LET IT BE A DANCE

The theme for this, my last post of 2010, was stimulated by many converging events all happening this week. It started when my friend Bonnie Weiss told me she was spending New Year's Eve at a party hosted by someone who teaches something called Biodanza. I Googled it and found it to be a new personal development sensation around the world that originated in South America--a combination of dance and emotional sharing and group dynamics.

This reminded me of an old friend and mentor in Miami, Poldi Orlando. Every Monday night at the Unitarian church, she taught her creative movement class, and we all learned to move in new and energized ways. I have experienced some of the most celebrated movement teachers in the world, but not one of them could hold a candle to Poldi, the Polish dynamo. She was a dancing magician, transforming many klutzes like me into graceful beings. Joining me at many of those Monday nights was my favorite beautiful dancer, Rupa Cousins. We also attended Sufi dancing classes at the church, and Rupa has since become a teacher of Sufi dancing herself, along with her bodywork and therapy practice, her workshops on Dance As Prayer, her folk dancing, and all the other amazing stuff she does.

www.RupaCousins.com

And when Rupa and I talked about this yesterday, I mentioned that I had had two women in my life with whom dancing was like making love, though neither of them were romantic partners. Then today, I found this great quote from Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift From The Sea (one of the ten landmark books given to students of the mail order Famous Writers School). You can see why many couples writing their own wedding vows like to include it:

"A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules. Dancers know they are moving to the same rhythm, creating a pattern together, and being invisibly nourished by it. The joy of the pattern is not only the joy of creation or the joy of participation; it is also the joy of living in the moment."

And I was also reminded of my dear friend, the late Ric Masten, often called by such celebrated fans as Bill Moyers "The People's Poet". He also came to the Miami Unitarian church from his home in Big Sur--he was a Unitarian minister as well as poet and troubador.
http://www.uuworld.org/life/articles/2877.shtml
Perhaps Ric's most popular song was Let It Be A Dance:

Let it be a dance we do.
May I have this dance with you?
Through the good times
and the bad times, too.
Let it be a dance.

And one thing Ric said once has stuck in my mind for many years. He said if we could only speed up the mountains, we would see that they were dancing.

And so I have two words for what I prefer calling one of my New Year's Revolutions.

More Dancing!

May your 2011 be filled with the moves and melodies to delight, nourish, enliven,
and inspirit you.

It's been a profound pleasure dancing with you all through 2010 on these pages.

Jerry