I sit down at 7:30am to write down my experiences at the ecstatic dance retreat. I'm somewhat reminded of my first camino, in which I walked ten days, kept to myself for the most part, and went through terrible pain and inflammation of my ankles—but despite this I liked it and was willing to repeat so that I would discover much more depth to it.
The first person with which I had a longish conversation was a woman who came by to introduce herself. We spoke about the spiritual belief that the body manifests our psychological problems. I said I was a little bit skeptical about the idea, that I took it more as a subjective metaphor, because—if it were true—people who had strong flexible bodies wouldn't have psychological problems, and that was patently not the case. There was some truth to it, because it's very difficult for someone with low self-esteem to hold a straight posture for a long time, but the truth was not accurate enough to attribute causality.
She pushed back with the spiritual belief that all illness has an emotional root cause, and that our health is manifested in our apparent age. How old do you think I am? She asked. "Oh no, this game only has losers" I said. "Go ahead, guess" she said. I tried to be honest, because I usually leave a margin as to not offend anybody, especially women who tend to be sensitive about age. I looked at the creases on her face, the sun spots on her hands, the loose skin on her elbows. "You must be close to 50" I declared. She looked flustered. "I'm 47" she said. Uncomfortable moment. This game only has losers.
Another conversation with a woman who asked if it was ok to sit down next to me while I was sipping tea during a break. She had come out of a tantra workshop which I skipped. "How did it go?" I asked. "It was very hard" she said. "I cried a lot, I'm embarrassed for the people who worked with me". She said that her uterus had been removed, along with an ovary. "I thought I had already healed from it, but it doesn't seem the case". I said "sometimes we must decide for ourselves that we've done the work. Coming back to trauma is like picking on a treated wound, letting it rest is part of the healing". She was pensive for a moment and said "I think you are right, this was nine years ago and I've done a lot of spiritual work on it. This felt like reopening the wound rather than relief".
At lunch time on the last day, just before we had back to our homes, a guy on the table said "It's interesting to see how when we arrived everyone was in their bubble. With time we loosened up and let others into our bubble. By the end of the retreat nobody gave a damn about their bubble, we were all dancing with each other without reservations". I noticed how I never let go of my bubble. I only danced briefly with another person one, a girl whom I liked a lot, and whom was interested in dancing with me because of her eye contact. To me it was crazy intense accepting her invitation to dance, she probably thought I didn't want to do it, but in my mind it was one of the more beautiful moments of the retreat. It's interesting to observe, because this is a microcosm of our daily lives. I can be overwhelmed by female beauty, so much that I avoid it despite being terribly attracted to it.
I have the sensation that, if I went to a similar retreat in the future, I will have a much better time in comparison to this one, but that's how I operate in every social situation (online and offline) I lurk, I read the room, and once I understand I then become a full participant. Despite this I'm glad I went and I danced my ass off.