Dancing the Disturbance

disturb (v.)
from dis–completely– and turbo–"muddy, foul with extraneous matter, thick, not clear," from Latin turbid –"muddy, full of confusion, from turbary– "to confuse, bewilder," from turba– "turmoil, crowd.”

I dance with disturbance.

The earliest and most disturbing season of my life occurred in my early twenties. I traveled under Operation Crossroads Africa's auspices, spending seven weeks in Taima, Sierra Leone. A group of us were invited to help build a cultural history museum.

My cohort was a predominantly African American group of students, poets, writers, musicians, historians, flutists, drummers, and sax players unpacking the politically motivated atrocities of history and the call to Black Power. I, a skinny white UCLA dance major, had recently been set on fire by an African Art in Motion exhibition on my campus that stirred up troubling questions like, “What happened to the Dancing Soul of my white, protestant, liberal people?” And. “What is real freedom in body and soul?”

Initiations disturb us. The things I don’t want to experience must be met. Not only that I must learn to dance with them.

I am profoundly disturbed these days, but it isn’t new. Unfortunately, it’s a confirmation of many troubling initiations as a woman born into white Protestantism. When I look back, the trip to Sierra Leone set me up to be forever disturbed.

Landing in Freetown was disturbing. Communications between Crossroads and local organizers were mixed up. We discovered we had no place to stay, no transport, no reliable contacts, and the village of Taima was 100 miles away. Did we, twenty scared strangers, have each other? No. What could we do? Our leaders madly scrambled for ways to feed, house, and get us to the project. One night, we slept crowded together on a concrete floor after a day crammed in the back of a lorry with our personal luggage piled on our laps. When we finally made it to Taima School, we wrangled over who got the straw mattresses and then hung up our mosquito nets, the only source of privacy. Our privileged sense of entitlement as American students smacked us in the face.

The culture history museum only needed us for manual labor, but the cement was stuck back in the Freetown harbor. Disoriented and not sure what to do, I tried to make a connection. But nothing came of it, even when I found a room to play in and invited the Sax player to improvise as I danced. Instead, I listened as my African American travel mates questioned why they’d come and whether they should abandon the trip. These conversations included a free-floating animosity toward white people. I slowly froze, unable to navigate the field of pain or my place in it.

Day after day, I felt the ruptures in so many areas of my social fabric. I recall writing in my journal how it felt like I was standing on an earthquake fault. Museum vs. Living Culture. Indigenous vs. Western. Earth-based vs. Technological. Female vs. Male. American vs. African. White vs. Black. I won’t go into the whole story and all the disturbances here. If you are curious, I tell about it in Chasing the Dance of Life: A Fatih Journey.

Initiations are not just about disturbances. They call us to profound, “more than human” ways of being that heal rather than tear us down. That’s the reality I track.

One day this “Other Reality” showed up for us in Taima. We were invited to the “coming out” celebration for the young girls who were undergoing their initiation in the bush. Everyone in our group bought the pre-selected African cloth for the event and had it made into garments. When the day came, we heard the drums and shekeres and headed to the chief’s hut. Music, drums, and singers announced the masked dancer. The Spirit of the Dancer coursed through us in bursts of energetic blessing. Sometimes, it felt like we were being chastised. When the Spirit Dancer departed, we joined a long line of cohesively dressed people and danced through the village.

We all belonged. The village saved us.

Then I got malaria, intense constipation, and relentless vertigo, probably due to lack of protein. Health challenges impacted most of our group as we prepared for a 1000-mile bus ride to Ghana and the end of the trip.

The worst of the disturbances was yet to come.

A massive wave of culture shock hit me as I landed in New York City before coming home. American wealth, excess, the amount people in the U.S. throw away, our traffic, and speed smacked me. In revolt, I immediately became a vegetarian.

Back home in LA, I knew I’d changed. I didn’t know with whom or how to proceed. It was 1977.

It has taken me decades to come to terms with all that happened in those seven weeks when Life disturbed my versions of truth and revealed other ways forward. Honestly, the Taima experience still disturbs me as it should.

Today, I am embarrassed that I am still shocked at the hate, misogyny and racism in the world. Cynthia, you still don’t get it. This doesn’t just go away. Your beloved community lives with this day in and day out.

Be disturbed. Be reassured that it is OK to live with disturbance, to feel it, and dance with it. Always always seek the Paralell Universe of Love and plant your feet in that dancing ground.

And remember-

1. It takes a long time to grasp a thing beyond one’s understanding until you have a trusted, knowledgeable community.

2. Make use of the disturbing initiations to support a healthy way forward, no matter how bleak things look.

3. The word "mayhem" describes the early days of the Trump administration. Mayhem means violent and needless disturbance or chaos. I endured the Bay Area earthquake, which lasted less than a minute and required a year of storytelling to metabolize the shock. Our slow recovery also brought more reliable structures and greater care for our environment. Remember that resilience is unrelenting. 

4. Those who use surgical, violent methods on the bodies of people are accountable. They are to be held accountable as murderers.

5. Humility is always the hardest takeaway.

6. Keep Dancing.