The Great Dance Project
A blueprint love poem and story for every age
Image by Ruth Schowalter
After the election last Fall, what agony! I’d never known such revulsion as newly elected leaders began hurling indignities toward people, ways, and lands I love. Six months later, governmental leaders make me shudder as they literally kill off community, diversity, empathy, jobs, and more in our policies, dreams, and actions.
Where is our common narrative going? What is the collective story into which all beings are born and belong?
I remembered a cosmic love poem I wrote long ago, called "The Great Dance." I’d dedicated it to my daughter and her generation, wanting them to know that their life is perfect, true, and inextricably part of The Great Dance. Today, I include Liddy, my six-year-old granddaughter, her peers, and all future generations.
The Great Dance is rooted in my life experiences and guided by wisdom from indigenous peoples, whose cosmologies are reflected in their dancing ceremonies and prayers. I hear voices like Kahontakwas Diane Longboats, who believes that understanding the importance of traditional ceremonies, stories, songs, dances, and teachings as healing invocations is imperative to society’s well-being and the renewal of all Life Beings. I hear Sherri Mitchell, indigenous lawyer, activist, and guide, whose lineage extends back millennia saying in Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Spirit-based Change, “When we merge our internal rhythms with the rhythms of creation, we develop grace in our movement, and without thought or effort, we are able to slide into the perfectly choreographed dance of life.”
This is not a metaphor.
Cgunta Elae, Kalahari Bushman and shaman known for his healing practices and spiritual beliefs, says, “God sleeps in our hearts when we are not dancing. When we dance, he wakes up. When we get angry, or jealous, or irritated with someone, all we can do is wake up God. God then chases the trouble away. To wake him up, we must dance.”
Starhawk says, "A society that could heal the dismembered world would recognize the inherent value of each person and of the plant, animal and elemental life that makes up the earth's living body; it would offer real protection, encourage free expression, and reestablish an ecological balance to be biologically and economically sustainable. Its underlying metaphor would be mystery, the sense of wonder at all that is beyond us and around us, at the forces that sustain our lives and the intricate complexity and beauty of their dance."
Knowing this is one thing. To reignite oour interconnected, mysterious, sacred dancing wisdom, we need story, imagery, and yes, dancing.
Last Fall, I knew it was time to bring The Great Dance into the world. What I didn’t know was that I was about to retire my entrepreneurial practice. I had already contacted Ruth Schowalter, an extraordinary visionary artist, and Marla Durden, designer of The Art of Ensoulment playbook and a Black and Indigenous wisdom keeper, to consider working on the project. Marla suggested we meet and pray. It was a shock when, weeks later, I realized I had to release myself from organizing ANYTHING! I handed The Great Dance over to Marla and Ruth. What happened next was an even bigger surprise. Marla and Ruth met and dreamt bigger. They view The Great Dance as a means to inspire the deepest kind of social change in children and adults. As educators and designers, they envision The Great Dance as a gift book and performative score, accompanied by an InterPlay-style curriculum.
How will future children know that all bodies and souls are sacred? How will people enter into the cosmic love that expresses itself in diversity among all beings? What song and dance will remind them?
Help me gift our inheritors The Great Dance! Everyone who contributes will be listed in the love poem at the end of the book. And, if you’ve been wondering what to get for my 70th birthday, that works, too! Link here.
The Great Dance
In the beginning
was the Great Dance.
And in this dance
was the energy of life
contracting expanding
contracting expanding
creating millions of ways
to move and be moved.
The Great Dance was a dance so great
and far and wide
that whole planets and stars, and solar systems
joined in twirling and spinning
and circling round.
From this whirling circle,
Earth Spirit moved
as did her trees and mountains
and rivers and beasts
and even the smallest of things,
the insects
each and every thing
moving and changing and dancing
Their own splendid dance.
And each dance was a sacred dance–
the flowing dances, the jagged dances,
jumpy dances and smooth ones,
some dances just as fast as a wink
and some as slow as the night is long.
Of course, there were many, many
falling down and getting up dances.
And some dances were quiet so long
You might mistake them for nondances.
And did you know that
even before your birth
in your mother’s womb
The Dance came alive
in your skin and breath and bone
‘til you too became part of the Great Dance.
But yours is no ordinary dance.
In all the world, no two dances are alike.
One beetle's dance is different from his brother’s.
And North Wind’s dance?
It cannot be compared to Sister South Wind’s.
Each dance is like no other
and this is why it is sacred.
No one can really dance your dance.
It is sacred.
Earth Spirit’s power depends
on each sacred dance.
Without you, the Great Dance dwindles,
grows dull.
But!
When everything
joins in the Great Dance
AMAZING! GLORIOUS! ASTONISHING!
Grace, energy, and life abound
just from each dancer
doing their own joyous dance!
Today, like every day
The Great Dance
needs you
and all of creation
all planets, stars,
trees and mountains and beasts
oceans and deserts
insects and humans
to join in the Dance.
Listen to your bodyspirit and
you can hear the Great Dance singing,
“Dance!
Dance each morning
and dance each day.
And at night,
I will dance in your dreams.
For we are the Dance!
I dance in you
You dance in me
The dance that is forever.
Bless you, my dancing one.
