We Have Come To Be Danced

We have come to be danced
Not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance
But the wring the sadness from our skin dance
The blow the chip off our shoulder dance.
The slap the apology from our posture dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the monkey see, monkey do dance
One two dance like you
One two three, dance like me dance
but the grave robber, tomb stalker
Tearing scabs and scars open dance
The rub the rhythm raw against our soul dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the nice, invisible, self-conscious shuffle
But the matted hair flying, voodoo mama
Shaman shakin’ ancient bones dance
The strip us from our casings, return our wings
Sharpen our claws and tongues dance
The shed dead cells and slip into
The luminous skin of love dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance
But the meeting of the trinity, the body breath and beat dance
The shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance
The mother may I?
Yes you may take 10 giant leaps dance
The olly olly oxen free free free dance
The everyone can come to our heaven dance.

We have come to be danced
Where the kingdom’s collide
In the cathedral of flesh
To burn back into the light
To unravel, to play, to fly, to pray
To root in skin sanctuary
We have come to be danced
We have come.

by Jewel Mathieson

No more Swatting

"We all suffer the uncertainty of being hurt by the life that surrounds us, and we all have a changing ring of safety beyond which we are likely to hurt other living things in the guise of self-defense.  How often we imagine things are dangerous when they are only doing what comes naturally.  This is too much like the dance we do with strangers and loved ones alike.  How often we murder parts of ourselves by not letting things advance or come close.  How often we let fear and the swat rule our emotional lives.  How often we kill or chase away everything that moves.  I think of Francis of Assisi, who held so still the birds landed on his branchlike arms, and we wonder why we are so lonely when we won't let anything full of life come near.   If we could only see the bee, or the bird, or our enemy as a brief living center like ourselves, we could let them go on their way without pulling us into opposition."   Mark Nepo

Understanding

You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life. –J. Krishnamurti

A Stong Heart

"A strong heart is not a heart that has a strong armor and a sword.  A strong heart is a happy heart.  A strong heart is a joyous heart.  It is heart that can dance when you are completely free.  Only when you have that openness can you see that darkness and not be absorbed by it, but you can absorb it.  Only when you have that joy and happiness can you go to the heart of darkness.  Sometimes the heart of darkness is Congo and sometimes the heart of darkness is inside you and you can accept it and it's with joy and happiness that you can actually dance with it and absorb it into you.

Get off the warrior's horse, take the armor off.  That's not how we're gonna win the fight.  We're gonna win the fight with our own joy and our own happiness and our own beauty.  To do that you need to walk the warrior's path of breaking your own silence and you'll have to have the courage and the resilience to do it. 

It's not about saving the world.  It's about saving us." Zalnab Salbi

Dance Your LIfe

"When you enter in fully and awaken all the dimensions of your heart and live out of the robustness of the divine difference that is in you and dance your life you're really on sacred ground."  John O' Donahue

Love

"A life where there is love is often messy.   Life without love is neater, but neatness is preferable in bathrooms and written reports.   Dancing alone is often easier and certainly less complicated than dancing with someone else, but there is nothing quite so satisfying as creating even one moment of real beauty moving gracefully with another.   Perhaps to find this beauty more often, these moments of moving in exquisite alignment with each other and with the music that guides us, we need to let go of our ideas of what the dance should look like and let the messiness of the love guide us."   Oriah

God

"Not the God of Names
Nor the God of don'ts,
Nor the God who ever does
Anything weird,
But the God who only knows four words
And keeps repeating them, saying:
"Come dance with Me."   
Rumi