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Writer's pictureJaime Howell

Been Longing for Belonging




Soon I will be traveling North to be a part of team led by Geordie Jahner, a year long embodied journey into deepening self knowing using Open Floor conscious dance. I have been invited to teach something about belonging.


Yesterday a message came through, news that cuts through the personal drama. Someone I know has been diagnosed with cancer , they are dying, there is not much time left.


The plan was for the community of friends to gather and slowly circle the house in which she lay. The skin drummed a heart beat as we walked. The woman who is dying is living a miraculous life as a healer, an artist, a common person who lives the heART of the mystery. The kind of person whose chance encounter leaves you totally shuffled for the better. She lives deep, a walking, breathing embodiment of wisdom, courage and love. Oh how could death make a claim here?


We are gathering on her back lawn amongst sun rays, spring blossoms, In front of the window where she lies surrounded by her family, it is her birthday. The men begin to chant a "OM", she is crying, hands in prayer on her side, bones thin and yet stunningly beautiful in a puddle of sun. The woman begin to sing, I am choked up and struggle to make a tune full sound.


Worlds are colliding, I see my death in hers, feel the great mystery rushing in, loving hands from the other side are here. Death, ruthless in its demands and yet wildly beautiful as it reveals to us all the preciousness of life. It is a moment out of time, an unspeakable presence, a fierce grace.


We circled and cried and hugged on the street outside her home. Nothing more was said, the whole thing popped into the world conceived by a community knowing what needed to be done, this is what humans who love each other do.


As David Whyte poetically says, "There is no house like the house of belonging."


Today I reflect on this belonging, that it transcended boundaries and busyness. It is not the first time this has happened in this Upper South Island nook of Aotearoa.


Blessing. No one could do this alone. No words could do this, it took skin, silence and song. It took a wild loving community who are digging deep and straightening some things out about what it means to belong to a place, to a community.

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