Dance Me Free

Every morning, I say a little prayer of gratitude as soon as I awake.

It’s not the kind of prayers I heard in the religious community I grew up in, or in the language that those prayers were spoken. I don’t even address it to a particular god, or travel to a particular place of prayer for it. But it’s mine and resonates more and more with the woman I’ve become and am becoming.

I speak to angels, source, spirit, “god”, ancestors, the universe, and especially to my mom from the comfort of my bed. My drowsy head rests against my pillow as my eyes catch the morning sunlight and revel in the appreciation of being given another day. Thank you, I say, to all of them, for taking care of me and my mom, wherever she is.

It has taken me my whole life, and the passing of my mom, to realize I have a right to this personal connection to the divine, this aspect of my crown chakra. It has always been there. I just didn’t know how to tap into it amongst all the voices, books, and media around me that told me what god or life or death or the afterlife look like. I didn’t know that I had allowed others’ opinions to close me off from this thousand petal lotus- the Saharsara as it is called in Sanskrit- and all its powerful benefits.

I was angry when my mom passed away. Angry at god, angry at the people who told me to move on, even angry at the people who told me they knew she was in a better place, and that I would feel better if I went to our old place of prayer.

I didn’t want to go without her. I was worried about her. What had happened to her? Where did she go? How did she get there? Was she okay? Did someone help her get there? And where was “there”? How could any of the people trying to give me advice even know the answers? They were still alive. They had not died. They were not with her. And they were not me, yet they were trying to tell me what I should believe.

I needed to find my own beliefs. What really spoke to me and felt true for me. I needed to find my own connection to the divine. Little did I know that Dance, and a particular local dance event, would help me get there.

Not long after my mom’s passing, I was supposed to attend the biggest salsa, bachata, kizomba festival that had ever taken place in Vancouver. I didn’t know how to be there or enjoy it. I felt so much guilt for even thinking of dancing, and the grief was so heavy in my body and heart, I wasn’t sure how to move with it and around other people. I was having trouble just getting myself out of bed.

But I already had my ticket, and perhaps needed a distraction.

Some of the best instructors and performers in the world were in attendance, and there were hundreds of amazing social dancers who had flown in from so many different countries. But within minutes, I felt exhausted from the fake hellos and smiles I was giving while everything in me felt like it was shattering at the loss of my mom.

When I tried sharing my true feelings with an instructor from out of town who I thought genuinely wanted to know how I was doing, he responded with, “No one wants to hear about your mom.”

I was devastated. I didn’t want to pretend to be okay to make everyone else feel comfortable. I felt like no one could understand. So I gravitated to places in the festival where I could hide.

The first place was in a room where a movie was being presented. It was about the roots of salsa dancing, The Lost Rhythms in Salsa. It was dark in there, and people were focusing on the screen, so I had an excuse not to look in anyone’s face or fear breaking down in front of them.

I was surprised at how I could connect to the movie. The idea of honouring where something came from, the foundations of the dance, and the people who set that grounding, really spoke to me. Because I too wanted to find a way to honour my mom, to remind everyone she existed, and to make sure she knew that she would never be forgotten, that what she did for me would never be forgotten. I wanted people to see how I was there because of her.

I felt as if the artist who created these movies- La Epoca- was trying to get across the same message. That we were here dancing these dances because of the legends who created them. He also didn’t want them to be forgotten.

Once the movie was over, I peered into the rooms where the dance workshops were happening. I couldn’t imagine joining the ones that were so crowded. There were too many familiar faces in there. I needed something more intimate that allowed me to show up as I really was. Something to help me go inward, instead of leaking more energy outwardly that I didn’t really have.

I walked into a room that had a smaller number of participants. The instructor had already started the class, and was demonstrating some rhythms on the drums that were sitting next to him.

I liked that it was something different, something unfamiliar, and that I didn’t know any of the students or even the instructor. Better yet, they didn’t know me. It helped me get lost in something new. We were learning mambo, and different rhythms in it, and stepping them through with our bodies.

I didn’t realize at first that the instructor wasn’t using counts. He was just scatting the rhythm with his voice. And he got us all into doing the same so that we weren’t thinking it, but feeling it. It felt catchy first in my tongue, and then in my feet and then in my nervous system. It settled my nerves.

The steps resembled salsa. But it had a different sensation. Thank goodness we weren’t using counts, because after we were training it more into our muscle memory, the instructor revealed to us, “You’re dancing on 2 and a half.”

Two and a half! Up until that point, I had learned the more flashy, edgy style of dancing Salsa On1, as well as the smoother, matrix like feel of New York Style Salsa On2. And it was the counting that I thought kept me able to find and stay on beat for those styles. But never had I heard of dancing on a half beat, let alone on 2 and a half!

It literally felt like I was in two worlds at once, some middle realm. And I later thought, how fitting.

There I was physically on this plane of being at the salsa festival and my body being there, but there was a whole other part of me that felt like it had gone with my mom. People kept telling me to move on, to get over it. My sadness? My emotions? My Mom? I didn’t even know what that meant. Maybe they were just were afraid to face the topic themselves. But dancing on 2 and half gave me permission to be and feel exactly as I did. I felt understood, and held. It was like Dance itself was saying, you don’t have to pretend to be something different. I’ve got you wherever you are.

It turned out that the teacher of that workshop, Josue Joseph, was also the same artist whose film I had been watching earlier.

Those two experiences gave me the strength to stay on for the performance portion of the festival. I braced myself and walked into the big hall where hundreds of people were gathered. I made sure to stand at the back in case I needed to make a quick exit.

While the lights were dimmed, a local dancer- Rita appeared on the stage. But she was not moving in her usual salsa flare that I had seen her in at social dances. This time, she became a beautiful, lyrical ballerina, who seemed to have a different kind of story to tell. Another dancer joined her, raven hair, in a light pink, sheer fabric, sensual exotic, ethereal. It felt dreamy, other-worldy.

The music gripped me from the first note- an artist playing a keyboard on the stage, a bassist next to him, and a voice crying out, with an urgency to be heard.

I couldn’t take my eyes and ears off of them. I started forgetting where I was as the lyrics poured out. They were all in Spanish, but I could feel and understand them. Words that I didn’t even know I knew, and in exactly the way I was longing to hear.

“No hay que llorar,” sang a female voice in the background, “El tiempo passara, to veras.” – No need to cry, the time will pass. You’ll see.

“Podras abrasarme de nuevo, tu veras.” – You’ll be able to embrace me again, you’ll see.

I kept moving closer to the music, tears dampening my face, no longer worrying about who saw me.

“Podras bailar de nuevo, tu veras. Yo se que no me olvidaras.”- You’ll be able to dance again. I know that you won’t forget me, the lyrics continued.

It was like my mom was speaking to me, but in a language that wasn’t ours. But could finally reach me.

I saw a post recently that asked, What does Source sound like? Well, that day, it sounded like a piercing female Spanish voice, in the midst of a hypnotic Guajira rhythm, composed by a family of musicians I hadn’t met yet, but soon would.

I shouldn’t have been surprised that it was Josue Joseph, La Epoca, who was behind that keyboard and music. Though I had been slighted earlier by an instructor and artist who didn’t want to hear about my mom, Josue invited me into the artists’ lunch room to meet his family because I shared with him about how his music connected me to my mom.

He introduced me to his parents, one of which was the famous bassist Alfonso Panama. They all thanked me for letting them know what an impact the song had on me. And they signed a couple of their CD’s to me with a message about my mom.

I learned that the song was written in memory of Alfonso’s friend and fellow musician Chuito Valdez.

I later had the pleasure of interviewing Josue to dive in deeper about the motivation behind his art. In particular, Josue talked about the power of art to transcend time and space, and in helping us heal and continue our connections with passed loved ones.

I see the truth of his words around me everywhere- in the lyrics I hear, the songs that pop up coincidentally in right timing, and the dances that take me to other spaces, other dimensions. I wonder less and less about whether they really happened, and instead, welcome them as guidance to show me my next move, my next line, my next rhyme- confirmation of divine timing.

Connecting to my crown chakra has helped me see that I don’t have to do this alone. That we aren’t alone. That Source is within us. It’s not something outside of us. And it can come to us through many different forms. We just need to be open to and trust in the divine downloads.

Tu Veras- by La Epoca