Martha Graham & Me: The Brutal Transformation Into Soul Essence

Sometimes, I think I signed up for the brutal tour in this life.

But I also signed up for the one with the most transformation.

I’m going through another hard “cycle,” if you will (pretty sure I’m getting these about every six months), when things feel really heavy, and when more of my layers are up for review and release.

Yesterday, I woke up determined to re-find my joy, to do whatever I needed to do to get back into that frequency of my soul’s essence, my flow, my joy, just for that day, that moment.

And it failed miserably. (Literally everything I touched was not working. I was so miserable and depressed, I couldn’t even dance, which is one of my surefire, move-your-body-magic strategies.)

And I’m learning to be with the muck, but not stay there.

So today I woke up and put on Edvard Grieg’s “Morning Mood” and “Anitra’s Dance.” And I felt the spark of “me" again.

To be honest, sometimes it feels as though the universe simply isn’t allowing me to exist in the old paradigm structures anymore. It’s as though it keeps saying, “If you are doing anything but emanating your soul’s essence into the world, we are simply going to stop you. You will fail at anything that isn’t that.”

Thank the bleeping, bloomin’ lord, I do actually now know what my essence is like. I know her. I feel her. I have spent the last several years uncovering her. It’s like a frequency. I can tell when I’m in it, and I can tell when I’m not. I can tell what aligns with it, and I can tell what doesn’t.

But here’s the kicker: much of the current world—its old paradigm and structures—simply doesn’t see or hear this frequency, I think. Lol—it’s like a dog whistle that most people can’t hear. And so the hard part is forging a way to be in the world that is a new way of existing. One that forges into a new paradigm instead of plays in the old. And to be honest, sometimes that feels impossibly hard. I know it’s not impossible—but it’s sure effing hard.

There are a few things I know to be true, the things that truly matter, when we reach the end of this mortal coil: how much your soul grew, how much you lived with an open heart towards all living things instead of a closed one, and how much you expressed your soul’s unique essence into the world. Our souls are literally begging for that. Somehow, I can feel the regret at the end of a life if you never uncovered that essence, and never got to express it into the world. It has to do with your innate gifts and inclinations, your “flavor,” it has to do with how you live, what you create, the unique mix of physical and energetic being-ness that is yours alone.

This Martha Graham quote honestly says it best, and it makes me cry every time:

"There is a vitality, a life force... that is translated through you into action, and because there’s only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.”

Ok, Martha, I got it.