Dancing Beyond Reason: When Ordinary Movement Becomes Sacred
No Shaman or Ceremony required
We don’t practice ecstatic joy enough.
We don’t dance and sweat and ache enough. We don’t push ourselves beyond exhaustion, beyond common sense, beyond our physical limits until we find ourselves in new territory, without words and surrounded by beauty.
It’s a lost practice.
Last night, my daughter described jogging. She started by describing the grueling pain and discomfort – the impact of her feet on the sidewalk, the sweat in her eyes, her aching muscles – even the boredom.
But instead of finding these discomforts a reason not to jog, she found them to be a reason to jog. The discomfort reminded her that she had a body, that she wasn’t just a floating head. She said that the aerobic benefits were good for her heart but also, good for her heart. In many ways, she felt like a better person when she connected with her body by jogging.
When she connected with her body, she lived more comfortably.
I was wearing a long, white robe. Well, everyone was. It was basically three cones of fabric, one for one for each arm, and a long cone for my body. Sometimes I remember it as a dress that was fitted at my waist, and ended with a full skirt. Other times it was a shapeless tunic. But the fashion details don't really matter. What does matter is that I remember the fabric filling with air and swirling around my legs as I spun. That part of my dream I know for sure.
Physical movement, even uncomfortable movement, has long been a way to connect with your deeper self, to reveal insights that are hidden in everyday life. It’s a way to go beyond logic into the world of liminal space.
It’s tempting to think this requires special circumstances. You need a sacred tree or a Shaman or plant medicine. It’s tempting to believe that without magic, nothing mystical can happen.
But movement into the liminal is quite ordinary. My daughter feels it as she jogs. I feel it as I dance.
In January, I danced on the beach near Puerto Vallarta. This was an ordinary dance, organized for gray-haired Western tourists who, if my assessment was correct, haven’t spent their lives exploring the Invisible Spaces. The staff laid woven seagrass mats on the sand to create a makeshift dance floor. The DJ played the greatest hits from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. An older black woman in a kaftan danced with a younger man (her son?) with smooth, glide-y movements. Two slightly self-conscious young Mexican women danced together. From time to time, the staff joined in for a dance or two.
I danced on the edge of the dance floor, right under a speaker that blasted the music so loud that I couldn’t hear myself shouting the words “I will Survive” or “Sweet Caroline”. Dance after dance, I twirled and shook, jumped and writhed to the music. I danced with partners and alone. Song after song, I danced.
I was in the middle of a field, surrounded by families, friends, and strangers. The women had laid picnic blankets on the ground and set up little dining rooms with piles of Tupperware containers of food. The children ran around dodging the picnic blankets as if they were lava beds. The littlest ones slept in nests of blankets next to their mothers. When the music began, everyone slowly started moving to the circle.
I was one of the first to slip inside. From the center, the musicians seated on the circumference created a basket for the dance.
When they started playing, I began to move.
The music was more rhythm and vibration than melody. The dance was more twirling and circling than dance moves. I began my twirls, moving around the circle with the other dancers and I had a fleeting thought wondering if this is what Sufi Dervishes feel like.
As the sun fell and the stars rose, I released myself to the rhythm of the dance. I no longer thought about anything. I was completely instinct and sensation – as if I was pure energy, connected to all that is, and all that will ever be.
In an older body, dancing on the beach is not what it used to be. At some point, I realized that if I continued my gyrations, I could throw out my SI joint. I remembered a wedding when dancing on a barn floor left me with bruises on my feet. So I had a moment when I had to decide if it was smart to continue, no matter how much I wanted to show off my Jumping-Jack-Flash choreography.
And that was the moment.
When you choose to go beyond the sensible choice, when you choose to follow your body into the liminal spaces, you cross a line. You open yourself to ecstasy. Moving your body becomes joy itself. You become the music. Your thoughts, worries, and ideas surrender to the intelligence of the moment.
Yes, even during a Tourist festival on the beach.
Ecstatic movement can happen anywhere.
As the night went on, I was only vaguely aware that others had returned to their blankets until eventually, only a few of us were left in the circle. When the sun rose, I noticed that my feet were bleeding, leaving little drops of blood in the dust, only to be mashed into red-colored mud by my continued movements.
When the sun came up, the group awoke. The kids began playing and the mothers encouraged the children to have breakfast.
I took a break and returned to my friends and family.
As the sun grew brighter and the colors became more vivid, the energy of the crowd became animated and excited. I looked over the field and in all directions, people were shaking out their picnic blankets and packing up their Tupperware. When they cleared their sleep site, I marveled how much mothers can bring for the comfort of their families and how efficient they are at packing it all up. So much fit into their baskets.
As each group cleaned their sites and packed their belongings in their cars, the field became emptier and emptier. Finally only matted grass and the silent sound of music that is no longer playing was left.
I don’t know how long I stood in that same position. No one was left but me.
I had no thoughts, no plan, no sense of what to do next. A bardo moment, the liminal space when the past is gone and the future hasn't arrived. I had nothing, was nothing. I felt only openness.
After a while, a 1970 Chevy pickup truck came by. It was loud and rusty, with a bed that was ridiculously big and completely empty, making the truck both lightweight and heavy at the same time.
The driver, a tall, lanky man who looked like a Hollywood-cast rancher, leaned over to the passenger side, unrolled the window, and yelled, “Can I take you somewhere?”
The question had no answer. I had nowhere to go. I thought back on the crowd that had been with me only moments before, people I loved and cared about, people who had danced with me.
And that's when I understood.
Most people dance once a year. They gather and attend Ceremony. Then when it's over, they pack up and go home, back to their regular lives.
But for me, I belong in that field. There is no regular life to go back to. I dance. Always. For me, dancing is not for one night. I must dance every night in that field. I can’t go home because I don't have another home.
I had my “Dancing in a Field” dream at least 20 years ago. That dream has been a guiding light, a metaphor, and explainer for the often oddball choices I’ve made. Like a story read and reread, I come back to it and always find new meaning.
At its center is the experience of ecstatic movement, of traveling to a place beyond the everyday. It’s the comfort my daughter finds in jogging. It’s the ecstasy of dancing on the beach.
I have danced in Ceremony and in the ordinary. I understand viscerally that the body can be a doorway. It can bring you into the present moment and into the places beyond what we see. Its animal nature reminds us of how little control we have and its innate wisdom reveals what is beyond words.
ANNOUCING: Moving Meditation
For the month of April, I’ll be hosting free 10-minute moving meditations. These are easy, quick sessions of mindful movement. Don’t worry if you haven’t done moving meditation—I’ll guide you through the process.
Here are the dates:
Friday, April 25 @ 12:00pm CST
Monday, April 28 @ 10:00am CST
To join the meditation, you’ll need to download the Substack App. When the meditation starts, you’ll receive a notification to join the LIVE event.
The format is simple. I’ll arrive 5 minutes before the start time so we can get settled in. At the top of the hour, I’ll begin guiding you through the meditation. You can be indoors or outside. You just need a little room to move. Sometimes we’ll walk, and sometimes move in one place.
Love, love, love this! My dancing in a field happened on a harvest moon night, nearly thirty years ago outside of Austin, Texas. Half naked and sometimes all naked, we danced wildly, me and a hundred strangers, around a bonfire to drum music. And when we were through, we laid down in the tall grass and it began to rain on us. Steam rose from our bodies as the cool drops landed and we all looked around in silence half wondering if this was actually real. It was. This is a real as I may have ever been.