Meeting Bharath Natyam Dance
I don’t recall her voice on that first day — just the way she curved her arms, touched the floor with her hands, brought her hands to her eyes, and pulled her palms to her heart. Her eyes were closed. The room was quiet.
Before learning a single step, I — and every Bharath Natyam dance trainee for the past thousand years — learned this suite of motions. My new teacher did not explain the meaning of her graceful gestures, and my 6-year-old self didn’t ask. Instead I concentrated on absorbing the complicated steps of this classical Indian dance, an amalgam of athletic footwork and elegant storytelling.
After a few years I did learn the meaning, though I understood its larger implications only later. The motions convey a simple apology: Forgive me, Mother Earth. I am about to step upon you.
Poetry makes us wonder
On a perfect Iowa spring day my husband and I took our toddler son to walk near Lake McBride. We followed just a bit behind, trying to allow him some space to explore. Every few steps he squatted on his little haunches and touched the ground.
I worried, of course, that he was over-tired and getting dirty, but soon realized he was merely enchanted by the grass, pushing it back and forth with his chubby fingers, grasping the soft bristles with delight.
Once an English major, always an English major, so my mind immediately conjured up Walt Whitman:
A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.
In Song of Myself, Whitman proposes a multiplicity of answers to the child’s question, grappling with the realization that the question is anything but simple. And the abundance of possibilities demonstrate the wonder with which Whitman regarded the world around him — the wonder now manifested in my toddler.
Poetry promotes thoughtfulness
I grew up a homebody. However, my husband’s love of the outdoors drew me outside frequently during our early years of marriage. By the time our second child was born, being outside was part of our family routine, and our outdoor ambitions kept pace with the children’s growth. At first we played in our yard in suburban Indianapolis, chasing each other around the swing set we’d nailed together ourselves. Then we walked to ponds and fed the ducks and rolled down hills. Eventually we trekked the forest trails in Eagle Creek Park and ventured to nature reserves all over the Midwest.
Over the years I changed. I tried to put aside my germaphobic tendencies, loaded up on Purell, and let my sons touch the ground and pick up sticks and trace the leaves and kiss the flowers and jump from rocks. I watched them shiver as they placed their fingers and feet in icy stream water (though I Purell-ed them immediately afterward).
National parks became our vacation destinations of choice — Yellowstone, Yosemite, Glacier, the Grand Canyon, the Badlands, and many more until our final stop before empty nest-hood, Olympic National Park. Perhaps because I never fully had my bearings on our journeys, the boys quickly learned to sense their coordinates, and they led us through the splitting trails and back again with ease.
As I look at a photo in my study, showing the boys, ages 3 and 5, joyfully clutching sticks, I remember their young voices declaring that they had transformed into trees. I remember the four of us, feeling love, awe, and connection to our surroundings. I remember Whitman, his hands lifted upward in reverence, standing in full consciousness of a living, breathing earth with a beating heart.
A story in every soul: E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops
Hindus often recite a Sanskrit mantra before arising each morning:
Samudhra Vasane Devi, Parvatha Sthana Mandithe,
Vishnu Pathni Namasthubhyam, Pada Sparsam Kshamasva Mae.
Translation:
O, Mother Earth,
draped by oceans, adorned with mountains and jungles . . . .
Forgive me for stepping upon you with my feet.
Like the suite of classical dance motions I learned long ago, these words embody a way of existing in the world — one with regard for the profound relevance of the earth in daily life, combined with the understanding that human actions can impact the earth negatively. Humanity and its home are interwoven intimately, influencing one another continually.
As an American-born child of Indian immigrants, I try to understand this lack of connection between people and planet, a connection that many ancient cultures honored deeply. In high school I read E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops and had difficulty visualizing the world he presented — one in which every human being exists entirely in a personalized pod through which all interactions occur, in which every person believes that the technology supporting her pod comprises her entire environment. For the characters, the planet beyond the Machine does not exist.
Now I wonder at Forster’s prescience.
Story stirs hope
I remember the day my younger son explained that heavy metals are seeping into our soil and water at alarming rates. He sprang into action with a series of electronic waste drives and eventually diverted 30,000 pounds of such waste from landfills. Like so many of his generation, he has become an environmental steward. Perhaps this would have occurred even without our days of trekking and hiking and camping, but I do believe that those days made him feel a part of his planet and naturally inspired a desire in him to care for it.
As he leaves home, I consider how I, too, can transform my own reverence for the earth into action — perhaps through advocacy and certainly through greater attention to my daily usage of resources. I also consider how to maintain my connection to the outdoors now that our treks and trips as a foursome will occur only infrequently.
To that end, I have composed my own morning mantra, one intended to evoke the motions and emotions of the dance suite and the Sanskrit words I learned long ago. It is a mantra that reaches beyond apology and into gratitude, one that reminds me that I must be a defender and preserver of my home. I will imagine curving my arms, touching the floor with my hands, bringing my hands to my eyes, and pulling my palms to my heart. And I will whisper, I honor this ground beneath me — I protect this earth around me.
Photo by Arian Zwegers, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Dheepa R. Maturi.
Bharath Natyam Dance Video
And, a reinterpretation of classical styles:
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Donna Falcone says
Dheepa, this is such a beautiful telling – your childhood dance – your sons – how purell helped you make a compromise! 😉 And the videos just made me smile – the expressions on the little child’s face and the young woman’s, too. What an interesting video – one dance, many places. It took me a while to realize the locations were changing! Thanks for sharing all of this. More, please. 🙂
Dheepa Maturi says
So delighted that you enjoyed it, Donna! I am continually amazed at how much my childhood dance training connects to my life and philosophy today. Thank you so much for reading!
L.L. Barkat says
Dheepa, I love this piece, for so many reasons.
The way childhood both gave you something but also became something you reinterpreted for today’s realities. The way story, embedded first in the physical, led you to consider the “Other,” in this case, the Earth and even your son.
I think it would be interesting to include dance in every child’s education experience. Dance is often communal. It asks us to consider—our place in the world, our place in community. When my own daughter had the chance to either be in Debate Club or to take dance, I urged her towards dance. Debate is something that culture will easily drive her towards. I wanted something that asked of her to see herself as part of something bigger than her, something that would only work if all participants could be in concert, even as they each brought their own beauty and style to the dance.
(Donna, I added the videos because I wanted people to see what Dheepa was talking about, and I wanted to show it from the earliest (so cute!) childhood experience to the expert placing her feet definitively and reverently on the earth and on architecture; actually, I need to go find a third one I’d seen, which brings in the idea of reinterpretation, the way Dheepa reinterpreted the story she was lovingly handed as a child).
Donna Falcone says
Love that you included them! I look forward to the third.
Dheepa Maturi says
I appreciate your insights, L.L. This dance form has always fascinated me — the way it layers storytelling on top of philosophy, while inviting me, the dancer, to integrate with both.
I’m so pleased that you encouraged your daughter to dance — and that she considered your advice! I agree that we are often encouraged to develop the mind, but not to embrace our physicality. In fact, we ignore or — worse — hate the body, and close ourselves to its wisdom. To me, dance is the union of mind and body, a bridge across which emotion and energy and humanity can flow freely.
Thank you for adding the videos to the end of the essay — I love that this is a multi-sensory reading experience!
Donna says
That third video! Among other things, I love the synchrony of the two dancers! So glad you added it!
Bethany R. says
Thank you for writing and sharing this story. That morning mantra is beautiful—I’m richer for having read it and this post.
Dheepa Maturi says
Thank you so much for reading, Bethany!
Sandra Heska King says
Oh Dheepa. What a wonderful journey you’ve taken us on. I love how you’ve pulled this all together and invoked kindness toward the earth. Also I love how you remind us of how dance expresses poetry and story–and hope. I need to dance more.
Dheepa Maturi says
Yes, let’s both dance more! Growing up, I remember always feeling at odds with my body — except while dancing. While dancing, I felt myself settle in and simply join the story. Thanks so much for reading, Sandy!
L.L. Barkat says
Dheepa, I love that.
What if, in classrooms everywhere, we had children dance their way into joining stories—thus settling themselves and settling the stories into their souls?
Dheepa Maturi says
Ah, such a change would be transformational! A child’s body, mind, energy, story smoothing into her own personal symphony. I’m getting chills!
Callie Feyen says
I love the description of your dancing, Deepha, as well as you first going through the motions before you knew the meaning of the dance. I find that is how I come to a lot of things: writing, motherhood, running, poetry.
And of course, this entire piece makes me want to dance!
Dheepa Maturi says
What a lovely observation, Callie! You are so right — this exactly is how many of our most loved and valued activities happen. When I write, I do indeed feel that I am “going through the motions,” as you put it — pouring and placing words into a structure that is morphing and tumbling and not-quite-graspable. And then, there’s that tiny, mystical point in time — when what I’m writing reaches back to me, and we are joined. Thank you for this, Callie!
Glynn says
No writer, no matter how hardbitten and cynical, writes without hope. Good post.
L.L. Barkat says
Such an interesting idea, Glynn. Do you mean it in relation to Forster’s story?
Also, I am wondering what the reader’s role is, then. Does every reader also display hope—even through reading what seems like a hopeless story?
Will Willingham says
This apology to the earth for stepping on it… Considering here this morning how such a posture, from earliest childhood, frames one’s approach to so much of, as you note, how one exists in the world. And I’m thinking too of another posture that many of us had instilled also from earliest childhood, having less to do with recognizing the burdens our existing in the world place on the earth and more about the way we might rule over it. It’s a good deal of work to walk that one back.
Such a beautiful piece, Dheepa. I’m grateful that you’ve shared this with us here.
L.L. Barkat says
There is something about how you said this…
“walk that one back”
that is really touching upon something. Dheepa danced her way into this understanding, into this way of relating to the earth that supports her (and our) existence. I wonder what we could physically do to “walk that one back”? The possibilities seem quite intriguing! One thing I did with my own girls was walk to town sometimes, with a few trash bags in hand, and we’d clean up trash along the way. They still remember that. Sometimes they still do it on their own. And, like Dheepa’s son, they are now quite interested in making larger contributions to saying, in their own way, to the earth, “You’re beautiful. And I want to keep you that way. Thank you for your endless gifts to me.”
Dheepa Maturi says
LW and L.L., your comments have made me think about the tremendous power behind rituals, provided that (in the case of many ancient rituals) one remembers their meaning and reason for existing. I love L.L.’s idea of new rituals of our own making to help us “walk back” (as LW put it) our unconscious actions and instead imbue those actions with consciousness. The cleanup ritual with her girls is such a beautiful one — I am guessing that it would be impossible for them to walk to town ever after without feeling like stewards of that pathway.
Arti Parikh Roy says
Dheepa, my eyes watered as I was reading this piece! You took me back on my own journey with classical dancing and now on to my children and the modernizing our roots. And all in reverence to Mother Earth! Your translations mean the world to me as I had no clue! You continue to bless my life with the your art!! As an added bonus, I was able to read your words in the comfort of my mother’s home. 💗🙏
Dheepa R. Maturi says
I’m so happy that you read this at your mom’s place–that really warms my heart! I know what you mean about the translations. Sanskrit holds layers and layers of meaning–I can’t even comprehend how much I’m missing! But at least we’re trying to live by what we do know, right?