The full summer of August is here. The ling is flowering, the moor is purple, thistle down drifts in the breeze, and sky-blue hare bells nestle in the shade of the grey dry-stone walls. I’m collecting brambles to make thick dark sweet syrup to pour over ice cream, which I’ll eat whilst sitting in the sun on the bench at the front of my cottage so that I can chat with people as they pass by walking their dogs or on the way to the village shop.

A curious set of circumstances created an opportunity for me to buy a rather interesting cottage in the Dales. It’s quite old, dating from the 17th century, and like many of the older Dales houses has a remarkable history. This particular one resonates with me for lots of reasons. I don’t yet know if it will happen, it’s more than I can sensibly afford, and it’s a year before my prudently projected career change date from working person to creative writer is planned to happen. The ‘head’ part of me says it’s a lovely thought but it’s best to stick with the original plan and budget. The ‘heart’ part of me whispers seductively “do it and see what happens”.

What will be will be, and it may or may not happen. But what it did do was to remind me of a quotation of the dancer Gabrielle Roth who said “After you leap, before you land, is God.” If I end up buying the cottage, then I will certainly be taking a leap and putting my trust in the fates to guide me through a jump into the unknown in the hope I will land safely somewhere on the other side of I don’t know where.

That got me thinking about Gabrielle Roth and her personal journey to overcome struggles and mental health difficulties to become a thought leader in how dance and movement can heal both body and spirit. Much of my life is static. I sit at desk all day bent over a lap top working. I sit in a car when I commute the hour from the moor to my office. In the evening I sit reading a book. It’s true that I do walk up to the moor, and I try and fit in at least an hour’s walk a day so that I can be out with the hare bells, amongst the heather’s scent and gathering brambles. But I’m walking, not dancing.

Sitting outside my cottage in the sun, eating ice cream with bramble syrup, watching village life pass by, there are not only people walking their dogs. There are children dancing and skipping with their bodies swaying and arms up in the air. They do it for no reason at all, it is just more fun to dance and skip than walk. Their imagination might be recreating Olympic gymnastics they’ve seen on television, or perhaps they are princes and princesses at a royal ball from a story they’ve read. Perhaps they are birds, or deer leaping in the woods.

In her books Gabrielle Roth says that by “moving the body, releasing the heart, and freeing the mind, one can connect to the essence of the soul, the source of inspiration in which an individual has unlimited possibility and potential”. Rereading her words and watching videos of her dance I get the feeling that I need to dance more myself, both physically and metaphorically, instead of spending my life sitting and walking.

Do you dance or feel the desire to move and connect to the essence of your soul?

Rowan on the Moor

A Moodscope member