Springtime

Kristin and I are walking out of Lincoln Center, having just experienced Martha Graham's "Springtime".   I am mesmerized and Kristin is perplexed.   We are on our way to the Russian Tea Room.   It is a long, long time ago.   Lifetimes ago.   Martha Graham was still alive and her dance troupe performed regularly in New York.   Alvin Ailey and Martha Graham inspired me for so many years and I still try to get to New York between Thanksgiving and New Years so I can see Alvin Ailey at City Center.


Back to our walk to the Russian Tea Room and our conversation.   Kristin had expected a gentle, lovely dance given the name.   I wasn't surprised that Martha Graham focused on the tensions in moving from winter into spring -- the force it takes for those new shoots of growth to push through frozen ground.


Ten years or so later I am talking to my spiritual teacher about this.   And softly, gently, I am told that it is all in one's point of view about peace and war.   If I perceive life as a battle, an endurance test if you will, then I perceive the need for those tender new shoots of growth to force their way through the frozen ground.   If I perceive life as peace, trust in grace and ease, I will see that the frozen ground relaxes in the warmth of spring's arrival and as it relaxes the new growth emerges.


Wow.


Over these past 21 years, since that conversation, I have made a commitment to shift my perspective and have been fairly successful, but not completely.   I have shifted it enough to survive with some moments of grace, but not enough to really thrive and it has been a source of incredible frustration.


I had hoped that 2012 would be the year that I made the shift complete.   The first 6 months have not been terribly successful in this regard.   I sit here feeling that they have been among the most difficult and painful months - but maybe it only feels that way because I have made such significant shifts in my consciousness that I really can't tolerate discomfort now.   So maybe it is a good thing.


It is not by accident that I woke up at 4 AM this morning thinking about that evening with my dear friend Kristin - that conversation - and my deep desire that this year be the year that I see the frozen ground of my life relaxing and the deep, beautiful growth I yearn for emerging effortlessly into the world.


I will celebrate my 60th birthday in July.  It is time for me to be in the summer of my life.   Guess I am a late bloomer of sorts.   Time to fully surrender as an act of peace -- and experience that surrender as falling into the arms of a lover.