Reflections on the

Dancing Spirit
This writing comes from a meditation or
'listening in stillness and trust'. Compared to
most of what we encounter today it may perhaps
seem hard to read - for it can only be understood
by a similar willingness to listen, to that in which
it is written. And it attempts to share meanings
that are difficult to convey in concepts - though I
can only clothe such meanings in the concepts I
have to hand in order to write at all.

So I take a leaf out of Eckhhart Tolle's work

and use a symbol : - ◊ - to suggest 'pause and
reflect' . For our thinking mind races about in its
filtering, comparing and pigeonholing - in a
getting of what it sees as useful or in warding off
any sense of threat to what it already identifies
with. But the heart in its own trust can discern -
or get a feel - even when the head does its thing!

Dance can connect us with meaning, with

depth, connectedness, and an innocence of
being that is delightful. The unfolding of the ‘spirit
of the dancer’ in our life arises from a sense of
being called by the music - but also from an
ongoing willingness to discard or move beyond
unwanted or outdated obstructions as they are
brought to our awareness within a conscious and
heart connected sense of our dance.

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 Reflections on the Dancing Spirit

Living dance embodies the movement - in

time and space - of that which is presently
alive - within us. Such inspiration can be
simply and presently felt or discerned in a
spirit of receptive trust.
-◊-
Joy is known in our freedom to feel. To be
directly connecting with what is present and
be moved by it, is inherently liberating and
also renewing : life revealing itself anew.
-◊-
That which is ’alive’ cannot be mapped or
defined by concepts, and a concept based
approach cannot find life, though concepts
and symbols can be used in service of life.
-◊-
But the Spirit of life can be expressed in
form by our allowing inspired life to move us .
We can be as a channel or instrument
through which life flows, and by this act of
trust we may realize our life in truth, and not
merely imitate life in concept.
-◊-
Such direct experience offers a glimpse -
an awakening from out of a habitual
mentality of problematic distraction. We also
regain a clearer perspective because peace is

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 Reflections on the Dancing Spirit

in it. Such a moment also accesses an innate

wisdom, natural to a rested open attention.
-◊-
In this we have a clear sense of flowing
conscious awareness, without thought or
interruption, as if our being ‘just knows’ or is
one with the dance. Any attempt to bring this
under the control of thought based
understanding immediately breaks the flow.
-◊-
In unrecognized ignorance as to what we
are and what life is, we stumble in and out of
a sense of life that tends to attempt balance
between applying control and suffering
chaos. Yet each is merely the shadow of the
other denied and both indicate a loss of
centred calm perspective.
-◊-
When dance expresses life directly, it is of
the nature of art. This demonstrates or witnesses a
living way or culture of bringing the divine into
manifestation. We may speak of being touched,
transported or even healed by such glimpses.
They are revealed rather than manufactured,
and bring into awareness that which had
hitherto been unknowingly obscured.
-◊-

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 Reflections on the Dancing Spirit

Dance that is merely a mechanical

representation, whether applied skillfully or
not, is artifice. In all areas of expression this is
so, for the technicalities of form at best are a
structure by and through which the spirit
expresses. Training and teaching are a shared
intent and practice, that creates conditions to
enable and encourage the ‘Inner dancer’ to
grow in expression.
-◊-
The relationship of spirit and form is
simple: form is to be allowed to serve the
discerned meaning, or it will be found
superficial or without substance. The
experience of such disconnection is like an
armouring or masking over of that which is
felt alive. It is a freezing into form; a
contraction of distrust into a polarised
inhibition or defence.
-◊-
Though one may endlessly debate what
spirit is, the absence of true inspiration or
sanity is undeniably evident in disharmony or
conflict, depression or joylessness, self-
illusion and pervasive distrust or cynicism.
-◊-
My sense of a living path using music and
dance is as a path of restoration to our

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 Reflections on the Dancing Spirit

freedom of expression in being - in our own

awareness - and sharing music and dance is
also a simple language by which to share life.
We cannot share life without releasing the
judgements that we are habituated to use to
justify ourselves to ourselves and by which
we hold our selves in isolation.
-◊-
In such relationship, felt within, and
embodied, we offer and invite a shared
inspiration by a willingness of joining. Here is
the simple process of growing trust and releasing
asserted defensiveness; becoming simply
present and available to the felt quality of now.
Only by joining in such a willingness in
living presence are we re-membered. For
whatever Be-ing is - cannot really be alien to
our true nature or external to what we simply
are, but most of us are deeply habituated to
identification with our collective and private
thought and imagination - and do not tend to
be energetically alive in all that it is to be
human - or indeed to simply joyfully Be.
-◊-
Our human experience has largely
become, de-facto, a realm arising from the
attempt to apply or impose our will upon life.
“I want it thus!”. In this we assert a strong

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 Reflections on the Dancing Spirit

sense of self but lose the dance of our innate

relatedness to a sense of competing disparate
parts. Such struggle can itself be engaged with
passion and effect differentiations of approach
and style - which may seem to give temporary
meanings to a meaninglessness - but this will
tend to wear out or lose vitality, for it is a self
defeating exercise. Relatedness remains the
way things actually are - in aliveness - in
truth. Always and already so.
-◊-
It is the heart that recognises truth and the
thinking mind must follow and not lead.
Those who share experience of the living may
find terms and languages in which to refer to
such experience - but such terms are at best
sketches or pointers to an immediacy that is
not really happening to a 'someone' - but
which is a flow of being in which the
experiencer is temporarily transparent to an
greater awareness than any sense of a fenced
off ‘self’.
-◊-
Always one must gently or freely put aside
the mentality that thinks it knows - for this is
always a fixity of the past in form. Remain
open in willingness for joining in trust. This is
the practice which allows the discernment of

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 Reflections on the Dancing Spirit

Life within - the expression of which is not

according to ‘my’ - or anyone else's -
thinking’ - but is actually inspirational. It has
the ring or shine of joy in life felt directly.
-◊-
Dancing can thus open a context in which
what I am is restored to a true belonging - felt
as part of Life rather than a separated orphaned
existence played out in self image and self
commentary. Regardless of any presentation of
appearance - it is this lost belonging that is at
the root of all longings and desires.
-◊-
It is a simple thing to express and share
life energetically - though we tend to make it
anything but - and thus require a process of
experiential education that builds and regains
trust and self-honesty. For it is a breakdown of
communication at the level of self-trust that
gives rise to a mentality of ‘externalised’ or
applied control upon oneself and upon life.
And it is this mentality which tends to either
squelch or mimic life’s expressions. This does
so with our largely unconscious identification
and undermines our appreciation and
expression of life in all respects, including our
dance.
-◊-

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 Reflections on the Dancing Spirit

Authenticity of expression is found in a

defencelessness to a present awareness. If we
wait to be ‘pure’ on our own terms we wait ...
and wait some more. Practicing self-trust in
intuitive relationship is not about getting it
right - or indeed wrong - but listening to a
different guide in moving from the heart.
-◊-
In any inspired endeavour, we are guided
to discover what we need to meet or know as
we come to need to know it. This is a step by
step process that is an expression of truly held
desire to which we are willing to bring some
commitment to.
-◊-
Joy is of an innate Teacher whose only
intent is restoring your own freedom to your
awareness and acceptance. By this light we
grow freely in the discernment and release of
that which is self-defeating, joyless and
therefore meaningless. And live out from a
calm and connected be-ing.
-◊-

Thank you for your attention.

-◊-

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