Do You Wanna Dance? Learning To Be Still and Spontaneous

 

Do you older folks remember the joy of the days when we just "winged it"? You know, we began the day in action set on a random course. The action of spontaneity = freedom and a great sense of liberation. Just maybe being spontaneous allows us to re-balance our spirit between just "being" and "doing." 

I remember many such days when I soaked in unexpected awe, or beauty if you will, of the restless time. How mind-freeing these times were -- allowing me to un-knot my tangled life by discovering and dealing with whatever I ran into along my way. Timeless and beautiful, fragile and yet so strong in need -- I still love spontaneity.

 Kafka once told a teenage friend:  

“Reality is never and nowhere more accessible than in the immediate moment of one’s own life. It’s only there that it can be won or lost.” 

From the moment we are born to the moment we take our last breath, we battle with reality under the constant awareness that we are either winning or losing time. However, does anyone really "win" or "lose" the importance of life? I don't know. I remember the great spontaneity of us teens packing loads of ourselves in my old convertible Mustang for Dollar a Carload Drive-in Movie night. The unofficial count was sixteen but distance breeds unreality. Fun, non-stop action, great comradery, we friends in the 60s had it all. But, let's get serious. Oh hell, read on if you will, please.

Some say we long continually for what T.S. Eliot called "the still point of the turning world." I agree. Do you. Today, let's consider the verse and its relation to what we spontaneously do and its meaning.

At the still point of the turning world (from The Four Quartets)

by T.S. Eliot 

Original Language English

"At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance. 

I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time."

That image of movement, dancing amidst stillness, right at the center point may seem senseless until you measure that time itself -- in the still point of the turning world -- not only of past and future, but of all things is our pleasure.That ironic idea is almost mind-blowing in conception ... a point not of fixation nor of arrest of movement, but rather where we literally "dance."

Is this the point of spontaneity when certain ideas -- important ideas -- are spoken of so often within spiritual and religious dialog that the words start to lose their meaning. Words like "the present," "centering," "here and now..." After one has read enough books or listened to enough talks, phrases like that become expected and slip by without really registering any more. Such phrases as "time is of the essence" is simply prudent cliche at best. Humans seek the moment of "dance" -- if, indeed, it can even be measured in time.

(Maria Popova. "The Psychology of Time and How the Interplay of Spontaneity and Self-Control Mediates Our Capacity for Presence." The Marginalien. April 27, 2016.

 Reread this line as a new reformulation of words and images:

 "Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is..."

Do these words by Eliot not startle our worn mental insulation while the truth behind real spontaneity touch us anew, more deeply, with new suggestions of meaning. The "still point" describes the loss of any other relation to time other than the real reward of our yearning hearts. The world may keep spinning but our dance entrances our entire human existence. Maybe small steps or longer strides -- it's the dance we seek, and yet find so hard to maintain.

The "dance" is appropriately described by loss of any other sensation -- it may be we lose ours sense of reality in the still of fleeting moments; however, we seek it over and over. In itself, this dance is a single point of tremendous joy and awakening.

 In verse, the poet brings us to that "still point" and it is there where we spontaneously "dance."

"Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance."

 ("At the still point of the turning world (from The Four Quartets)." Poetry Chaikhana. http://poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/E/EliotTS/Atstillpoint/index.html.)

It is our spontaneity that creates the DANCE and for us, our love of life is at this STILL point, a perfection of living understanding of this endlessly spinning planet. It has nothing to do with the past or with the future, but only with the instantaneous, brief presence of our lives colliding with the continuity of purpose and actions.

Let's celebrate spontaneity and freedom to crave reaching our own "dance" points, no matter our age. Although we can never replace them in terms of time or space, we surely remember dances we frequently did with great natural, unrestrained ardor -- even those dances that could have turned against our own exuberance and passions are part of our "still points in a spinning world." Self-consciousness aside, it is the dance we all still seek. And, as Jackson Browne writes, in its personal formality: "We all do it (dance) alone resulting from a seed that somebody else has thrown" ... "and there is a reason you (and I) are alive but you'll never know -- keep right on dancing.

"For A Dancer"
Words and Music by Jackson Browne

Keep a fire burning in your eye
Pay attention to the open sky
You never know what will be coming down
I don't remember losing track of you
You were always dancing in and out of view
I must have thought you'd always be around
Always keeping things real by playing the clown
Now you're nowhere to be found

I don't know what happens when people die
Can't seem to grasp it as hard as I try
It's like a song I can hear playing right in my ear
That I can't sing
I can't help listening
And I can't help feeling stupid standing 'round
Crying as they ease you down
'Cause I know that you'd rather we were dancing
Dancing our sorrow away
(Right on dancing)
No matter what fate chooses to play
(There's nothing you can do about it anyway)

Just do the steps that you've been shown
By everyone you've ever known
Until the dance becomes your very own
No matter how close to yours
Another's steps have grown
In the end there is one dance you'll do alone

Keep a fire for the human race
Let your prayers go drifting into space
You never know what will be coming down
Perhaps a better world is drawing near
And just as easily it could all disappear
Along with whatever meaning you might have found
Don't let the uncertainty turn you around
(The world keeps turning around and around)
Go on and make a joyful sound

Into a dancer you have grown
From a seed somebody else has thrown
Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own
And somewhere between the time you arrive
And the time you go
May lie a reason you were alive
But you'll never know