Reality is Dance

Photo: Geoffrey Dunn

Reflection from my group class:

In these times I feel I cannot express myself through the usual creative practices I have, like visual arts or words. I feel my stories are being shaken up. Perhaps there is no need to tell them? There is already so much clutter around…

My reflections

I was struck by your words about your sensations not finding form in these times. I encourage you to move them, to dance them. Sometimes we have this implicit hierarchy of expression and movement/dance becomes invisible.

Dance is ephemeral, it is not easily a "product" and this makes it more difficult for us to recognise it as a legitimate manifestation. My sense is that dance underpins everything other manifestation—that sense you have of your movement within you is a signal of this truth. I feel recognising dance as a way of expressing your inner impulses in these times may lead you to other forms eventually...

And some more reflections

When times overtake stories and language, our inner pulsation becomes evident. The stillness paradigm cannot match the trembling uncertainty of reality around us. It may feel like there is no going back to a past we thought we knew.

Trembling is one of the expressions of “sattva”, the essence untainted by story and word. Like leaves trembling on a banyan tree, it holds infinite possibilities in its refusal to be pinned into known stillness.

There is intelligence in this sensation of no words, not even the word “stillness”. That is the intelligence of dance. When the ancients proposed that reality is Shiva’s dance, it was not just a beauteous metaphor, it was Sat or Truth.