Solo Travel, the Video

The teacher of our retreat showed that "Alexander's Transformation" video that has been making the rounds of the internet and I lost it.  Lost.  It.  I ended up sobbing into my hands in the bathroom.  The idea of the courage behind that transformation just struck me in the heart.  The perseverance and the positive talk even as he fell and fell and fell again.  Just knowing that these things are possible -- so what's my excuse?  But really, it was the song.  That Coldplay song.  Because the truth is, no one can fix you.  Only you can fix you. And as it turns out, my day of tears had only begun.

After the video, we got all warmed up and practiced our little combo.  Our teacher turned us to face the panoramic seascape, and told us there was a person way out on the little spit of land in the distance, and next time we went through the dance, we had to project our dance out to that person.  We had to somehow make that person feel the joy and the power and the love that brought us all together, dancing together.  She put the music on, and I just felt full, so full of all that I am and will be.  I started to cry again while we were dancing.  I thought to myself, this is the water that mixes the cement that puts me together again.

In the evening, we practiced yoga, then we walked down to the beach to chant down the setting sun.  Sitting on the sand, facing the water, with lovely voices all around, all chanting about the light of the sun and the light of ourselves, I filled up and overflowed again.  I started to despair of ever being able to recreate the calm, tensile strength of this retreat after I got home.  My voice broke as the last edge of the sun slipped below the waves and we ended our chanting.  In the absence of human sound that followed, the mortar set around another section of my brick house.