You can’t develop at any stage of life until you syncopate against the overriding rhythm. - MartÍn Prechtel
The beat he is referring to first is our heartbeat against the backdrop of mother’s.
Initially struck by this line, feeling like I understood the beauty of the dance that I have often felt myself lost in
Dancing in counterpoint to the dominant narrative
Yes, but
No, and
1 , 2
I looked deeper at the origins of the word syncopate to find elements of swoon and faint and senseless - not just counterpoint rhythm but built in connotations of falling away from normal.
Even in the 17th century, falling away from the loudest beat, the loudest sound was still ill advised.
When we faint, it is called syncope - doctors tell patients that their heart was ineffective in getting the blood to your brain and that results in lack of consciousness.
What if they said your heart was overwhelmed with a task.
I have heard the fast trilling of many babies heartbeat in the womb, I have trusted those individual rhythms to tell me a story of when they are feeling well oxygenated and when they are transitioning with pressure and when they are in peril.
Those syncopated rhythms against their mother’s generally slower beat give acknowledgment of two interwoven storylines.
They are a song of call and response, not louder and less valuable.
In even the words we choose we can perpetrate violence and hierarchy.
In even the words we choose we can birth reciprocity and dance.
To counter-beat is to know yourself and other
May we not make this truth a space for more sanctioned violence