Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Finding My Center

All this time, it was just right there. Amid the teetering and the toppling over and the uncontrolled extra steps, it was just there, waiting to be tapped and channeled.

Like a first love that never went away, finding my center is like unwrapping the basic and the essential in me. Once found, it just opens so much more inside.

My journey to find my center has come to that point where I can feel it, where it offers glimpses of itself, where I am at home and solid in the whirl of boleos, saludos and ganchos. It is inside me, not anywhere else, just waiting to reconnect, to be acknowledged as center and core.

While I have read about this journey of self-discovery and the epiphany of getting in touch with oneself, to actually experience the process is at once exhilarating and humbling. There is no formula, no set way to find it. It will happen, but it comes with focus and commitment, and a willingness to quiet down, to shed the layers of a sedentary lifestyle and an inhibited environment.

Like a string it is, I have been told. One that traverses from deep in your gut to the top of your head. One that steadies you, and anchors you, and keeps you standing tall despite the motion and the energy that comes with dancing and pretty much the rest of what we do in life.

Find it in you, in your own time, focus on that singular point, that will steady you, and anchor you, and keep you standing tall. I would say it is much like getting in touch with your inner self, as you search and explore, for to me, the center speaks not only of balance or energy but also direction and vision and heart and soul.

So am I finding my center or am I rediscovering everything else inside me. Or am I going through both. Getting in touch with my core by letting go of the old ways and the self-consciousness. Even as I must acknowledge that the serenity in my heart and the unflinching readiness to take on the future  comes from the certainty of connection that has been there since way back when.

For it seems that parallel to my self-discovery is the fruition of another journey that has come full circle in recent days.  All these years, it was always there, a connection so basic, time or distance never diminished that togetherness, that certainty in the soul. All this time, it never died, just got pushed into a far and hidden corner, waiting for that time when it would be right and we were ready.

Finding my center is not a done deal, and much like rediscovering a connection that feels like home, it is a journey that taps into the heart of the matter: am I brave enough to trust in what I feel and what I see, to let go and let my discovery change the way I dance and the way I live.

And in the glimpses I have of how liberating that discovery is, I see glimpses of how simple things really are. It is all inside of me, the question is am I ready to trust and be free.

Am I ready to accept the leader's challenge, to play the game of tango, to bait and bite, to step forward and embrace the passion. Am I ready to dance and to take a chance. I am. Ready for both.

The tango its passion invites. The heart its meaning finds.
The dance it mirrors life.

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