“I feel life is small unless it has windows into other worlds.”
_Bertrand Russel
While dancing is about joy and living this life to the fullest, it does also offer us a glimpse into other worlds. When the Bushmen talk about their Healing Trance dances they use metaphors about climbing upwards on the Ropes of God or diving into the depths of water. These metaphors describe a journey from ordinary everyday way of being into an experience that feels different. Terms we use to describe these experiences are ‘ecstatic dance’, ‘trance’ or generally, ‘altered states of consciousness’. These terms seem to imply dramatic journeys as described by Shamans when they talk about traveling into the spirit world or reminiscent of the Dionysian rituals where participants experienced possession by the god.
At its most intense, dance can take us over to these extremes. However, even our weekly dip into the dance allows us a taste of these experiences. We are not overcome or overwhelmed but when we let go into the dance inevitably we begin to experience another way of being. To be dancing is not to be engaging with life as we normally do. We move with feeling, not directed by goals. We interact with others from a place of shared humanity, not with expectations. We occupy a time and place without boundaries, not constrained by clocks, schedules and four walls.
These gentle OTHER WORLDS of dance are places with the potential to become a source of new information and insight. As we dance we move and experience self and the world around us differently. As we dance our body shifts from sympathetic to parasympathetic mode – we let go of stress and start to rejuvenate. Our mind shifts from planning and control mode to feeling and integration.
The ability to create my own experience through the dance means that I could be dancing anywhere – online, off-line, on the beach, in my bedroom. The question is, “WHERE am I dancing?” Am I here in this room holding onto everyday reality, or have I created an OTHER WORLD beyond time and space in which letting go inevitably leads to bliss?
Dance is a gift wherever you are!
_Christos Daskalakos
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