THE ONLY DANCE THERE IS

Contrary to our usual picture of things as just “there” - actually there is only dance. That is, everything everywhere is in motion. From atoms to the stars and everything in between, there is movement. The fact that we can give things names builds this misperception that something is just “there”. Poets, yogis, and mystics use words and/or actions to remind us that nothing is just “there”. It’s all in motion and, if we are willing to entertain the notion, everything is moving uniquely. Then these gently contained motions are in a continuity with each other so that we restore ourselves to the knowledge that there is only movement and with the art of human being helping us feel that, it is one infinitely extended dance in and of space and time. And movement makes vibration and vibration makes sound so this everywhere dance is accompanied by this everywhere music. Knowing this is the gift of being awake.

 The Only Dance There Is

Inside us there is a soul

but it’s not still -

It's dancing.

Music gets born

from dancing in the depths,

songs accompanying the soul.

Those who do not hear the songs

who don’t know they’re dancing

or feel the melody

are an unfortunate lot

cut off from spirit

and addicted to noise.

But these dances in the depths

these rhythmic uprisings,

their chants, their harmonies

are the sustained origins and organs of kindness

that is always there at our core.

This dancing takes us everywhere.

Travelers dancing in the night,

residencies from the first days of squirming legs and feet,

to the angel’s ballet.

The bones themselves,

the ancestral chi moves within us

dancing within every moment of history.

-       7/23/2024