Sharing a process of acceptance and personal evolution. Find your direction, chemining with humor and gratitude towards acceptance and finally, lâcher-prise to realize yourself.

One vision, one direction

Jaguar in the body, butterfly in the heart. Originally, it was the title of a book by Ya'Acov Darling Khan, co-founder of the Movement Medicine school. I read the book almost two years ago, but its title kept me working.

For me, it's a fascinating ideal:

"How good it must feel to have the suppleness, the fluidity, the quiet strength of a jaguar's body and the lightness of a butterfly's flight in your heart."

Humor and Gratitude

One morning, about six months ago, I woke up with this idea:

 "Jaguar in the body and butterfly in the heart? Well, I feel more like I have the heart of a lioness and the body of a dragonfly!"

It made me laugh. To transform the lioness into a butterfly and the dragonfly into a jaguar, it's a long way to go but with a good shoehorn, it can be done...

After the joke, I felt a surge of gratitude. It may not be where I want to be, but it's already huge to know where I stand. To be able to put into words and pictures how I feel.

 So yes, thank you to Y'Aacov & Susannah Darling Khan who worked so hard to make this practice known enough to reach me, so that I could practice it, receive it and evolve so much from it.

Thanks also to me, for following my instincts and putting my determination into practicing enough to reach this point of awareness.

That's where I was: a heart that's alive, fierce and strong, that can throw itself in any direction (like a lioness in fury). And a body that sometimes seems to fly above the ground like a dragonfly, light and sometimes uprooted. I've had to work to reach this awareness, and I'll have to work again - dancing, letting go, laughing, crying - to transform these parts of myself.

Acceptance

Three months ago, I woke up with this new conviction:

"Jaguar in the body, butterfly in the heart. It's not me and it may never be. It's someone else. And that's fine. I, Solange, may always be the woman with the heart of a lioness and the body of a dragonfly. Why always try to be something other than what I am, to go somewhere else?"

It's good to feel your heart terribly alive and vibrant with life's experiences. It's neither quiet nor comfortable, and it takes a lot of courage. When the heart has expressed, externalized, its jerky, violent, unpredictable, terrifying, unsightly, incoherent, contradictory dances, then the body's dance becomes so light, aesthetic, fluid, it takes flight. Bringing lightness, giving shape to a way of interacting with life with intensity, lightness and even - dare I say it - grace. In the end, it's not all bad either.

So I stopped resisting the lioness and the dragonfly. I let go of becoming the ideal to accept my reality. First it feels good to just be instead of go. It's relaxing. Resisting takes a lot of energy. Energy spent resisting can come back to rest quietly inside. It can be redirected towards something that serves us.

Letting go

Stop holding on to what's going through my heart and start learning to take care of it. Allowing it, allowing myself the recovery time this heart needs to continue vibrating high and strong, to start vibrating with all its intensity.

Let the dragonfly dance, whatever others may think. Even if it seems too aesthetic, technical and elaborate to be improvised and natural to some, or too light-hearted to others. On the contrary, take it all the way, develop it to the full, and feel and understand how to make it accessible to everyone.

The dragonfly is a symbol of transformation. For me, it doesn't fly with the wind, it's always oriented, its whole body pointing in the right direction. It's a relatively rare and fleeting insect. The dragonfly navigates between earth and sky thanks to its mastery of the laws of gravity.

Realization

Often, when we start to accept and stop resisting, it comes. A few days ago, I took part in a planetary dance. It's a ritual to bring peace to a place. You draw 3 concentric circles and run, jog or walk along them. Without any training, wearing ballerinas and then barefoot, I ran - jogged - walked for 1h30 with a smile on my face and around fifty participants.

I didn't think I'd be able to run so much, I was so carried away.

Carried by the sound of the percussion, the power of our intentions, the energy of the group. Inside, such intense joy. I didn't feel like I was forcing myself. The more I relaxed in my intentions, in the sensation of leaning on the ground with each step, the lighter I felt. I could have kept trotting and walking (again).

Jaguar in the body, butterfly in the heart: that says it all. It's simply a question of allowing ourselves to relax and give movement to our intentions. Each intention is as unique and useful as we are.

* Jaguar in the body, butterfly in the heart - The Real-Life Initiation of an Everyday Shaman by Ya'Acov Darling Khan. Buy the book

* Photo taken by Stéphane Vernier (Tamalpa France) at the Planetary Dance on July 13, 2020 in Marseille.

Last workshops before the summer break: Thursday July 23 online via zoom, Friday July 24 in Marseille with Libradanse, Tuesday July 28 - les pieds dans l'herbe in Aix-en-Provence.