The Sacred Dance

The Sacred Dance.


I write the words of the sacred dance
The rhythm of the Universe inside the spoken rhyme
In dream I danced with a smiling trickster,
Myself a man; myself a woman; myself, myself.
My eyes to my eyes, nose to nose (ha!),
Male and female both but two were there…
We danced the sacred dance
Upon a floor with no floor
In a room with no walls
Under a roof with no sky.
With no sound but the words of ancient rhyme
A deep, rich rhythm of the spoken Word…
The Word creating the sacred dance.

Colleridge wrote from a dream of Xanadu.
And woken by the Pastor’s knock…left incomplete
A secret source of truth. He dreamt and then forgot…
But at least he knew it was there.

He reads the sacred Word for my dream.
A Universe created within the Word
Did join our feet and hands and body,
In cross formation like the sacred Hindu cross;
We danced the sacred dance of complete and total stillness
A union.
Feet becoming one as we slowly turned about the room.
Bodies joined in sexual counterpoint,
Balance perfected still, and ages still, and ages still.
Inside the rhythm that saw no movement,
Felt no time or feeling…
Heard no sound but the thrumming of the spoken Word.

Our feet and hands outstretched like spokes,
Joined palm to palm, toe to toe,
The perfect rhythm of the Word our feet followed.
I thought…no thought.
Then I thought, “So perfect. So perfect. So perfect”
Unable to describe the hours long, as we became a universe
Of our own but not.

I thought too much and fear stepped in,
“What if I break the rhythm?” and with the thought
The rhythm was broken.
Unfinished, but undiminished,
There was the moment…ages long of perfection.
The dance slowly losing grace, the words slowing and disappearing.
Perfection disrupted by the very action of my thoughts.
To be inside perfection is completion.
To think; to limit; to fear; perfection crumbles into chaos..

The dream evaporates with a tolerant smile
Of understanding…
But evaporate it does
No blame from the trickster that was I -
Man and woman  - all myself.

Perfection cannot blame; nor criticise; nor fear; nor limit.
Not put upon us its own failings.
All these destroy the sacred rhythm
That binds the universe together.
Like the beating heart keeps the body from decay.

To some, much more is given.
Of them much more is expected.
I know how to wait!!!
For inside the night; inside the stillness; inside the dream,
The spoken rhythm remains, perfect in its beauty.
There is no tiring; no weakness; no age;
No heat nor cold; no needs of hunger and thirst;
No sweat; no yearning for completion as on earth.

I think I was in heaven for a moment…
In some Angelic waiting place.
No words describe perfection nor explain the unexplainable.
And left with joy, not loss
I sense again the plan unfolding that is too easily forgotten.
Understanding that the perfection of the rhythm of the dance
Is easily disrupted by my doubt and fear of limitation…
But only for the briefest flash of time.
That perhaps it is also part of the plan to have disruption,
For without the lesson learned, would I understand
Or would it be a dream forgotten?

A dream forgotten that once I danced in sacred halls,
A sacred dance, upon a sacred floor, without walls,
Nor roof, nor sound but the rhythm of the sacred word.
Therese Mackay 15/6/02