Persistence of Memory

I am the first to arrive tonight. I blindly pick tonight's poem to be danced. My lyric line is "for their thick bodies rucked with lichen". I think of my healing body, my wrist, my tooth loss, the potential of my upcoming appointment with Dr. Cowen in S.F. to evaluated my overall health. I debated whether or not to dance tonight or to let my mouth heal another day. I had left my water bottle last time I danced and need it for Breitenbush so I went. I felt heavy, thick and tree like. Rooted yet heavy. Protective. The vision of lichen. 

Lichens occur in some of the most extreme environments on Earth and may be long lived.........

Lichens are unusual creatures................

A lichen is not a single organism the way most other living things are, but rather it is a combination of two organisms which live together intimately...... Lichens thrive in Oregon..........

Lichens include a fungus which cannot survive on its own -- it has become dependent on its algal partner for survival............

A lichen is a symbiosis............

That means that it is two or more organisms living together such that both are more successful within the partnership than they would have been if they were living on their own..................

Lichens conjure up the image of relationship for me. My relationship in my marriage as a wife, in our family as a mother. I thrive........... 

I begin my dance.......................

Black Oaks ~~ Mary Oliver~~

"Okay, not one can write a symphony, or a dictionary,
or even a letter to an old friend, full of remembrance
and comfort.
Not one can manage a single sound though the blue jays
carp and whistle all day in the branches, without
the push of the wind.
But to tell the truth after a while I'm pale with longing
for their thick bodies ruckled with lichen
and you can't keep me from the woods, from the tonnage
of their shoulders, and their shining green hair.
Today is a day like any other: twenty-four hours, a
little sunshine, a little rain.
Listen, says ambition, nervously shifting her weight from
one boot to another -- why don't you get going?
For there I am, in the mossy shadows, under the trees.
And to tell the truth I don't want to let go of the wrists
of idleness, I don't want to sell my life for money,
I don't even want to come in out of the rain." 

As I dance the lyrics of the song that is playing resonates for me and this becomes my mantra of the dance tonight............

                                               ........ "Stay in this moment

Go where it’s flowing
You are what you want to be"

~~~~~from Persistence of Memory~~~Afro Celt 

The Persistence of Memory.......... my first introduction to art...........the beginning of my passion with the surreal..........Dali.

My memory persists.