I’m in day five of a weeklong dance training, and haven’t been able to embrace one of the practices. It’s a minute of laughter, part of system of movement that gets all the joints lubed and ready to go, known as the seven one-minute stages.
I’ve done this Nia-created routine many many times and left to my own devices I never do the one-minute of laughter part of it. I mean, it’s not joke-telling. There’s nothing funny happening. You just laugh on demand for a minute.
I don’t like it. But I’m willing to trust the dance mentors who say it’s a good thing. Sometimes I have to bring in imaginery allies to help me over a threshold. For this, I’m bringing in ravens, a gang of ’em in an imaginary tree, with their cackling noises. The great tricksters of many North American indigenous cultures, they give me a reason to laugh as I imagine them viewing me, viewing us, from a high perch.
Silly humans. We shall see if, with them in my mind, I can snort out a chuckle or two or three on demand.
Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now 