7/2/22
This post is a bit different.
I don’t have much time these few coming days; I’m seeing the concerts at night, while still sightseeing and seeing people during the day.
I’ll share here a smattering of photographic scenes from my lovely day yesterday.
But I was hit by something at the first (of three) Marillion concerts last night.
I condensed my thoughts into a Facebook post.
It feels appropriate for here too, so I’m sharing it.
I’ll probably get back to traditional “travelogue” blogging in the next day or two. But it feels important to me to share these deeper, travel-inspired thoughts here on this blog as well.
Thank you all for joining me on this journey. (I always make an effort to refer to this year’s travels as a journey, rather than just a “trip,” because it is definitely deeper than that.)
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Some thoughts on the state of things, and one part of what we may need:
Last night was the first night of the Marillion weekend here in Montreal. Great concert.
Marillion are definitely not a dance band. Although last night’s show was focused on their “uptempo” tracks, I only saw the merest of swaying from a few in the crowd.
There is one song of theirs, though, that always makes me want to dance. (“The Damage,” for those of you who know.)
It felt so good to get into it and move my body! I felt the music and its power flowing through me.
My ecstatic-dance days of yore feel so far away from me now. A different time, a different world…
But as I danced, and felt the power of the music, and the crowd, Alice Walker‘s quote “Hard times require furious dancing” came into my mind.
And I thought… YES. We need this kind of energy–more than ever–in times like this. (Emma Goldman‘s “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution” comes to mind as well.)
It is so easy to feel POWERLESS RAGE at times like these. Those of us in/from the US are living through a very dark time these past few weeks especially.
As I danced, I thought, We need to be dancing our ANGER. Our JOY. Our SEXUALITY. Our POWER.
These things all go together. They don’t have to be compartmentalized. There is energy, and momentum, in them.
I know I’m in no place (physically or mentally) to organize such things, but I’m putting this out into the collective, in case others may feel motivated. I feel like we need to muster our collective energy here–our anger and joy and sexuality and power (and hope, and faith, and strength to make a difference) and it can all come together with dance.
How about joyful revolution? Power, anger, yes! And also… joy, and hope, and excitement about what we DO want in the world, not just what we don’t want? How about political demonstrations that include huge helpings of joy and aliveness in addition to the anger? (They did some things like this in the ’60s, yes?)
My time in Montreal, and especially seeing the biosphere, has reignited my delight with the visionary Buckminster Fuller quote, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
So. There are three quotes for you, and some dance-inspired feelings and ideas. Not fully formed, but on the “dance floor” last night they came to me powerfully, and I wanted to share.
We need ALL the feelings, and ALL the energy they can generate, and re-generate, to live the lives we DO WANT to live.
(Thanks, Marillion.)
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