Dance

She created us, and so we dance.
She smiles down upon our dance.
She grows happy because we dance.

We are her grandchildren, and so we dance.
Our dance is our best prayer to her.
She laughs in happiness because we dance.

We are her children, and we must dance.
If we were ever to forget, she would weep.
She would never cease her weeping.

She is the mother to whom we dance.If only insect tracks marked our dancing grounds,
She would forget us too, and we would die.

She is the goddess who dances through us.
We are her chidlren, and we must dance.
She created us, and so we dance.

--Shawnee bread dance song

We celebrate the goddess when we fully engage in this dance of life. As the Shawnee people of the great American woodlands realized,wemost honor the universal mother by participating in her creativity.

Reading this, and going through my day of meditating on the subject, I found myself getting caught up in the notion of creativity, which for me is concerned with writing. The entry itself also reminded me of an idea I had some time ago to write a story where the chapters would each be based on a part of the Charge of the Goddess. There's certainly the echo of that in the Shawnee Bread Dance Song.

However, widening my meditation, the dance and creativity quickly became the idea of 'living consciously' that I also used to engage in, and when I was 'teaching' was one of the things I insisted on in my students. Others may have found it strange, or funny that I didn't speak much while eating for example, but for me, focussing on and respecting the animals and plants that died so that I can live is an important thing to do. This, to me, is the dance. This is honouring the spirit of life which is the Goddess.

It really helps also, with feelings of frustration that might hit during the day. There were many opportunities for me to test out this theory today - in some I succeeded in centering and 'dancing' my way past them, in others - not so much, like standing in the '20 items of less' lane for AGES because the woman in front evidently couldn't count. How can people get away with that? It was mostly frustrating because we were trying to make the movie on time, but... I should really just have 'danced it off' like I did the trip to RDU earlier in the day because the banks in Chapel Hill couldn't exchange the currency for me. But embracing the experiences; taking them for what they are, and not the impact they have on the progress of your daily experiences does for the most part help to reduce frustrations.


(From Goddess Companion: Daily Meditations on the Goddess.)