I'm the only one in a chair.
People arrive, chatting and hugging. Although this is a dance event, and I am a dancer, and even though I have danced at this event in the past, tonight I am in a different role.
I've been asked to anchor this ritual by embodying rightly-held power. In this crowd, I'm the eldest by far. My book “How to Hold Power” is placed on the altar.
The chair is necessary. I have an injury and haven't danced in months.
But even without the injury, I would be sitting.
I'm not at my best today, and yet this commitment matters. I'm showing up brokenhearted, raw, and present.
My power is quiet. My eyes are closed. I'm trying to find ground. Hopefully, my prayers reach my helping spirits and ancestors so they can help me fulfill this role in a good way.
I invite into my attentional field the manatees I swam with in Florida. Their vast, ancient bodies. Their wisdom from the deep. Their slowness, their rest.
The guide leading our trip has given us the mantra, "When in doubt, float it out."
This is supposed to help us navigate: in moments with the manatees, when you don't know what to do, surrender.
My eyes are closed.
The chattering and buzzing of the dance floor drop away. I float, suspended underwater.
Peering through the crystal blue-green of the water, I see a manatee who has moved to hang beneath me.
We float together, her body mere inches beneath my own. I do not touch her, although I want to.
Something in the human world calls my attention, a tingle on the back of my neck.
I open my eyes to see her, a woman who was a close friend, but is no longer in my life. It's been over a year since she walked out of our mediation in anger. I haven't seen her since. But there she is.
I close my eyes.
I feel fear, my pulse elevated. "Manatees can hear your heartbeat from 6 feet away."
I don't want my fear to scare them away. I slow my heartbeat by ceasing all effort and taking long, slow inhales and even slower exhales. It works because the beautiful beasts surround me.
I breathe like that now, slowing my heartbeat and returning to my center.
The woman is not worth my peace.
I get to curate the nervous system I want to have. The manatees float above the floor of the spring with no effort: I want a nervous system like a manatee's: still, calm, quiet, and deep.
What does she think as the facilitators introduce me as the guest of honor? I'm slightly curious how it lands when the facilitator says, "We've invited Vin because we admire how they embody power in the community."
Likely, she disagrees.
The manatee's bodies are covered in criss-crossing maps of scars. They wear their stories on their skin, each healed wound making them more unique and identifiable. I remember their scars as the dance continues.
My slow, tiny movements throughout the dance wave respect the slowness of my true pace. They allow me to be in a dance space differently, with nothing to prove.
After failed mediation, I receive an email from her asking if I intend to go to this dance. She would like to go but prefers not to be in spaces with me.
I respond I don’t know if I am going, but trust her capacity to leave situations she does not want to be in. I feel fine about her being in any dance space I’m in. I tell her I will not be checking in about future dance plans.
I finally speak truth after years of withholding, afraid of her reaction.
I've been invited to share something with the dancers. The practice I share is this: Sit back in yourself.
Say aloud, "I call back all my power."
Say it again. And again. "I call back all my power." Say it and keep saying it on the dance floor and every day.
Each of us at the margins fully inhabiting our power is what this moment calls for. The dance floor echoes with their whispers.
The manatees head to the springs during the winter where the water temperature is stable at 72 degrees. They prefer to be in warmer waters. They take care of their needs.
They don't seem to mind the snorkelers swimming amongst them, although they move away from the guy yelling and splashing. I am his opposite. I am calm, present, attuned: how I want to hold power.
I am surrounded by manatees.
One touches me. Another breathes in my face after making eye contact. Two more flank me, pressing in close. I am welcome. My tiny movements keep me in their sphere.
At the end of the dance, everyone sits in a circle on the floor, and I sit in my chair. She speaks. She says that she worries feeling all her emotions will weaken her, but it does the opposite. Feeling her feelings is her greatest strength.
When I hear her voice calling from the surface, I don't open my eyes, but I don't move away either.
When in doubt, float it out.
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