Ecstatic Dance Part 1: Introduction
William Shakespeare the great Bard once said that life is a stage, and we are all actors on that stage. Likewise, to a dancer, all life is a dance, and we are all dancers. Life itself is the dance arena, and our task in life is to become the dancer of our hearts, of our dreams. If you have ever watched a professional dancer, you will have seen the delight as he or she moved across the dance floor like an animal, guided by the rhythm, synchronized with the flow, expressing his or her full aliveness.
Most dancers follow well-rehearsed steps and pre-choreographed dances. Have you ever seen someone, in the passion of the moment, dance spontaneously around a fire to the beat of pulsating, live drums? Have you done this yourself? When we are moved by music so much that we lose our normal state of self-awareness, we become, for the duration of the dance, whole beings. We become gods and goddesses creating the reality of the moment, experiencing and expressing ecstasy like shooting stars flashing through the heavens. This experience is life changing, and can become a living memory, a map, that will lead us deeper and deeper into the secrets of our selves. With practice and persistence, we open ourselves to the experiences and teachings that will enable us to embody ecstasy increasingly often.
Dance is, for most people, a great thing to do on Friday evening having finished work for the week, a way to celebrate their bodies, to enjoy themselves, and to have fun. All these motivations are great, but there is so much more to dance for the more courageous, the adventurous, and for those who wish to heal themselves and find their wholeness. Dance is a gateway to ecstasy, and, if we wish, a way to lose our self-consciousness and merge with the Divine.
Life becomes what we believe in. Our attitudes are closely related to our beliefs, and if we believe that life is a load of bollox, then that is how we will perceive and experience it. Likewise, if we believe that life is a precious gift that needs to be treasured and loved, then that is how our lives will unfold. If we believe that life is a dance of different rhythms and movements, a skill to learn, practice and develop, then we are paving the way towards ecstasy. The person with the first belief is defeated before he starts; the second and third people will transform their lives into positivity and joy.
The first rhythm of Dance, and of Life itself, is called Inertia. Inertia is what happens before we have found the necessary energy to move; it is the state of quasi-life we have been occupying for so long, ruled by our fears and inherited behavior. It is the rut in which we find habitual, ritualistic movements, the speech, attitudes, and ourselves that have stifled us for as long as we can remember. Inertia has its positive sides. It is usually grounded, stable and safe. The trouble is that these so-called positive points are bartered for our souls. In order to feel safe, we have turned our backs on aliveness and spontaneity. Our lives have become a little grayer, a little more uneventful, a little deader.
Inertia is the wallflower standing or sitting in a shadowy place by the side of the dance floor, too scared to move, to timid to ask someone to dance, to reveal herself. We have all been there at certain parts of our lives. Our souls yearn to accompany someone, even if that someone is our own self, spinning smiling and gyrating across the arena of life, liberating the joyful aliveness that longs to be expressed. When we are frozen in inertia, dragged down by its heavy weight, we sense that life is slipping by and we experience grief at our own lack of vitality, empowerment and authenticity.
How do we escape the clutches of inertia? It is possible to transform our state of inertia, by intending the transformation. This process is also called dreaming one’s healing. It is not easy to start the process, and is usually initiated by some crisis or other. It then takes a determined and courageous sustained act of will to keep the process happening, to shift ourselves away from inertia into movement. It is actually an initiation, a new birth.
In my case, I was initiated into the Dance by being dragged kicking and screaming by my girlfriend to a 5-day dance workshop with Gabrielle Roth. The workshop was called, appropriately, Puberty Rites. For every evolving person, initiation into movement is a personal and unique process. However difficult it is to start this process, once one starts and steps out into the Unknown, it gets easier with practice, when confidence and momentum grow from success. The person who dances for pure enjoyment’s sake on Friday evening will not change their attitudes to life, while the person who dances as a spiritual or healing practice will.
I invite you to come dancing with us and make a decision to enter the dance space consciously. The dance floor represents Life itself, and life can be hurtful, joyful, easy or hard… in fact, anything that exists could manifest at any time. For the period of the dance, usually about two hours, I invite you to commit yourself to remaining in the space (unless you need to go to the bathroom, etc.) and open yourself to everything that arises in your consciousness. This includes the uncomfortable and scary bits, which you must welcome equally into your awareness with the pleasurable ones.
This is an unfamiliar practice, because we all want to enjoy pleasure, while avoiding the things that give us pain. It’s only natural… yet this is the cause of the greatest suffering on Earth. To cut our lives down the middle with the knife of judgment is the cruelest thing we can do to ourselves, because we have only one whole and precious life. If we accept only part of it, and deny the rest, we have divided ourselves into a wounded, incomplete human being whose legacy is only pain. In order to become whole, authentic people we must learn to fully accept and love our entire being. There is no other way.
This does not mean that you should, or could, immediately love all of yourself and live happily ever after. It means that you need to learn how to observe the way you hate and/or deny the uncomfortable bits of yourself, as well as the parts of you that make you feel good, and accept what you see fully. It is good to develop a sense of detachment, as if you are looking at yourself from the outside. Whatever you see is you, and it is important to learn to love yourself in your entirety, unconditionally.
The second rhythm is called Initiation, of making the decision to enter the Dance and move…
The rules of the Dance so far are as follows:
Find a dance venue (Life)
Step onto the dance floor
Feel and synchronize with the rhythm
Feel your own feelings fully
Move as your body dictates
Relax and enjoy
Read about the other rhythms in later blogs!
