jam

Give Thanks! I have completed the Summer Dance Jam. I thought what a blessing it was to lead my mother through yoga, breathing, African dance moves, stretching. Guiding her through exercises that were awakening her to her vulnerabilities and her strengths. Pure magic. I thought how good it felt to be her coach and that she honored my process and surrendered to being led by her daughter. A powerful exchange between mothers and daughters when we can shift roles and help each other grow, heal, expand. I had envisioned a big group, a multitude of dancers for the finale of the Summer Dance Jam—and instead it was even better, me and my mother. What better way to conclude a project I birthed than with the woman who gave birth to me. In fact the day we dance together on is exactly 24 years and 11 months to the day since I was born in Austin, Texas.

My mother is an amazing woman and she tries very hard to support all her children, and other people’s children in everything she does. Just release, I am telling her. She holds all her tension in her shoulders. The weight of a long line of matriarchs resting on her. The pressure of being everything to everyone—wife, daughter, sister, mother, auntie, deaconess, science fair project coordinator for our family’s youngsters, keeper of the DC and PG County library systems, grocery store expert—all of it. She’s tight. We breathe repeatedly. There’s blockages; the same blockages that hinder all of us from living fully at every moment. The hesitation to breathe, the reluctance to release and go with the flow. The tense and stiff muscles we mistake for normalcy. Here, as we dance, we undo those things that no longer serve our elevation into our higher selves.

Again, I say, Ma, let go. It’s only now I realize the totality of the tightness, the tension. I am asking her release millenniums-old, wrapped, tucked, tied, twisted stuff—in one breath no less. She’s moving for all mothers in this moment. She is breathing into belly with all our hands on her stomach for every mother, for every womb-bearing being that has held on so tight, so tight for the sake of everyone else, that they sacrifice their own release. I am breathing with her. Staring into her eyes. Seeing Debra, Mary, Malissa, Martha, and Mary again. Seeing Vashti, Lillie, Laura, Rossie, Charlotte. All these aunties and grandmas and great-grandmas, some of whom I never even knew, now dance with us. They are cheering Ma on, telling her with each deeper exhalation the old wisdom they too learned—it’s okay to let go. Let it go. The dance flows when you let it go.

As I place my hands on her hips to stress which muscle I want her to gyrate, or twist her torso further as she exhales, or walk my feet next to hers so that she gets on the right rhythm, I wonder if she ever dreamed of this moment 25 years ago while she was awaiting my birth. I wondered if she ever imagined she’d be dancing with me, in my open space studio, receiving instruction on how to pump her pelvis, lift her chest, breathe. All these things I learned while dancing around her womb, and now she is relearning them in a new way. Are not all things a big circle. A circle, what goes around, loves back around.