Dancing the Dream

You may say I’m a dreamer, well I’m not the only one...

(Imagine, John Lennon).

Perhaps we are all dreamers. Perhaps that is what makes us human: seeking, searching, imagining, reaching for the beyond. 

We are mythmakers and storytellers.

This is how we make sense of our lives, marking the lessons learned, tracing a trajectory to convince ourselves that it is all leading somewhere.

We are spiritual voyeurs peering through the peepholes in the canopy of heaven with the hope of gaining a fleeting glimpse into the how and the why. 

In the meantime, in the present moment, how do we make peace with the mundane, the ordinary, the actual? How do we match our dreams with our realities? How do we infuse the concrete realities with our aspirations and vision? 

Our weekly Tango gathering.

We are barely a baker’s dozen (and only if you count the couple that stopped in on the way to the hockey game to sign their wedding document!) We congregate around candle-lit tables, chatting, carefully removing our COVID masks to munch on Raspberry Cream Cheese Torte and sip a Malbec. We patiently wait for that elusive Tango high. Our chances? 

Across the street 21,000 screaming, frenzied hockey fans are wetting their hopes for the return of the Oilers’ glory years with another beer. What are the odds?

My friend and erstwhile dance partner, in lockdown during COVID, is teaching online yoga: “Close your eyes and let the light shine in through your third eye. Breathe in through your belly button and exhale through your back. Let go of your thoughts and sink deep into mindfulness.” Huh?

A casual conversation? an overtime goal? a mindfulness meditation? Do we see in any of this the watermark of meaning?

A gift of grace.

Once, maybe twice in our lives, the stars align, the veil parts and we catch a clear vision of what is and what could be. Everything melds together in the continuity of practice and purpose. And then it passes and we are left trying to reconstruct the ordinary. 

We cannot manufacture such epiphanies. What we can do is prepare: make ourselves receptive and responsive. We can get ourselves down onto the yoga mat and breathe in and out deeply. We can sink deep into the stillness of centering prayer. We can dutifully turn the garden soil and wait patiently for a new flowering season. 

Life is a sacrament.

Every moment is a treasure trove into which we pour our yearnings, longings, and hopes. The real, the immediate, the actual, the sensual, are all a gateway to awakening. The passage is forged by the courage to love, to be vulnerable, to hope, to trust our bodies to feel, to free our minds to dream. 

The point of intersection between what is and what could be, between body and spirit, between human and divine is not so much in the fleeting exhilaration of a triumph or a once-in-a-lifetime vision or a secret lovers’ tryst but in the care and gentleness with which we embrace each moment and each encounter. It is in the ordinary everyday comfort of a blossoming flower, a hand on the shoulder, a drink shared around a candle-lit table, one ear attuned to the music, waiting for the magic moment to step back out onto the dance floor.  

In the in-between time, we eat cake, sip wine, tell stories, create community and share in a moment of grace.

Easter reflection:

He was made known to them in the breaking of bread. Luke ch. 24.

Personal note: Calendar-wise, it is still relatively close to Easter and where I live in Edmonton, Alberta, very much the season of new beginnings. I seem to be drawn to tie in the themes of Easter: incarnation, resurrection, sacrament and new beginnings, with my more regular reflections on dance. More elections to come on dance as sacrament.