Spiritual writer Joyce Rupp understands all of creation as part of a “cosmic dance”:
No one person has been able to fully communicate this amazing dance of life to me, but Thomas Merton comes close with his description in New Seeds of Contemplation. Merton’s use of the phrase “cosmic dance” set my heart singing. When I read it, I felt my early childhood experience [in nature] of the inner dance being echoed and affirmed:
When we are alone on a starlit night; when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children; when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet Bashō we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash—at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the “newness,” the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance. [1]
Rupp continues:
The soul of the world and our own souls intertwine and influence one another. There is one Great Being who enlivens the dance of our beautiful planet and everything that exists. The darkness of outer space, the greenness of our land and the blue of our seas, the breath of every human and creature, all are intimately united in a cosmic dance of oneness with the Creator’s breath of love. [2]
Rupp celebrates the restoration that takes place by her conscious participation in the dance:
There is such power in the cosmic dance. Each time I resonate with this energy I sink into my soul and find a wide and wondrous connection with each part of my life. I come home to myself, feeling welcomed and restored to kinship with the vast treasures of Earth and Universe. I am re-balanced between hope and despair, slowed down in my greedy eagerness to accomplish and produce no matter the cost to my soul, beckoned to sip of the flavors of creation in order to nourish my depths….
Whenever and however I join with the cosmic dance, it jogs my memory and gives me a kind of “second sight,” a glimpse of the harmony and unity that is much deeper and stronger than the forces of any warring nation or individual. My trust that good shall endure is deepened. My joy of experiencing beauty is strengthened. My resolve to continually reach out beyond my own small walls is renewed. The energy that leaps and twirls in each part of existence commands my attention and draws me into a cosmic embrace. I sense again the limitless love that connects us all. I come home to that part of myself that savors kinship, births compassion, and welcomes tenderness. I re-discover that I am never alone. Always the dance joins me to what “is.” [3]
References:
[1] Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation (New York: New Directions Books, 1961), 296–297.
[2] Joyce Rupp, introduction to The Cosmic Dance: An Invitation to Experience Our Oneness (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002), 10, 11.
[3] Rupp, Cosmic Dance, 17, 19.
Image credit and inspiration: Nah, Untitled (detail), 2018, photo, Iran, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Dancing with a Divine Partner is an intuitive dance: step by step we learn when to take initiative and when to receive, when to sway, when to breathe, when to pause.
Story from Our Community:
As a Quaker by convincement, I understand spiritual formation as a “refiner’s fire.” I understand that much like the process of separating precious metal from its surrounding matrix, the spiritual fire burns away what is unnecessary or unhelpful to expose the holy essence within us. For me, the process has sometimes been very painful and grounded in loss. Yet what remains at the other side of the process is more truly aligned with what I am called to be in Spirit. When I am led to experience this refinement yet again, I call on my memories of the process. I can now enter it with grace, love, patience, and even expectancy.
—Tammy F.
