“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.” Melody Beattie
I am grateful to my body for making me get up from my bed to go to toilet, when the quicksand of inertia wishes to suck me deeper into its jaws. The more I resist, the deeper I sink, the more I feel guilty the deeper I sink, the more I am ashamed the deeper I sink. The more I relax, the wisdom of the body gets me out. The more I surrender, gravity rolls me around the floor, floor recieves me with open arms and legs. Like when you think you are drowning and when you put your feet down you discover it’s shallow enough to stand up. Sometimes that simple act of standing on my own to feet, taking a step, even if it’s backwards, brings me back to life, to my flow. I am grateful that my body needs air, rest, to strech, to empty, to nourish, to move.
I am grateful to movement, for through it I can express absolutely everything I feel, even when I don’t know what I’m feeling, even when I don’t feel a thing or feel everything at the same time. Through movement I can say things I’m afraid to hear spoken out loud, through movement I can yell so loud without hurting anyone, through movement I can curse and swear without offending anyone. Through movement I can crush, destroy, break, tear apart, disembowl and keep my hands clean, without needing to wash anybody’s blood from the floor. I am grateful that through movement I can stir energy inside me that is pent up, pushed down, forbidden, the energy that corrodes and gnaws from inside.
I am grateful to intuition that expertly knows all I have experienced so far so it feels very well that which hasn’t happened yet. Intuition that shines as a firefly in the darkness of all I know, that shimmers as a lighthouse in a storm of all that I think. I think that I have to have an opinion on everything. I think about how much I think. I drive myself crazy with what-ifs. I ask questions that don’t have an answer, I answer when nobody asked me anything just to say something, just to think something. Intuition that is so much in the present moment that it’s always a step ahead of me. Intuition that is not afraid of the dark, that in the darkness hears better the beating of the heart, the call of destiny.
I am grateful for sensitivity that reminds me how everything is temporary, how everything changes. Sensitivity to pain (mine and others’), sensitivity to injustice (mine and others’). I love my sensitvity to light, colour, sound, smell, touch, temperature. I love how different rhyhtms move my hips, how different voices move my arms, how different words move my shoulders, how different vibrations move my knees. It’s fun how I change when I dance with different people. It’s interesting how right when I’m copletely embodied, present, conected with my breath, right then I can disappear and be a wind in a meadow, water in your hands, earth that holds the seed, spark that dances in fire.
I am grateful that I have a possibility to chose gratitude even when things do not go according to my plan, even if in that moment I can see no goodness or lightness. I love when I can find gratitude at the end of my dance, especially when I feel that at the end of the dance the gratitude has found me. I am grateful that over and over again I keep finding myself in the dance and that I have the opportunity to meet all of you, through dance or through these words. Thank you.
Love, Silvija