Tales from the Dance Jam #9
In brief, the warm room provides the opening portal into the other world, drums fill the sacred cavern. Strength and posture, poise and grace, earnestness and interconnected passion, beautiful men pass limb and face and torse and groin and forearm and calf and curled toes and crotch and sweat and neck across and through each other's being; I am wholly captivated by their improv for what feels like weeks. I crawl, I'm tired, I move, I slither, I sit, I watch, I bring tears of joy from the faces of a thousand lonely children into the space of one centered moment which rests on a dime with perfect poise. She dances, he moves, she sits, he lay across her, she laughs, he plays a frame drum, she leaves the room, he enters nirvana. It goes on and on like this. The main floor, from slow to pulsing to flutes to tabla to pop to full stop. OM, roll, laugh, talk, bounce into the wall. Two beautiful men sit in contact, in a stretch, as a lotus, sometimes staring into the unified existence of Soul, sometimes completely alone in the room and with their bodies, the same yet launching on amazing inner journeys. Gorgeous young longhair sexily dancing the joy of his body, moving, breathing, being. Not minding a thing. I look around, I am surrounded by beauty, by men, by hair, by brothers. Strangely, it all feels outside of myself, like I want something I don't already have, though I have the entirety of the universe passing through me at any given moment. They all seem to know each other, to fall into improv at the drop of a bare foot on the dance floor. Yet in this place, one never knows, they might have just met in this lifetime for the first time. One never knows. Sometimes there's some ambiguity and strange signals. Often it's just a trick of the mind to bring us away from knowing, really knowing who we really are. I remain inspired by the fully passionate and completely present contact jams I witnessed tonight. The smiles, hugs, looks, touches, massages, musical exchanges that passed between so many people. What felt outside of me the most was wanting to have those connections and sharings for myself, for family, for partners - familiar and strange - who will ride the wild, sweet, ecstatic, cathartic journey in mutual understanding, joy, movement, sharing, compassion, support, nurturing, and an exchange that boasts no boundaries or limits, nothing, in fact, which is particular or specific or individual. Family comes close to me, becomes me, kisses me on the cheek, kisses me on the neck, kisses me on the lips, holds me and calls up the ancestors to bring me through the rites of passage unknown to me yet in this lifetime. And one by one, all by all, familiar and strange, family come together as one, and existence manifests itself in a thousand flowers blooming with their scents overwhelming the body, mind, emotions, and spirit in a sacred dance.
Inside the temple.
composed by Shaggy
(posted on 4/15/00)