Sunday, July 27, 2014

Resonance




This word has many shades of meaning.  In dance, I have to resonate with a song before I feel I can choreograph it.  The word is ephemeral because I can only describe my sensation of resonance as a feeling of being moved in some way.  Maybe the song makes me feel happy, maybe it makes me emotional, or maybe it brings up memories that have meaning for me. 

One can resonate with anything:  music, movement, a person, a book... I believe resonance has something to do with vibration.  Music also has vibration and when a class is moving in unison to a song.  There is a resonance that occurs – people vocalize at the same time, for instance, because breathing naturally synchronizes with movement.  

We gravitate to certain people because we sense their vibration is like our own.  People we don’t resonate with are not at a “lower” or “higher” vibration – just a different one.  At our core, we are all the same. 

And even though we feel resonance with others, we all have our own way of “vibrating,” whether it’s to music or to life.  I like the expression written by Tosha Silver in her book Outrageous Openness: “Go through life with an open hand.  Let what wants to come, come and what wants to go, go.”  We can use that open hand to navigate our lives or to “smack” ourselves or others.  It’s our choice.  

But when we give up the struggle of holding onto something or someone that no longer resonates with us, life becomes happier and freer.  We are in the flow and receptive to new adventures.  We have opened the space for whatever new vibration resonates with us to come to us.  

What does an open hand mean to you?  Letting go or a good smack upside the head?  That smack could make you remember to just let go.  

You get to decide. 

Photo by MaryEllen Hendricks




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