It’s already a few days past the Summer Solstice and I am noticing a sadness as we slip down inexorably towards shorter days and longer nights.

Oh sweetheart (says my Inner Life-Coach), what a thing to say! Only three days ago you were battling with day and night temperatures that you could hardly tolerate, and longing for the sun to abate! Looking for shade, and moderation, and wanting to hide from whatever is “too full on”. (Yet also curious about risk-taking, at the extremes…)

Yes, it is possible to long for a thing and also to dread it at the same time, and my relationship with sunlight is an example of that. And that’s where my deeper longing for a sense of ease, balance, and equilibrium comes in. A hunger towards the middle ground of my Inner Sunflower, the soft cushiony disc florets that sustain Bumblebees with their pollen, and – thus pollinated – develop seeds that will become the next generation of smiling optimistic sunflowers.

Since 2012 [up to 2020 when I moved permanently to Scotland] I have been grounding myself by embodied movement practice, within a supportive community of souls, with Cambsdance.

Dance is at the core (coeur) of my being and helps me to express with my body the poetry of my inner heart.

Last night Louise de Caux led the two hours of movement meditation in her own heart-ful and heartening way. At one point during the evening, she invited us to move toward another human heart, and to dance what we wanted to express, to give and receive.

A habit that I have noticed is that I move towards what I perceive as a need in another… trying to discern the presence in somebody else of a need that I can perhaps meet in my own offering of tender, intuitive, gentle expression or touch.

Occasionally a wise teacher has chided me gently: Don’t rescue!, and I have to think twice, or three times, before blundering in and “giving away” what the Other, frankly, does not want. Sometimes the Other will actually indicate, No thank you, I want to dance alone.

Last night, three days after the Summer Solstice [2017], at this point in the dance I lingered for a while, watching for a gesture, a signal, from one of those who might appreciate a conversation in shared movement.

I became aware of a women who had earlier expressed something of grief and pain. I waited, perhaps to move towards her. And then one of my movement friends, male, whose dance is intimate, wild and strong, stepped towards her, sure and true, to engage her attention.

“You do not need to rescue…” said the Wise Elder in my core. “He will bring to her, tonight, what you do not have to offer just now, because you are weary.”

And just then I noticed moving towards me, confident, beautiful and whole, was another dancer whom I did not know so well, yet whose whole smile, gesture and grace wrapped me a heart embrace so pure that all I could do was stand there and be contained in healing waves of energy, as she spun around me a cocoon of light, of wonder, and of safety.

And as I stood, then sat, then knelt, at the centre of her kindness, in a place of stillness and awe and acceptance and letting go into contentment and repose, this weaver of sensate beauty lifted her left hand towards the evening sun, still blazing yellow and generous through the open doorway into the garden of St Philip’s Church, Cambridge, UK where we hold our sessions. She smiled towards the sun, and she brought her smile back to me, and:

I received what I needed – a reminder that I, at Solstice, Equinox, or all the days in between, can be bathed in the Light that sustains me, the golden light of shared generosity, giving and receiving, part of the dance of heart connection.

© Kathy McVittie 24 June 2017

PS Five years on, and after the stasis that I have named The Coronopause, I am moving towards sharing my own intuitive touch practice, for which I have been in training since publishing this earlier post. My practice is called ‘Yellow Petal Touch’ and its form and delivery has been emerging for many years.