THE/dance

The Dance

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

I have sent you my invitation, the note inscribed on the palm of my hand by the fire of living. Don’t jump up and shout, “Yes, this is what I want! Let’s do it!” Just stand up quietly and dance with me.

Show me how you follow your deepest desires, spiraling down into the ache within the ache, and I will show you how I reach inward and open outward to feel the kiss of the Mystery, sweet lips on my own, every day.

Don’t tell me you want to hold the whole world in your heart. Show me how you turn away from making another wrong without abandoning yourself when you are hurt and afraid of being unloved.

Tell me a story of who you are, and see who I am in the stories I live. And together we will remember that each of us always has a choice.

Don’t tell me how wonderful things will be . . . some day. Show me you can risk being completely at peace, truly okay with the way things are right now in this moment, and again in the next and the next and the next. . .

I have heard enough warrior stories of heroic daring. Tell me how you crumble when you hit the wall, the place you cannot go beyond by the strength of your own will. What carries you to the other side of that wall, to the fragile beauty of your own humanness?

And after we have shown each other how we have set and kept the clear, healthy boundaries that help us live side by side with each other, let us risk remembering that we never stop silently loving those we once loved out loud.

Take me to the places on the earth that teach you how to dance, the places where you can risk letting the world break your heart. And I will take you to the places where the earth beneath my feet and the stars overhead make my heart whole again and again.

Show me how you take care of business without letting business determine who you are. When the children are fed but still the voices within and around us shout that soul’s desires have too high a price, let us remind each other that it is never about the money.

Show me how you offer to your people and the world the stories and the songs you want our children’s children to remember. And I will show you how I struggle not to change the world, but to love it.

Sit beside me in long moments of shared solitude, knowing both our absolute aloneness and our undeniable belonging. Dance with me in the silence and in the sound of small daily words, holding neither against me at the end of the day.

And when the sound of all the declarations of our sincerest intentions has died away on the wind, dance with me in the infinite pause before the next great inhale of the breath that is breathing us all into being, not filling the emptiness from the outside or from within.

Don’t say, “Yes!” Just take my hand and dance with me.

MORNING/yoga

HOT/dogs

BEAUTIFUL/moments

My summer at Easton Mountain has been filled with so many beautiful moments. In fact, each day offers a new strand of extraordinary moments, which at the end of the day I wear like a necklace. Each gem of that necklace an event, a celebration, an adventure, an unexpected connection, which I must shed in order to be adorned with a new necklace of experiences, a new day. The truth is, however, that it’s been a bit overwhelming to wear a new necklace every day. Living so fully in the present moment requires a continual letting go of the past and an unanticipated lean into the future. I look at my jewelry box of moments with both wonder and confusion. How do I make space for it all? Do I hold on to these strands of precious moments? Or do I just simply let them go? And how?

There are some moments that stand out, that sparkle above and beyond the normal glimmer of my experience. Sometimes I want to cling to those moments. Sometimes I want those moments back or I want to repeat them. Sometimes, I feel sad when a stunning sunset is over, when I climb down from the treehouse or float back from an amazing canoe ride, when a friend leaves not knowing when I’ll see him again or when I think about an ex-lover.

Mary Oliver writes, "When it’s over, it’s over and we don’t know any of us, what happens then. So I try not to miss anything. I think, in my whole life, I have never missed the full moon or the slipper of it’s coming back, Or, a kiss. Well, yes, especially a kiss." The point is not to miss anything, to stay alert, to let the richness of life spill into our lives and into our hearts, to let it overflow and to not care whether the spillage is tears of joy or tears of sadness. In the end we don't really know what experiences will make us happy, but one thing for sure is that the more present we can be for each moment the greater our chances of not missing out, of being happy.

Recently, I spent time with a friend of mine who has been visiting Easton Mountain on and off all summer. The conversation lilted from one topic to the next. If I were to put this moment on a necklace it would surely be the jeweled center piece that dangles close to cleavage of my heart. I'm not quite sure what it is about Easton Mountain-- the people, the panoramic views of nature, the continual cool summer breeze, the immaculate night sky, the purple haze of the ethereal Milky Way Galaxy, who knows, but these kinds of spontaneous and deeply satisfying conversations happen often here. In this particular conversation my friend talked about how these incredibly beautiful moments signify a time when we experience something beyond space and time, a time when we engage in something that satisfies the deeper part of our soul. At first we might experience sadness, grief or even anger when that experience is over, which is healthy and good, but ultimately we must allow ourselves to return to seeing those moments as beautiful.

This reminded me of something that Pema Chodrin spoke of in one of her books. She says that the truly open heart is oftentimes tinged with sadness. I realized that both beauty and sadness can be simultaneously true, and that perhaps in some way, they are inseparable.

Two days ago I noticed on the ground a perfect bright red leaf. I exclaimed out loud, “autumn!” I was immediately filled with excitement because autumn is my favorite season. Simultaneously, I felt a stab of pain realizing that the end of the summer is near. There I stood with a bright red leaf in my hand and the warm summer sky all around me.

ALONE/?

This is a work in progress. It's a 3 panel collage piece inspired by my experience of living in community. Are we alone?

TYPICAL/sunset

SPIRIT/dance

Last week was Gay Spirit Camp at Easton Mountain. It's a week of workshops, events and activities to awaken the spirit. It's a group of about 60 men who come together for connection, camaraderie and co-mingling. I must say that it's just an all around darn good time. One of the facilitators asked me to co-direct a workshop/event called "Gay Spirit Dance." 12 men showed up the first day not really even knowing what they were showing up for. Courage was the word that came to mind on that first day. It was 12 men of various ages, shapes and abilities. We got together everyday for 4 days, 2 hours per day, and co-created a choreographed dance, which was full of intention, bravery, self-expression and communal decision making. Getting 12 gay men to co-choreograph a 6 minute dance to be performed in front of 60 people was no small task, mind you. But the experience was wildly fun and deeply satisfying. In the end we performed the dance, which was received with standing ovation. I am so grateful for this experience.

FAERIE/ball

STARRY/night