As a child and youth I had this fantasy that I could be a ballerina. I was so infatuated with anything to do with ballet and dancing. I think it had a lot to do with V.C. Andrews and all the Flowers in the Attic series but also my crush on Barishnakov and all things Russian Ballet. My mother was highly amused by this, as I was a big foot baby, never in the little satin slippers of most infants, my first shoes were hard soled shoes my mother called my, “police woman shoes”. I was not the most delicate of children.
As it happens, I met a lovely colleague and friend about the time I hit my 40s, who encouraged me to try ballet. I’m athletic, I pick things up quickly and she suggested I take some classes, in honor of my childhood self. So, on the eve of my 40th birthday I signed up for a beginner 10 week Introduction to Ballet. It was brave, daring, very scary and incredibly enlightening. Much of the practice of ballet has to do with posture and positions. Our stance, posture and position was corrected over and over again…the method was hands on and, to be honest, a bit invasive and definitely frightening! We all shrank at the sound of our teacher’s little shoes clicking around the studio floor, as she rigorously pushed, pulled, and belittled us, publicly, into the correct placement. There was not a lot of concern for your delicate emotional self here…there was only the method. I did survive, and came to appreciate the change in my posture. What was clear and apparent is that I had spent the majority of my life looking down at my own feet, making sure that I was on the right path and “doing it right”…so much so that I had my head pulled up and aligned constantly during ballet class. It was habitual. It was at that moment that I got into the habit of looking up. In part so that she didn’t eventually pull my head off but also the realization that maybe I was missing things if I travelled the world always looking at my feet.
What does any of this have to do with anything? I’ve been thinking a lot about perspective lately. How do I move through the world? How do I SEE it. I am a visual artist and my eyes guide me. How did I spend all that time looking at the ground and still create things. As well, there’s the fact that I am an introvert and looking at the ground or your feet is a great way to avoid having to engage with the human world. Also, there’s an immensity to the world of looking up. The sky, broad and seemingly endless, with its sunrises and sunsets, cloud formations and the moon, always the moon and the stars. I never get tired of looking up and out and my work is inspired but what goes on in the heavens above me. I am so glad that ballet taught me that I need to look up and out, into the world in front of and above me.
I think it’s the same with wandering in the world at large. If I am conscious that in the act of looking up and out I have an opportunity to engage, to meet another’s eyes, share a smile or a “Hello”. All of a sudden I’m outside of myself and I can choose to engage. It can radically change someone’s day to simply smile or say “good morning”. It can change my day too, usually for the better. In the same way that the sun, clouds and stars can move me so can engaging with other humans beings, even in a simple day to day way. It doesn’t cost anything, it hardly takes any time at all and it can change my day and how I feel.
On the other hand, there is a time to go inside, to be contemplative and inwardly focused. I can’t always fight my nature and I am “heady” by nature. I’m mostly okay with that and I have to fight my nature to be more part of the world and that’s good for me too. I try hard not to be all or nothing or too much of any one thing for my own good. In autumn and winter I have a natural habit of turning inward, reflecting on what has passed and considering change and manifesting things in the quiet of the dark and chilly months. I’m actually even more drawn to nature and the outdoors during these times and there is a wealth of intricate, delicate and vitally beautiful things to be found at my feet, on the forest floor, washed up on the beach or walking a quiet path by myself. I can wander a solitary path, looking at my feet and I am inspired again by the minuscule, no less inspiring or beautiful than the immensity of the sky. Tiny mushroom with delicate lacy undersides, in a multitude of colors, shapes and sizes, are as moving to my artist’s heart as the sunset over Bryce Canyon on a hot summer night.
Clearly, it has been valuable and inspirational, as well as personally developmental, to learn to look up and out. If you tend to avoid it, give it a try, it’s very enlightening, meeting people face on (I know it’s a bit strange in our current time but the eyes are very expressive, if you take the time to look), smiling and saying hello or “good morning”. I’m grateful to Lorelei for yanking my head up, in the long ago ballet class, and telling me, “there’s nothing down there you need to see, feel what your body is doing!” I also know there is a time for attending to the smaller things, the easily lost or forgotten things that I notice when I look down. I just need to remember that there is room for both things and there is an entirely different but equally important and enlightening perspective to both views.
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Great content! Keep up the good work!
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Thank you! And thank you for reading.