Turn your Head
The great postmodern dance luminary Deborah Hay had a saying that she based her performance teachings around. She might take issue with me referencing it because of my political views, stance on freedom and sovereignty, etc, (such are our times) but I have been thinking about it lately in relationship to our current world, and how absolutely simple and brilliant it is. The saying goes like this: turn your fucking head. I believe that she used the word “fucking” often in relationship to this saying. She was emphatic about it. I met her once, or perhaps twice, she was small but mighty, red lipstick, sharp eyes, and a conviction that marked her generation.
This little gem of a phrase becomes a metaphor for all that might be initiated in these incredible times, if we could just turn our heads to look in another direction and see what is on the horizon.
It acknowledges the fact that change happens on a bodily level fundamentally, and until we alter our physical experience and shift our relationship to time and space through it, our perceptions will remain the same, trapped in a mental loop of our own deep unconscious making, without the ability to engage the forces around us with fresh eyes.
We need to turn our heads.
We as human beings capture ourselves, leaving whole vistas and experiences and realms untouched by our limited awareness, and we wonder why so many are spiraling down and out, forgetting all of the possibility that still remains.
Through the simple act of turning our heads, we gain a whole new vantage point from which to operate. And if we find ourselves caught, once again, in this new vantage point, we can turn our heads in yet another direction, to sense and feel and grasp what might be there for us to understand.
This technique is so simple, and yet so few are actually engaging this movement to radically shift their own life and perceptions. There is an inertia that sets in for us all, an unwillingness to change, a tribalism, a provincialism, a smallness that we can adhere to which then creates our whole reality. When we are so married to this smallness, our limited perceptions become fixed in stone, and we as vibrant and powerful and creative human beings dry up and crack and become brittle, hardened to the ongoing river of love and life that pulsates in and around us in all sacred directions.
I hope today we can all turn our heads and see what’s on the other side of the mountain, the valley, the forest, the sea.
I hope we can engage the mystery just a little bit more, each day, as we speed towards our next destination.
I hope we can all turn our fucking heads.