Ecstatic Dance

Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical and Stillness.

These are the 5 Rhthyms of an ecstatic dance. A linear progression of ecstasy in notes partnered with moves, but so much more than that. I'm talking happy sad cries and primal howls and everything in between--the softness and hardness dancing together in something so raw and majestic that you cannot fully recall nor could you ever predict a day's experience. What happens on the floor, in this sense, stays on the floor. 

Ah yes, ecstatic dance. If you have not tried it, you need to immediately, as soon as one is held in your local area....or you need to travel to one, like in Austin, Texas, where I live. Because these dances feed your soul like nothing else. They are grounds for revolution. They are gardens for rebirth. They are steps toward a freer future when we say yes to these bodies we are in and let them move us with them. 

It's a vibe. And if you have not yet had the extreme pleasure and intense shift of an ecstatic dance, then please join me now as we dive in the deep end together...

Flowing

It goes so smoothly at first, as we ease the tips of our toes into the cool warm waters of the dance. The music, calm and smooth, lulls us to it. The floor welcomes us, but as we only wade in, we are not fully sure of those who move around us nor even of ourselves.

Our confidence has not built yet.

We are not grounded in the movement or the day or the hour. The beat is slow and lazy and forgiving and free. We may go on and off the floor, assessing the scene, seeing who has joined (did that one special somebody show up?), feeling our weight on the bottoms of our feet as they connect with the earth through the pressure of gravity and the way we move with and against it. 

At this early point in the dance, after a few minutes, I may begin to try a little of this or that. A quick dip, hands pointed down to the floor and then up to the sky perhaps, a twirl. But these are stolen moves. And they do not yet gel with the music. We have only just now met after all--the day's playlist and we (dancers). I'm remembering to smile here. I'm remembering the childlike freedom of dancing however I like. I'm remembering who I really am and shedding the skin of my workaday week for the iridescent coat of my authentic flow. 

I'm still not sure, though. I'm just being born. 

Staccato

The. Beat. Begins. To. Quicken. 

Like a drum, my masculine energy is awakened and runs free. I am suddenly aware of my own freedom. Like a child learning to walk, I take steps to move in sudden ways. Oh, I am waking up! 

The life in me alights, energized better than any caffeine you can get your hands on. And it's not just me. Everyone is starting to become braver. Everyone sheds old egoic shells and adorns new wings to fly more wildly on the dance floor. The music becomes louder. It's building, clearly building. 

The sweat starts to pour onto the dance floor. The odors of being human ripen. There is skipping and running. Mostly though, for me, this is like a drum beating. Bump bump. Bump bump. Like the beating of a human heart. We begin to proudly wear our humanity in ways usually hidden from societal normishness. 

Chaos

Now you've asked for it. 

We've arrived at the great intensity, the peak wild, the reason many ecstatic dancers come at all: the chaos.    

In orderly society, what chance do we have to brush upon a wave of chaos, let alone become one?

Here that inner fire alights our path through us.

Look into the eyes of an ecstatic dancer during chaos, I dare you. You will see a world on fire. A world whose smoke has been billowing for ages and is only now, through this dance, catching some air. The air is indeed salvation.

You see, an inner part of us that had been quietly screaming is being voiced.

Spontaneous, powerful tears may arise.

People may fall to the floor in grief.

This is where the carnal howls may erupt.

This is where we let our bodies take us where they want to go. It is full liberation in the quantifiable space of a floor and four walls, or a jungle and no walls, or wherever it wants to be. The importance is not as much the space, for it will become sacred through the movement; the importance is the music and the instruments, the human instruments, who move it through themselves. 

The music can do anything. Expect nothing.

This is the breaking point, when anything goes. This is the explosion, the confession, the expansion...

Lyrical

And this, my dear reader, who is part of the dance of this writing, is the response.

It's when words come in through the perfect song that you decide to add to the birthing playlist for your second born (true story!). It's when all of this realness that has come out of you into the open after eons of hiding it away is finally and unconditionally accepted. It is the utter and undeniable feeling of true belonging, because belonging cannot exist if you are pretending to be something you are not, and here you cannot pretend. You can only be and move with the music that guides you like a sage on the path less taken. 

Oh it is glorious. And it brings to light certain realities in life, on and off the dance floor, that will shift the way that the dancers exist. Together, as the songs gain more words and put them to our exotic and tempered states, the dialogue we become ignites us all in Truth. 

When I dance, I will pray before and set an intension. And so, as I dance, I dance to that. Perhaps it is something I need in my life or some way things need to become for me or the world, but I allow myself to dedicate what comes through me to shifting that reality in an upward spiral to ecstatic success. And during the lyrical stage, when I have oft danced with ghosts and sang Om to people around the world, the caterpillar emerges from the chrysalis a beautiful butterfly. 

We are transformed. 

So much beauty. The elegance and grace of these movements ripple throughout eternity as the angelic butterfly wings of us perfectly display to remind us that within our humanity, and really only through it, we are, too, Divine. So Divine.

Epiphanies. Realizations. Acceptance, Surrender. It all culminates here into this moment...

Stillness

And then, it is time. It's time to let go, to fully release the dance. 

The music slows. 

Our movement slows. 

People slowly begin to lay upon the ground, or sit, one by one.

 Some slooooowly patter out and walk in languid circles around us all, but eventually, everyone rests as the slow last notes of music play, one...

...and then another...

...and then...

...nothing. 

(Just quiet.)

Whoever leads will say a prayer for all to hear, as we lay upon our mother earth feeling fully held, Gaia twirling our hair and blowing kisses through little puffs of wind, butterflies and birds dancing overhead reminding us of how we were. 

We feel the dependable oneness and pure joy of community through this rhythmic journey. 

Everyone is accepted. Everyone is included. By now we have remembered that we are all family, and it is a true reunion. 

We pound the ground and say our names. 

Afterward, we hug, hold hands, cuddle, smile, eat watermelon or whatever else, and sparkle our eyes at one another. We share an intimacy some may never find throughout their whole lives, even in their closest relations. I know, because that's how I used to be. 

We, though, share a true knowing of ourselves and our sisters and brothers, a knowing that is born and reborn again through the organic instrumentation of this physical form gifted to us in order to integrate the human and Divine. And in the ecstasy of the dance, we find (and become) love.