May my soul have this dance?

Ah, to dance!

We move about all day….we walk, we jog, we shuffle about with our  busy-ness and these are just activities…..but when we add some kind of a rhythm, something happens. We transform the common into the magical!

It would be remiss of me if I spoke about hugs and laughter, and said nothing about dancing. With the other two in full force, it is almost impossible to not add the dance!

I don’t want to plunge into any lengthy treatise about the subject….and I have a few thoughts….and lots of feelings about the matter!

Socrates was around my age when he discovered he needed to add a cure for a long-standing void in his life, and so he learned to dance!

There is a Hopi Indian expression, “When I watch you dance, I hear your heart speak!”

To me, this is real dancing…..without thinking about navigating dance floor road maps, without being concerned about looking good or being at some self-imposed standard of dancing, to dance in a way that actually ‘disappears’ your partner and allows her to disappear you!

I’ve heard dancers suggest they dance as if they are one, but it usually means they follow each other well or near perfectly. To really dance like your heart is speaking, is to dance like there isn’t anyone there at all!
Some have suggested that this is like being ‘in the zone’.

Alan Watts says when this happens, there isn’t one or two people dancing but there is ‘just the dance.’ Have you felt that way in your dance at times? I have. At those times, I vaguely remember who my partner was, but it must mean that she was probably caught up in ‘being’ the dance as well.
Hard to explain to another, isn’t it?

Artists paint their souls onto canvas. The dancer displays his or her soul in the dance. For us, it is interesting that we are attracted to the artist or the dancer who can also display a bit of refreshing craziness in their work. I find that to be an invitation to lighten up! Let the crazy child dance!

There is a Japanese proverb that says, “We’re fools whether we dance or not – so we might as well dance!”

Watch the children. They dance a lot because they believe everything is music. They have no set choreography. They make it all up. It’s just movement! Do they care if we don’t approve? Not really, because it is their soul they are expressing. We haven’t as yet taught them to stifle. Ouch!
If only we would never lose that soul-ness or child-ness that calls us to dance!

It’s as if the child must dance, like it isn’t a choice, but a necessity.
The simple path they are on is towards seeking their particular level of happiness and they see that dancing will get them there…or they are willing to chance it.
While some do, why don’t most of us make that choice a part of our life journey?

I have seen solitary dancers….especially gals, often lost among the crowd or alone at the edge of the dance floor, oblivious to all but the music…or is it that they are aware of another music, deeper than the sounds coming from a band or orchestra?
They seem to be in a wonderful and mysterious world of their own.
Watching them is pretty amazing……like looking at a dancing goddess and knowing fully that it would be sacrilegious to interrupt the sacrament of the dance! I doubt that it would have mattered if that person were dancing in the rain or in a hurricane.

Those that dance as if it were life itself, start the dance with their feet. Eventually their heart and soul join in. There is something in dancing that gets expressed where there are no words equal to the task…..and we should just let it be that way. What else is there to do, after all? The soul will out, and we best step aside….or step to its rhythm!!

I love to watch those dancers who have created their own routines. They seem to be saying, “Here’s me” rather than “Here’s how well I can duplicate what someone else has done.”

It isn’t necessary for me to discover if those dancers of life, are dancing from joy or from pain. There is an overflowing happening and that is what matters!

Rich