Movement is our Birthright

It is our birthright to move. To move rhythmically is innately and instinctively human if not thwarted and marginalized by social conditioning, cultural, or religious prohibitions. Turn on some music for a 2- or 3-year-old, and they will instinctively dance and sway and perhaps, you instinctively do the same to music that you love. In swaying your body, you are doing what trees do in the wind. It is in nature that we see, feel, and experience the majesty of creation, its inherent order, harmony, and rhythm. The movement in nature, if not thwarted unnaturally, occurs in waves and arcs. When we sense and feel these waves within us, we not only connect to the harmony and order of nature but to the harmony and order within us.

Try going outside to the beach or any body of water and move and sway with the trees and rippling water and feel that soothing motion. When you breathe, listen to ocean waves and inhale and exhale with the rising and falling rhythm of the waves. You will feel inside you that the inhalation is the crest of the wave, and your exhalation is the receding motion of the tides. This motion is a rhythmic dance; even that 7th rogue wave that splashes you unexpectedly is like the breath--those rogue events in our life that make us breathe hard and heavy and make us feel that a small tidal wave has overcome us.

So, turn on the music you love and just move freely, whatever comes to you, without judgment or self-analysis. Dance your sorrow or joy and reside in the rhythm and flow of motion.