Dance, My Soul

      Silence is a phenomenon that does not truly exist.  When we are alone, quiet, at rest, we can feel that void as a heavy cloud weighing and pressing down on us.  But the reality is that we are never alone and the earth is never silent.  When the chaos of the day turns into a cool night, and the chatter of the humans we share this planet with subsides, that is when the earth is able to reach out and beckon our ears to the place where the music truly lingers.  The song of the wind calls us to hearken as the leaves and branches of the trees it blows invite us to come sit and listen for a while.  In the starlight the cicadas and crickets charm us into a dance of sacred steps that can only be known to the dancer who reaches deep within to remember the soul movement that was understood exclusively by those who once resided among awareness.  There is an emotional untethering, a mental and even physical release that gushes from deep in our hearts when we close our eyes and recall that ancient music that lives within us all.  It is a song of primordial consciousness, a freedom that exists only when we forget our mortal bodies and weave a tale too complex to be spoken with language.  It is a legend too powerful to be seen with human eyes and too essential to be understood by physical senses.  The song that we feel inside of our hearts, the dance that we release from the bottom of our souls, is a force that can't be written, spoken, or rationalized.  There is a reason that music makes a party, that love is expressed lyrically, worship is sung into the heavens, that we meditate and journey to the rhythm of the drum.  Ideas much too deep and important to be told plainly are crooned and strummed into earthly existence, flowing from our inner worlds of spiritual depths.  Emotions are expressed in a way that only song can convey and only dance can appease.  Music is a therapy, an urge, a desperate longing, a sacred calling, a means of transformation for the hybrid divine.  The oldest instrument known to man is the flute.  Made from bird bones and mammoth ivory, the flute was played at night while tribes sang and danced round a fire of heat and passion.  Alone, or surrounded by like-hearted kindred, let the music connect you with the earth and all that is in realms that cannot be seen.  The drum is the intoxicating heartbeat and our voices rise to mingle with the neural pathways of the heavens.  As we let our limbs twist and wind through the celestial ether, blood pounding in time with natures pulse, our feet drumming the earth and sending shoots of roots into the under-realms of space, we can clearly see why we smile.  Our hearts quicken and our ears prick up to the sound of a tune we can grasp onto and our faces smile when we realize that the song in you is the song in me, because it is the joy of the earth and the secrets of God.
What is your soul dancing to?

"Dance Of The Moonlight..." painted by bohomaz13

Music by Sarah Howle & Wyatt Garey

"Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent."

- Victor Hugo

I Never Knew

       I once knew a woman whose hair grew long and free.  I would visit with her from time to time while she stared off into the distance, far past me.  Stories of was and when tumbled from her lips, but her words brought tears to my eyes because I never realized what I never knew.  I had never known that her small frame had once been beaten by fists of disgrace, her fair skin blemished with the scars of hate.  I loved to stare into the glistening pool of her eyes, never knowing that their depths had been dug by the fingers of despair.  I felt that she had accomplished much through her bravery and creativity, but I never knew that each day was a struggle of life and death, no's and maybe's.  A crushing weight sat upon her chest, but to me it looked as though she was laying upon the ground on purpose.  Her doll-like feet seemed to float above the blades of grass as she walked, but underneath were striped scars from the glass and the rocks.  Her breasts were humble, not hidden but not boasted, while underneath were the secreted burns of the branding iron.  I thought her perceptive, all knowing it seemed.  But the truth is that she was hyperaware, needing to always know her way to safety if danger began to scream.  Her body appeared to move seamlessly with the wind as she danced around the nights fire; I never knew that she was really dodging the hot sparks of desire.  The stars seemed to shine down upon the halo of her simple brow, the flowers and trees bending while she passed with an extravagant bow.  She told me of far away places and caverns and caves, beaches where century old soldiers unearthed graves.  She had witnessed the birth of the moon in all of its wondrous glory, and had sat in awe as the suns flames rose to chase the infant underground.  I watched as her fingers wove colorful lives together, magic and stars exploding instantly without sound.  In her passion and fury her words blew smoke and her eyes shone blue as day, red as night, and finally green as her breath began to slow.  Her scarred chest heaved up and down in time with the feathers that round her head wound.  When her tongue spoke no more, the stories were at an end, I looked up to beseech her to tell me more, "one more!" I implore.  I felt desperate, not knowing where we would go from here without her words to carry me through another afternoon of laughter and tears.  She held one palm away, allowing its  emptiness to blow away on the breeze of the past.  The other she put to her lips and whispered quietly into, her eyes closed in peace.  The flowers dancing under my toes were the only sound as I suddenly knew that I would have to go on.  I could still visit my muse occasionally, but I felt within myself the truth that was always there.  That I am her, and she is me.  I'm beautiful and lovely just as I thought of her, her journey was a path that I also traveled.  I can wear her flowered crown, pricking my own fingers and growing my own star-laced gown.  My own eyes shine with the galaxy and planets that align, my own womb bearing the pain of all who could have belonged.  I too am strong; I also have a tale to tell, and the words that flow from my fingers have the power to grow like cancer or shine like moonbeams.  I too can turn my scars into ribbons of grace and wear past injustices as a smile upon my face.  I also harbor magic in the palms of my heart and, if I so choose, can toss my glittered sorrow to spot the sky as stars in the night.

Moon Goddess painting by Karen Ferrand Carroll