To Dance Or Not To Dance?
Self Love And The Art Of Movement
I can’t dance. This is a deficit I am reminded of every time I watch a dance reality show, a Broadway musical, or kids playing. It is this last group that hurts the most because they aren’t professionals at anything (with rare exceptions) and yet they dance and play at times with every ounce of their being — they know how to live in the moment, fully removed from any and every concern save the one at present, how to have fun. Not make fun, not strive for fun, but just to welcome fun into themselves.
But I digress, what I really wanted to share was a story about dancing…
The Theatre Of My Heart
The stage was set, the lights yet to come up, and already a buzz in the air, as the patrons streamed into the theatre. They came from many places, many times, many stories. Some were young, some very old, but all were excited, tonight was the dance. The one that they had waited for, the one that would change them, not because of what they would do, but because of what they would see.
They didn’t have to wait for long. Moments later, a young woman, beautiful, but shy, stood up from the first row and made her way up the steps to the stage. She walked to the center of the stage, not directly, but more of a meander, occasionally looking over her shoulder, as if to see if she was being followed. She stopped at the center of the stage, pensive, and stood, with her eyes cast down, looking within herself.
And then they heard it, a sound, quite like the murmur of a brook, her waters whispering her secrets to the river stones she has always caressed. A song of the heart, pure and free and clear. As it began to build they could see the woman begin to dance, eyes closed as if to hear the movements better, to feel her way through the song, a song unlike any played with instruments, because it emanated from her heart…
The Theatre Of My Life
I was that girl, and that stage was my bedroom the other night. There was a song playing from one of my lists and I was dancing, but I can’t dance. So I just reached out and held on to the music that was within me, responding to what my heart was trying to teach me. All I could feel was the music…
When I was finished I opened my eyes and was self-conscious…did anyone see me? What would they have said if they did, they would have seen a middle-aged man swaying and reaching for something, all hands and arms, and elbows, like some sort of drunken conductor. But if they could have seen inside me, they would have seen a beautiful woman, my princess, my ME, dancing to her own heart’s song.
And before I got too self-conscious about it one of my spiritual friends gave me a rose, and then others followed until it looked like I had just finished a perfect skate at the Olympics and was taking my victory lap to collect all the tokens of appreciation. And I asked them why they gave me roses when I don’t know how to dance? And they said it didn’t matter what the eyes saw, but what the heart knows. And when I listen to my heart and follow her lead, I am a virtuoso…
