Thoughts on our first Gathering

Genesis officially began yesterday, it was a rough start, I spent most of the early morning in the emergency room due to a kidney stone, thankfully it was nothing too major. I was physically exhausted, still in a bit of pain, but all that changed when I got to the space and was greeted with warm hugs from the amazing group that I will be working with. Such a simple gesture, a hug, yet it reminded me of how much I miss engaging with other individuals. My own practice has suffered so much, I was used to engaging in daily explorations with movement, striving each day to achieve the moment when I lost consciousness about my body and its restrictions and allowed for its movement to guide me, to become a language to communicate with, a vehicle to supersede my physical and mental barriers, but lately, I've been feeling more mute and barricaded than I ever have before. Today, I was reminded that's not the way it has to be.

We began with a delicious lunch that Hana prepared for us, and jumped straight into the artist-led "workshops." Hana and I worked together and decided to go first with some exercises developed by Guillermo Gomez-Pena and La Pocha Nostra. I decided to select the "Walk in the Darkness" exercise since I thought it was a good way to explore and familiarize ourselves with the space using our bodies. It never seizes to amaze me how much we can learn from our own movement, without our other senses, simply isolating our movement and reacting to the space that molds and shapes it. Hana decided to lead us in the specimen/ethnographer exercise. I thought about doing that one, but the intensity and the sensitivity of the exercise discouraged me. I'm glad Hana selected this exercise, it was uncomfortable for me, and threw me completely off balance, but I needed that. To feel comfortable in my own skin, to intimately explore the body of another, to have shifting levels of comfort, an acute awareness of my socially created identity, to enter a trance-like state, guided by the syncopated breaths and heart beats of five bodies in dangerous proximity. It was painfully comfortable. This was when it all made sense for me during the day, when I lost myself even for those few minutes and jumped into the unknown of experimentation. Alison then gave us a crash course of double dutch, brought back a lot of childhood memories, not all good, but it brought them back regardless. Also reminded me of how rusty I am....I can only imagine what it would've been to play a game of handball. Maybe we should. Brooke taught us how to tie a knot between two pieces of rope so that they could hold up anything....I think I'd fall off the cliff before I could tie the rope...I didn't realize how much coordination it took. Liz led us through a very amazing exercise of cleansing the space. We all washed the floor of the space as a collective. A quiet, yet powerful activity. Ritual-like, like burning copal the way the elders do before a dance circle. The last activity of our gathering left me thoughtful for the rest of the day, unsure, and unsettled. Cheryl made us close our eyes and call upon our childhood memory. Our first home, our memories of people that shaped our childhood, tastes we remembered, things we heard. Sharpening our senses and forcing them to return to a different time in our lives. We then wrote a poem about those memories, I couldn't share with the group. The memories I had were all pleasant, I have been blessed with an amazing family, however, I realize how far away from those memories I have pushed myself away from. Although I have a very grounded home, I am not grounded, and that was the most difficult thing to be reminded of. To realize that it is me that's in a state of transition, with so many insecurities, unknowns, and paths that I have yet to build courage to travel. That is how the day ended for me, with a consciousness of flux. Feeling like I'm floating, like I have yet to find my center. To reconnect with my own practice, To find comfort in instability and change. To feel grounded in transition, to accept and embrace my personal unknowns and build the courage to experiment through them. That is what I hope to do.

There's an old saying that says that a human being would much rather face its greatest enemy on a battlefield than their own thoughts. I start Genesis with this in mind. I take down my armor, and I get ready to face myself.

-Cesar