I know just how I’m going to do this.
The endurance people say to keep steps small and slow.
They say the body will appreciate a rhythm,
that it will know what is expected of it
and calibrate itself to the rhythm that is set;
I imagine the drummers will take care of that.
Never out of breath, never break a sweat.
The endurance people know how to do this,
and I will apply their experience
to survive this craziness that I have signed up for.
What was I thinking?
My experience will be inner.
It doesn’t matter that this body can’t keep up.
It doesn’t matter that I’m paralyzed in dance,
paralyzed to express with movement and sound.
None of that matters.
I’m in the right place.
The card jumped out of the deck last March.
“Is this my year to come to the Long Dance?”
Coyote turns over the Seven of Wands. “Do you know what
this card is?”
“It’s this year’s card.” I am awestruck, yet not. Not
really.
I’ve been hit by lightning so many times this year
that I can smell the rain as our eyes meet and hold.
Coyote’s gaze is soft and dear.
“Looks like we’ll be seeing you at the Long Dance.”
I commit, with the heart of a Fool.
Maybe I’ll be able to do this.
The light flashes, and I prepare to control, to limit,
to pace myself.
Wearing black, I will disappear.
But the Dance breaks out and takes my body with it.
Swirling, swooping, gliding, it takes flight,
weaving through the Dancers,
sprinkling some kind of fairy dust from wings and bells.
Magic, perhaps?
It goes against the flow of the circle, wanting to move
sun-wise.
It finds an empty spot and rises high on invisible thermals,
whirling, twirling, uncontained, unfettered.
That certainly sounds uninhibited.
What happened to the one who stood in the line,
who gave up her token and looked into the fractured mirror,
who heard the whoosh! of wings
and who walked solemnly with the Raven?
“Strong heart” made her tremble and weep.
I’m dying, she said, each whoosh! confirming the thought,
as Dancer after Dancer entered quietly until each pole
was full.
As she died, she remembered who she was raised to be,
and glimpsed who she was born to be.
Touching the tree, touching the silk,
slamming back into being raised again and again,
the pain of seeing, tasting, feeling who she was born
to be
all-encompassing and unbearable.
Please let me forget, but the banner was relentless.
And then she was set free – no need to forget – even
Death forgotten
in the whirling, twirling.
At Midnight the Dance and the Dream are One.
No-time, No-space, Dreamtime, Dancespace….
The Dream weaves its way through everything, through
all dimensions
Sometimes honoring, sometimes startling,
At once enduring and fleeting,
Quiet, cooing, howling, yipping, laughing to the starry
skies,
Gasping at the sight of each shooting star.
Oh…..what Magic, to swim in the courage of these hearts.
Little Dreamer is danced into existence, breathed into
Being,
And I am a swirling cosmic fusion of Spirit and Soul,
of Mind and Matter, of all Directions and the stillness
of Center.
Those who prayed for us blew gently on the coals of Soul.
I don’t know how or what to do anymore.
But the Dance does.
