Improvisation

Why focus on age, or even aging, when instead we have the option of living life as a series of improvisational moments.

That is actually all we have when it comes right down to it. Moments – and our choices, actions, and perceptions within them evolve our experience and quality of life which could in any moment take off in a myriad of different directions.

Then of course there are the challenges which we cannot escape. Some seem insurmountable when taken in a linear approach. Societies boxed in labels, choices and agendas or your own need for perfection or belonging.

However, when approached though spirals, curves, and sacred creativity with great curiosity and play, then something else entirely new is birthed. Spontaneity is born. Possibilities and opportunities emerge. Life becomes vastly interesting. Old patterns and habits are not as enticing.

Nature Art by Andy Goldsworthy

One might say that once you reach “a certain age” with professional and family obligations behind you that there is more room for improvisation. More room for wildness, play and creative exploration. But that depends on you.

With over two decades of exploring and experimenting with free form dance and contact improvisation those very experiences have left me with a yearning, perhaps a passionate lusting, to live my life from that place. But I often forget.

In those moments of a calling into the wild, whether alone, on a dance floor space, or with others, a complete and total presence to the unfolding moment is essential. A sensitivity to energy flowing or blocked. When to move, to touch, to make contact, to break contact is all done in the moment of being highly attuned to now. No spoken words are necessary.

I have never felt so free and unfettered. There is no right or wrong in these spaces of being. The only presence is breath, movement, energy, connection….and a willingness to surrender and explore.

This perception and way of living by surrendering into the moment to make your choices. Choosing the dance steps/movement/actions you will take, depending on the life music you are hearing right now and who may be there with you. This can be a very frightening way to live for many. Thus trust is an imperative in living an improvisational life.

Trust that the messages constantly whispered to you from body, heart and soul will override the minds constant caution and chatter. That in any given moment you may open into the miracle of one single moment of breath, loving, adventure, laughter, play, compassion – or even the deepest of sadness, grief, loss or anger.

The prescription here is openly feeling and accepting life moments now without writing a script of how it will be or should be. Expectations are banished to another far away land.

So why not start today. To be present to the unfolding of your life as if every moment mattered….for that is all we have.

Mindful By Mary Oliver

Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light. It is what I was born for— to look, to listen, to lose myself inside this soft world— to instruct myself over and over in joy, and acclamation. Nor am I talking about the exceptional,the fearful, the dreadful, the very extravagant— but of the ordinary, the common, the very drab, the daily presentations. Oh, good scholar, I say to myself, how can you help but grow wise with such teachings as these— the untrimmable light, of the world, the ocean’s shine, the prayers that are made out of grass?

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Gaye Abbott, Wildly Free Elder, 03/01/24