Dance is your soul insisting on freedom.  

I’ve been reflecting on my inferiority complex.  It’s huge.  I believe I was born with it because as far back as I can remember I have been scared of messing up.  Scared to have a voice.  It makes sense that I make dances, a voice few can discern.  Simultaneously, I’ve noted that most dudes I interact with have a superiority complex.  Everything that comes out of their mouth comes out with rooted assurance that there is no mess up.  Ever.  Whoa.  I realize the extent of the persistence of this in the quiet of my home, with my own self.  I constantly ask myself if I did things right.  Did I turn off the oven?  Did I leave water running?  Did I check in with all the animals?  Is every plant watered? Did I answer that e-mail?  It’s incessant.  The thought of being bad makes me almost always start bawling.  I can hear my mothers voice when she catches me doing something.  Gi-NA!  I am filth.  

I also felt ‘bad’ anytime I was ‘caught’ by other humans.  Like when Hodge Crabtree would hurl fat jokes across the playground at me. Caught being fat! Or anytime dudes around a table seemed to drop a ‘witches don’t belong here’ bomb. Caught being a woman – living while female! And at the same time I have always needed my whole body to be with me.  Kinesthetic humans, deeply sensitive ones, need to process interaction, thoughts and feelings physically.  It’s our language, to ourselves and others.  

My inferiority complex, I believe, comes from a long line of inferiority complexes, otherwise known as the x chromosome complex. My generational memory does not allow for very much agency.  The problem is, inside, I have so many ideas I think should, and wish would, matter to the world. Like this one: that no choice should ever be made which sacrifices the earth’s health for our own.  That lens would be scoffed at in the man-made corporate world, and yet I have always wondered how different that world would be if that simple frame governed us.  It’s a question I ponder as I attempt to digest so much injustice.

In the meantime, the quest for freedom governs me.  On an over populated planet how can we each distinctly be free.  I believe it is by dancing…a language that transcends words.  A language with many interpretations.  A language deeply understood by trees, water and sky.  The language that is safe enough to hold the expression of a woman’s soul- across centuries of deep and thorough oppression. You may notice, I hold the act of dancing in high esteem. I believe in it, and have faith in its power to unite us, to invigorate us, to bring us hope….because despair is best friends with injustice. So…let’s choose hope.

-Ariadne