Come, join the Dance

Our Dance is an expression of joy and passion in life.

But when it is mimicked in form so as to serve some private or mutually held purpose or meaning that does not itself directly express a vitality or freedom of spirit, it is becomes a vehicle for fantasy instead of a way of true integration and renewal in life.

To dance without feeling truly moved is to ‘go through the motions of life’ and to wish one’s life away. This is within our freedom - but is not the expression of freedom that knows itself free.

There is a phrase, ‘fake it until you make it’. This can seem to be necessary at the level of form because it is only in the dance of life’s expression that we truly remember why we dance and what we are as a dancer. So if we come from the mind that has forgotten its place in the movement and joining of the music, we need to bring our willingness to the fore by living out from our trust that the willingness is there! So at the level of spirit we Are allowing ourselves to be moved by a willingness that may start small, but grows as the music finds us. Therefore, we are not really faking our presence so much as breaking the habit of a self protective withdrawal from love’s presence that characterizes a busy, self concerned and problematic approach to life.

Unless we meet with something or someone that disagrees with our take on dance, we will persist from a basis that actually inhibits spontanaity, fixes the mask and persuades us we are dancing, when we are merely fitting ourselves to a design of steps and timing to a musical pattern, without opening to ourselves, each other or the music of life.

Such empty ritual characterizes the failure of human society to love, and we sacrifice our living dance to such a god in worship of a form by which we recieve only the meanings we gave it in secret. For nothing is revealed but is simply reenacted, and we ‘get’ reconnected with  a sense of life brought in from outside ourselves, yet such that we can each remain ourselves in secret ‘together’.

The God of Living Dance is not a matter of belief, but is the true nature of our relational presence now. Fearful beliefs tend to maintain rigidity and limits over an innate and natural willingness to feel.

The feeling and discernment of wholeness is lost to us in our adoption of fear inducing thoughts or ‘perspectives’ - not because it is no longer our true nature, but because loss of trust in self and life invokes a disconnected self-surviving strategy of mind and perception which covers over and distracts us from our need and desire for healing, for renewal, for joy.

In a world that has forgot how to dance, those of us who discover that we are part of remembering for everyone - may feel invalid amongst an upside down ‘culture’ that expects us to limit our expression so as not to draw attention to - or loosen - the masks by which others ‘cope’ with the ‘reality’ of a masked love. And we may find ourselves withdrawing or limiting our expression so as not to cause disturbance.

Living a secret unshared love is not living a love, but holding some kind of potential that seems to await the right conditions in which to come forth and shine and share. But in this we become the slave to conditions. We become easily manipulated out of our shell and sent back into it - because we are not joined with the unified nature of our being.

Just as we may come to a dance and need a period of loosening and willingness in order to be picked up or found in the music, so do we need to abide in the dissonance of our sense of conflicting relationship with external conditions and our capacity of inner willingness or trust - so as to begin to discern the movement of a deeper music than the assertions and judgements we carry from our past and come into a real and felt quality of relationship with each other - and ourselves - and the life and world around us.

Renewal is not a matter of recharging our batteries so as to manage a disconnected life. Renewal is the re awakening to the always connected Life, whose dance or embodiment is an ever new expression of joy; of passion and presence, felt and shared. To this wellspring we come to drink. But as we come to the Well in willingness to serve, we become one with the water.

To be one with, is of an unspeakable intimacy, yet there is peace in it because it is natural to our being. Letting the old habit go, first requires waking up to that it is running, and that it does not serve us in the truth of what is unfolding in our lives.

It does not matter where we seem to be in our life when we feel the Call or open to a sense of Life that both lifts us from meaninglessness - yet also exposes the mind we used before to cope and manage within its limits. For life isn't about becoming valid in our own eyes but of expressing an inherent value by which we share life.

The thinking mind is a rehearsal mind, a fantasy mind. It can serve but it is not designed to lead, for in the heart-sense it is blind. When the thinking mind seems to have covered over our joy in life, we need to disengage - at least for an instant or a few moments where we find our willingness and feel for the movement of Life.

Even the tiniest whisper or touch of Life is transformative, for it gives the way of the next step in trust. We don't always seem to find the answers to the problems as we define our problems - but if we take each step in trust, we will move out from the arena in which confusion defeats our spirit.

Why? Why bother to care this much and reopen one’s heart to risk of pain of betrayal, failure and self illusion?

Because you’re worth it!

And because the actual pain of a life in isolation and masked despair is no real alternative - no matter how well hidden - you - may be.

To realise we had left our path is an awakening. It Is an expression of the path that is still beneath our feet. From such moment we can either run our script of self exclusion - or rejoin the dance.

Self inclusion is the one thing that cannot be done for us, no matter how or what is done to lead us to water, we drink or not as is our will. yet the shine and freedom and gentle nature of all who demonstrate inclusion, is part of the same Call in others.

Our true inheritance in Life is wasted when we use it for selfish ends - because it is in the shared value that we remember its Source. The Music of our very being abides with us while we engage our fantasies of self and attempt to dress them and make them dance to our own tune. Now we can hardly hear tell what is, from what we thought we wanted it to be. So we put aside the desire to be a one who knows and open to being one that flows. In the presence of our willing now-ness - there Is no conflict or confusion. Join then, the Dance, if you will!

In Peace

Brian