Life as a Dance
June 2009
Consider being born into life as being placed into a dance studio.
Like all studios this one has four walls, providing you with certain
space, and also time, limitations. The studio represents duality. You
can bemoan these limitations, you can fight against them and you can,
indeed, leave the studio anytime you like - although if you bash down a
wall to get out it will probably be more painful than waiting for the
door to open in its own time. In actual fact the studio door opens more
than once in your lifetime, but you will not always notice and will only
walk through it when you truly choose so.
Mirrors cover every wall inside the studio and music plays, seemingly on
its own, in a loud and powerful way. The mirrors represent the feedback,
or reflections, to you from your environment. You can certainly choose
to dance your dance – or live your life – with your eyes closed all the
time. This will mean you do not see your own reflection, and that can
seem as if it assists you to avoid pain. Sometimes it does. Yet you will
never dance with full abandon or freedom if your eyes are closed because
you will be fearful of getting hurt. So, paradoxically, in trying to
avoid the pain of seeing yourself fully, you increase the chances of
other kinds of pain, such as accidents, as well as the sharper pain of
not dancing in your fullest joy.
You can also choose to dance with your eyes open and see yourself in the
mirrors as you go along. This takes bravery, because you will not always
see a reflection that you like. If that happens, it allows you the
opportunity, simply, to choose again. To dance more and more
authentically until you like how you feel when you look in the mirrors.
While you are in this phase of your life, it is useful every now and
again to close your eyes and give yourself a break from seeing your
reflection. These are moments where you look inward, forget the world
and its reflections, where you stop learning, stop improving and simply
enjoy the blissful recognition that the dancer in the mirror is just a
reflection and this dance studio is just a game of your own creation.
Resting yourself in this way, every so often, rejuvenates and inspires
you to continue creating a beautiful dance. If you become overly
focused, or analytical, about the mirrors – in other words trying too
hard to find the meaning in every reflection – you will forget to dance!
After you have respected and used the mirrors sufficiently to enhance
your dance you will slowly, and naturally, begin to forget about them.
At this stage you will be entirely focused on the joy of your own
experience and will have become fully trusting of the feelings in your
body to give you the feedback you need.
The music that is playing in the studio represents the circumstances in
your life – what is happening ‘out there’. Sometimes a sad song plays,
sometimes an exciting one, sometimes the song is to your taste,
sometimes it is not. Sometimes you stop dancing when a song plays that
you think you do not like. ‘Change the song!’ you shout and you stamp
your feet or refuse to move until life brings you the exact
circumstances (money, job, partner, government, state of health) that
you presume will be in your best interests. You get more and more angry,
or resigned, when you realize that neither resisting nor waiting
succeeds in bringing on a song that you prefer. What can you do? You can
dance anyway! You can begin to trust that you can create a beautiful
dance (Self) even when it is a sad, or angry, or unsatisfying song
playing at the time.
And do you know what the delicious secret is? When you begin to create
grace, peace, beauty in your dancing - irrespective of the song that is
playing – then you ‘tune yourself in’ to music of that nature and you
begin to have an influence on the songs that are going to be played for
you in your future! You will never be able to totally control the
soundtrack of your life, and it is a waste of your precious energy to
try to do so. Simply take note of the music and set yourself free to
dance in your own sweet way. Even if your dance is full of grief, even
if you are dancing to a song you never thought you could – don’t wait,
create.
Just as with the mirrors, eventually you will not be obsessed with what
music is playing. You will trust in your ability to dance, irrespective
of the song. The music will fade into the background and you will focus
your energy exclusively on dancing in the most magical way that you (not
your culture, your religion, your family) can imagine. In this
paradoxical, divine game, the studio, the mirrors and the music have
seemed like your obstacles but have become your creative impetus.
So, dear friends, for now simply take light note of the song that is
playing in your life right now, and the reflections that you are getting
from the world and people around you - and use them to enhance your
dance.
©Angela Deutschmann 2009
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