Having Space to Explore
In a world that is constantly telling us how to be, this was the first place I stepped into that said “anything you are is okay. In fact everything you are is magnificent. How about we slow down? And feel it for yourself. Anything that comes up, we’re here, and we’ll love it with you.” And nothing, nothing in my life has impacted me so much. The container that said that all of me was welcome, that there wasn’t an aspect that would be put down or rejected. That wasn’t going to tell me how it should be done. But was going to show me how to open to myself. And finally, for the first time, I could get to feel and explore the inner parts of me without holding back.
Yes you do get strong on the pole, and the floor, but mostly it’s a strength Ive felt building within me, over time, and without the push of needing to get somewhere. A strength that comes from connecting with where I am in this moment and what that feels like, on my skin, in my muscles, in my heartbeat, in the energy coursing through me, and learning how to let that carry me to the next place.
Yes it can be about pole tricks if you want it to be. Really sinking into how they feel as we stretch, fly, and push our edges to find our strength and balance, and create beauty with our bodies. And we can also never touch the pole if we don’t want to. Because what it’s really about is us. About the experience of our bodies, and that can be found anywhere, standing up against a wall, sitting in the middle of the room, letting the glow of a nearby lamp caress our skin, or feeling what it’s like to be cradled in shadow.
And in a world that has so many opinions of and limitations around what a woman’s sexuality should be, Im grateful for this place that is here to love women through this sacred exploration, returning the agency, play, and delicious mystery back into our hands and that of our own experience. Treating it like the gift to revel in that it is. Expanding our awareness of what sexual energy is and all the places we can feel it - in the subtle stretch of our neck, in the reveal of our shoulder, in the pressing of our fingertips up against the wall. As we feel into the edges where we feel pleasure, power, truth, flow, surrender, intuition in all the flavors that it can show up in.
And when I connect to that, nothing else matters. Not social ideas about my body, not what is or isn’t sexy, not my age, and nothing that i “need” to do.
I feel good.
And I follow that feeling, I learn how to open to it, let it in, let it move me to the next thing. And in this practice, enjoying the experience of creating from this place. Where I don’t need to look outside of myself to see where the next step is. Everything I need to tell me what’s next is happening within me. Feeling myself being led by that as I interact with the world around me, exploring this life that is mine.
And cultivating that navigation has been invaluable for me - Where to source. How to open to feeling. How to create. How to love. In the past as much as much as I’ve wanted to open to sensing the world around me and all her beauty, there has been a resistance. Because then I can sense just as much the almost crippling weight of so much that needs our love and attention. And what do we do with that? The powerlessness of where to start and the question of what I can even do felt too big to engage. So there was an appeal to staying closed. And only feeling so much.
Now, I’m starting to feel grounded in an experience, through feeling this practice in my body. That wave of energy that can carry a thought, a movement, through the unknown, when that wave is sourced from the truth of my experience. When I dance with the world around me, open to taking her in and allowing the alchemy of that interaction to inform and pour out of me my next action. This is the gift of the feminine.