On Freeom v1
5/22/24
Dear Community ♡
Time and time again…Joshua Tree delivers.
I’m on night one of a 3 night personal retreat here in the desert.
I love it here, and have done many solo retreats here through the years but its been a while.
Although I’m actually more of a forest and green leafy trees person at heart, the desert offers potent medicine that has helped open me and teach me in so many ways.
This evening I got to do one of my favorite things ever. To dance in nature with loud music in my headphones. Away from people. I could say so much about it but to sum it up IT FEELS REALLY GOOD.
Ok so there I was, flowing around, climbing rocks and playing and dancing and a memory came to mind that I hadn’t thought of in years.
I was in my early 20’s in NYC, and I had just gifted a friend an IPOD. I had uploaded it with all the same music as my own, and the day I gifted it to her, we synced up our ipods song after song and danced together from downtown Manhattan to midtown, I believe we danced around 45 blocks. (wait did we invent silent disco?) ;)
It was magical! It was freeing! It was alive! It was playful and connective and F-U-N!!! It was NYC so obviously lots of people ignored us, but ALSO OBVIOUSLY: we evoked sooo MANY smiles along the way.
What a fun and special memory to come upon! … and it had me thinking:
When did I stop dancing in the streets?
Like sure, we can say “oh we’re more wild when we’re younger” and sure in some ways that’s often true…
but this wasn’t a matter of partying. This was a matter of being free, being uninhibited.
Even though I consider myself a fairly self-expressed person, I really got to sit with my conditioning about how I show up in the world.
and then…as the sun was setting and I was dancing it down, I noticed some fellow humans on a nearby rock mountain…
There it was- the instinct to stop dancing / to move to where they couldn’t see me.
I was like ok honey, this is the PERFECT moment to practice being who I want to be. Free to dance, free to be seen, and hopefully to inspire others along the way.
And So Dance I Did :)
Sure it felt a little awkward but not so bad…and more good ;)
I am grateful to my younger self, and to all the people who have modeled being seen, being free, and experiencing aliveness without abandon.
♡
Okay Everyone…
That’s that for now.
I’ll be back from JT on Saturday and my calendar opens back up on Sunday. If your heart, mind and body are needing some compassionate listening and restorative gentle touch, book a session here
Much Love,
Mari
the full moon rising just after the sun set ♡