I chose this video because it is a dance all about simplicity, one of the four tenants of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, and because I made it for my Dad, without whom I would have never gone to the dog park and had this experience to write about. Thank you Dad. (If you can't not view the video please go to www.havenhoopdance.com to see the blog in full)
In the Fall of 1993 I began a journey that lasted three years and changed my life in profound, indescribable ways. I had joined the Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC). The first year was spent volunteering as a counselor in a battered women's shelter, living simply in community with 6 other volunteers on a small stipend in a poor, precarious neighborhood in Kansas City, MO, all while sharing our various ideas about spirituality. Needless to say, my mind was BLOWN! I spent the next two years on the staff of the JVC in Houston, TX trying to help others obtain a similar experience by working as a volunteer coordinator and development director. These years were formidable to so many of my ideas regarding social justice and spirituality, but what persisted the most was a longing for community to share these values and ideas. My search began.
As I moved from Houston to Chapel Hill, NC I searched for this feeling of community for which my spirit longed, but found that in a transitional, college town great friends would come into my life, leave their lasting impression and often friendship, but their corporeal bodies would move on to the next stage of their lives. I was not looking to live in intentional community again and had not found a spiritual community that resonated with my own spiritual searching. I just needed a place to call "home" every once in awhile.
Then in the summer of 2002, I saw Vivian "Spiral" dancing with her hoop on the Weaver Street Market lawn. I was entranced by every movement and the look of pure joy on her face. As I watched, with every ounce of my being, I knew I must gather the courage to talk to her, because I had to learn this skill. Within a month or so, I took a class on the Weaver St. Market lawn taught by Spiral and Julia Hartsell, and bought my first hoop that day. In the beginning, I was a solo hooper, drilling endlessly to gain strength in the front yard of my house. I would come out to Weaver St. for live music and hoop with the few others who were regulars back then, Beth Lavinder and her daughter Erica, Jonathan Baxter, Vivian, and Julia, but with age and having said so many goodbyes I had become more introverted.
Then with much prodding from Beth, about six months after having my first child I came to my first HoopPath class, taught by Jonathan Livingston Baxter (aka Bax/Baxter). Beth had been telling me about them for about a year, but I had been pregnant (and hooping, but not quite up for a class), then on bed rest, and finally an all-consumed first time mom. Of all the memories from that first class, my clearest and most defining, came as Baxter played the cool down song. My dance slowed down to match my heart rate and my thoughts, and then came the flood of tears. I was remembering who I was before I became a mom. The dance elicited the feelings and ideas that I could be, I WAS, more than just a mom. I was a WHOLE person. Of course I was mortified to be crying in front of a group of "strangers", but most of them being mothers, or women, or seekers understood without words having to be spoken. I left that Monday and rarely missed a class for the next several years.
The HoopPath became a community for me in unexpected, often boundless ways. And the greater hooping community across the country and the world has surprised me countless times in their support for one another, the ability for the Internet to connect people and foster often deep friendships across seemingly finite borders and lines. All because of the joy that a circle of variable weight, color and size, spun in a variety of fashions, brings to each of us. I knew I had found it... "The Golden Ticket"... if you will. How many times had I really thought, "If everyone picked up a hoop, the world would be happier." Oh my arrogance. Thankfully, this life is full of bright, meaningful lessons tied in beautiful packages... not just hard lessons.
As the week progress and I quickly became absorbed with the routine at the dog park, I found myself in awe of these 5-7 regulars that joined up each morning at the same time to walk the perimeter of the dog park several times, lavish attention on each others dogs, listen attentively to one another, make gently sarcastic jokes with each other, and genuinely care about each person and their animal. If someone was missing, it was noticed and concern was shown. They all knew about each others lives and formed their own community around something they cared about deeply. Now perhaps that is not what they would call it, but my time there brought to mind so clearly how I have felt when spending time with hooping friends.
Then yesterday, I took Rocky again to the dog park. I was so excited to go, after missing a few days since my parents return. One of my favorite regulars, Sue, a retired school teacher with the brightest disposition and two amazing dogs to match, was there, but her car was clearly damaged as she pulled into the park. "Well," she said, nonchalant as ever, "I had a stroke over the weekend." We were all stunned and immediately concerned. "Its just my lesson to slow down and only do the important, non-stressful things. Hey, that's why I'm here. I mean what could be better than this place right? Isn't it a beautiful day? What a great place to be." And she started calling the dogs over one by one as she told us the story of her long weekend. Then we walked the perimeter of the dog park.
Anyone who knows me, understands my deep love for hooping and the hoop community, but WOW have my blinders been BLOWN off. I of course recognized that there were other communities out there: spiritual communities, intentional communities, sporting communities, gaming communities etc etc etc. I have to ask myself, "Did I think there was only one community for me? Am I that limited that I can not share myself amongst several groups."... of course not. But then what has held me back, ignorance, fear, introversion? Pondering for another blog I suppose, but for now, I am so grateful for the lessons I have learned at the dog park.
