oysters

i drove by a fish processing plant today where i saw a man unloading a huge net bag of oysters off of a truck and i thought "now that is one big bag of oysters!"

i caught myself thinking that all the hundreds of oysters in the bag were somehow one being, forgetting that each individual shell contains a precious life within it - many precious beings making up the whole.

i don't know much about oysters except that over time they grow very hard, crusty shells that are all various irregular shapes and forms created by its struggle to survive, and that sometimes, deep within the fleshy interior, deep within the hard encasement is a precious pearl that has been made from a grit of sand, from an irritant... and i thought how all those individual living beings are headed for the same destiny in the processing plant - that the removal of their shell will mean their impending end of life...

i thought how we are like, and unlike oysters - over the years we grow crusty shells for 'protection' and yet how unlike oysters, we have the potential to remove our shells to uncover our deepest selves - perhaps more alive than when we stay surrounded by our external coverings, perhaps uncovering our most authentic selves, like the pearl deep within...

i thought of the oysters as i entered the misty, rainy park for today's dance practice, striving to dance freely from the soul, shedding, uncovering...

and this dance turned out not to have too much to do with oysters at all other than my desire to keep shedding the layers of my own shell through dance expression... the beauty of this practice...

music: 'lullaby' aiko shimada and elizabeth falconer

my mentor maureen momo freehill's blog is here: http://maureenfreehill.blogspot.com/