Intimacy

There is a common centre in each of us where we meet at a deeper level, … the point at which we converge, …  the ambiance in which we float. Teilhard de Chardin 

Then we will know even as we have been known. St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 13. 

Intimacy

Intimacy: knowing and being known – in equal measure. This is the culmination of the human quest, our spiritual journey.

It is through the experience of understanding and being understood, by seeing ourselves mirrored in another, that we learn what it means to be human.

Intimacy is what we all deeply desire at a soul level. We want to be known, understood, accepted, and loved as we are for who we are. We want to belong. And we need to be able to affirm the same for another. The only requirement is that we open one to another in an unconditional embrace of love and acceptance. 

Intimacy requires abandoning our pretenses, taking off our masks, and revealing something soulful about ourselves, something that leaves us vulnerable to rejection and judgment. And conversely, it requires us to be willing to be attentive to and non-judgmental of another, surrendering our prejudices and defences and whatever else is in our arsenal of self-defence.

Connection

Typically, in today’s culture, our communication default is verbal, or even more superficially, data-based. Our presumed community is diffuse, suspended in the cloud of news and politics and documentaries about other parts of the world we will never visit and people we will never meet.

But information about is not connecting with.

Talking about connection is not connection. Connection is more deeply communicated or experienced non-verbally, e.g., through touch, eye contact, laughter, silence or stillness. Body cues, inflections, rhythm and timing, facial expressions, and physical contact communicate much more than words. 

Alan Burdick shares these insights in Why Time Flies, (Simon and Schuster, 2017). 

Motion evokes emotion. Our slightest social exchanges — our glances, our smiles and frowns are indicators of empathy; my ability to envisage myself in your body and your state of mind, and you in mine…. We perform this kind of emotional mimicry intuitively and incessantly over the course of our daily social interactions, to some degree donning the emotional and mental outfit of each person with whom we come into close contact. Alan Burdick, As Time Flies.

Resonance

This level of engagement can be described as resonating. The entire human body itself is a natural resonator: each organ, tissue, bone, and fluid absorbs different kinds of vibratory energy and responds with harmonic vibrations. It is as if we are each an echo chamber, inviting another within to play, vibrate, move and co-create. This is, in fact, the principal process by which we become thinking, feeling, caring, empathic individuals.

When we vibrate on the same frequency as another, we develop a rich interior life through co-inhabiting anothers’ interiority and experiencing it with them. It breaks down the surface coating of resistance, negativity, self-doubt and recrimination and infuses safety, understanding, and reverence. Alan Burdick, As Time Flies.

Mirroring

The concept of becoming more deeply human through motional mimicry – mirroring, brings dance to the centre of socializing. When we dance, we are not simply learning how to step in time with the music or how to avoid stepping on our partner’s toes; we are learning to understand, interpret and intuit our partner’s internal motion and emotion.

The gift of tango is that the structure and the technical intricacies are the ideal medium for precision mirroring. We listen with deep attention to the minute details of our partner’s body positioning, places of tension and resistance, skill level and responsiveness to our motion. And our partner attends to our body positioning and energy with equal precision. 

Tango combines all layers of resonance so cohesively (mental, emotional, physical). Our internal rhythm is augmented through alignment with that of our partner’s. We are not only able to read our partner’s intentions (mental) and intuit their feelings (emotional), but we resonate with their inner motion (physical) as well.  Through inner attunement, we enter into the most intimate and nourishing experience of being mirrored in another.

We become not only better dancers but more richly human.

ADV 29/01/2026

P.S. Do me a favour, add a comment and a like and subscribe (if not already). Many thanks.

For a touch more of Alan Burdick:

Is there anything more infectious than excitement around a newborn baby? We touch, we cradle, we make funny noises and faces, we smile, anything to engage and indicate our delight with the child. There is the instinctual rhythmic rocking response that kicks in when we pick the child up and then immediately, every adult around also starts rocking in rhythm! 

This is not time-wasting idleness. The child internalizes from our behaviour a sense of personal worth and well-being that is stored in the body and sustains it throughout life. And as part of the exchange, we invigorate and satisfy our primal need and desire for touch, rocking, hugging and just some light-hearted fun….

But we are also, apparently, absorbing each other’s sense of time, which is encoded in our psycho-emotional states. ….When we see movement, even implied movement in a static image … we enact that movement internally. In a sense, arousal is a measure of your ability to put yourself in another person’s shoes. ( Alan Burdick, Why Time Flies)