The Dance of Life

– Art: Patrick Mizumoto

The art of living is based on rhythm – on give and take, ebb and flow, light and dark, life and death. By acceptance of all aspects of life, good and bad, right and wrong, yours and mine, the static, defensive life, which is what most people are cursed with, is converted into a dance, “the dance of life,” metamorphosis.

One can dance to sorrow or to joy; one can even dance abstractly. But the point is that, by the mere act of dancing, the elements which compose it are transformed; the dance is an end in itself, just like life. The acceptance of the situation, any situation, brings about a flow, a rhythmic impulse towards self-expression.

To relax is, of course, the first thing a dancer has to learn. It is also the first thing a patient has to learn when he confronts the analyst. It is the first thing any one has to learn in order to live. It is extremely difficult, because it means surrender, full surrender.

– Henry Miller

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• The Art of Surrender
• Sweet Surender
• I Surrender to You
• Kiki Dee and Carmelo Luggeri: Where Rivers Meet
• Something Wonderful
• Time and the River
• The Dancer and the Dance
• Flexibility and Flow
• To Dance . . .
• The Soul of a Dancer
• The Premise of All Forms of Dance
• The Art of Dancing as the Supreme Symbol of the Spiritual Life
• Not Whether We Dance, But How
• Awakening the Wild Soul
• Our Bodies Are Part of the Cosmos
• On the Rocks . . . But in a Good Way
• Love’s the Only Dance
• Our Dance
• Mystical Participation
• “I Came Alive With Hope”

Art: Patrick Mizumoto.