Healing (part 6): Dance, Rhythm and Trance.

Its all trance. The dance of energy. Immense pleasure accompanied by simultaneous shutting off of the internal dialogue. Once you are in there the "impossible becomes possible". To put it more simply you are in the right space.

Dance is definitely as old as the world, as I am sure the alien astronauts who reached the confines of their conscious space weren't so square as to not dance? So why not be more open to an idea that the universe of rhythm music and dance is connected as well.

Whatever can get you there.....

Rhythmic beating of the drum in one place is similar to choral rendering in another and then there is also didgeridoo which is both I suppose.

The ritual begins, but its fun, like a prom dance, and everyone is slowly revealing their inner animal as they feel more and more comfortable with the beat being played by few crazy-looking characters on the side. These "crazy-looking characters" are actually priests, who don't just play the drum - they speak to the gods, i.e. to the higher consciousness, as well as the protector-revealer force of that gathering.

We start off unsure of ourselves, but as the beat goes on, we become more and more sure that no matter what we do and how we move - it's just fine, and no matter how freaky we may think that movement is, the protector-revealer of the gathering will benevolently smile upon our efforts and will find us another one and another one and yet another one who will move just the same.

As the ritual continues, wondrous things start to happen. The fire in the middle of the dancing circle, like a forever built-in live monument dances and communicates with the participants giving them signs, "don't burn yourself!" he says, "don' get carried away and burn yourself on me", "or instead of a benevolent warm element I will become a killer" . We benevolently listen to his utterings and while forgetting our social selves we keep in mind who is the real boss - it's the bonfire in the middle, and there is a special person in charge of feeding it with new branches, prepared in plenty beforehand.

While many are here for fun, many are here for a reason. We notice that they can barely move, and others may be just lying down - that is because they are ill, for one reason or the other they are searching for healing from the accumulated energy of this dance. Some of them are moaning as the cathartic experience brings out their pains and worries, others are moving better and faster as their bodies and spirits are getting oiled and receive the healing.

Others are here to find spouses, they are mostly young and dance better than everyone else - their movements are fancy and like colorful birds they stand out - many are successful as they are being joined by the beautiful opposites with the signs of affection, sometimes merging into one - these will be joined later officially with the help of the priestess.

The drummers are doing a hell of a job - they are masters in their art, and their beat flows non-stop from the wicked instruments in their possession - it syncopates, talks, slower and faster, and sometimes it feints stopping while resuming with a new force cascading on both listeners and dancers with the ecstasy of drum melody.

Their music is sacred as it is directed to the overlords of the gathering, and many times they are so into it, that they don't even notice how the music starts flowing all by itself, with rhythms that they never heard before, and the complexity and emotion of the spoken language.

The fire calms down, and most participants are lying down asleep, some grunting and some smiling in their renewed dreams. There are a few who are not asleep and are waiting for the dawn with open eyes, sometimes sitting by and embracing each other. They are happy to have found each other in the sometimes lonely world.

The ones that came for healing will feel better when they return to their huts. Their limbs will work better. Others who came for internal ailments will feel how their internal processes are given new life. As they are giving offerings to their ancestral gods by their places of birth they will sigh, and marvel at how much better they are feeling, and how much more energy to accomplish new things they have stored. All is well, and the Always Gracious Mother Goddess is embracing all her children with the benevolent smile as there is nothing that is not good and not empowering here, and as we let go of many of our bariers and limits to our imagination we truly feel more united with that great organism that supports and nourishes us, the Earth.

About How They Did It Back Then

Literature is full of stories about the adepts of the past. Depending on which tradition you are studying, you will encounter very rich fables about:

 1) What brought that or the other human to the path.
 2) How they found a teacher.
 3) How they were initiated and proceeded through the cathartic 2nd stage of learning.
 4) How they found companions on the path.
 5) How they achieved a critical barrier.
 6) How they become benefactors for others

This delineation is by no means final. It is only a vague outline, and many times these interchange and of course are much more denser if you apply them to life.

There is no way to describe the exact flow of this sort of narrative, since it always varies, but it is obvious that there is some sort of an abstract that can at least serve as a guide from the start. That said, this abstract is so deeply interconnected with the idea of personal power, that it is not even clear whether it even exists all in itself, or it is a creation, a monumental construction of the seekers of liberation.

The books tell us of things happening as far as 80,000 years ago in Tibetan. Similar in Toltec and Vedic and Pre-Vedic traditions. This highly contradicts what the modern anthropology knows to be "factual" information. This is because the modern science is usually limited to empirical analysis and rejects "non-factual" information related to the flight of consciousness, dreaming, and such. All of that is an indivisible part of knowledge and shouldn't be rejected. In fact it seems like the best of scientists are dreamers deep inside, just dreamers confined to their structural home base  - the lab, the particular field of science, professorship and degrees, and so forth.

However, looking back it seems that the adepts of the past were also empirically driven, no less, but perhaps sometimes more than the scientists of the modern era. In fact, their drive was so strong and passionate that they would disappear from the face of the Earth and no one would be able to find them. We don't know where, but it is at least clear that powerful dreamers prepare a getaway spot for themselves somewhere in the dark sea of awareness, and there they go one day.

What is Passion? To me it is an unyielding emotionally charged drive, unstoppable in its nature, direction and force. One doesn't want to stop because of the sheer pleasure of going. This, besides desire for gain is what drove the adepts of the past, so called "sorcerers of antiquity" as they are named in Carlos Castaneda books, yogis from Indian, Chinese, and Tibetan literature, and some such.

Caution comes in here because the uncontrollable passions, or desire for gain made some of these individuals greedy, as the infatuation with power does. Just imagine one such gentleman - high plumage for an important meeting with colleagues, jewelry and obsidian piercings, body markings and all depict a very powerful person with perhaps a loud sounding name. Not an underground lizard, but a high flying eagle. These individuals were well accepted as leaders of men and women because the practiced the types of knowledge relevant to the time and place, and understandably mysterious and hidden from the uninitiated, just like an alphabet may have been in our history not so long ago.

These individuals would choose apprentices themselves, and it would be a great honor to be accepted into their world. Many parents would gladly say "bye bye" to their children, as perhaps now many without fully knowing it say "bye bye" to them when they go off to school or college, perhaps at a later age.

Once admitted, the child would be fully immersed into learning, as this would be a replica of  life itself with one difference. From waking up until going to sleep there would be an unseizing contact with what the teacher or teachers represented. That is far from being academic - it is more like "chopping wood and carrying water", and probably included chopping some wood and carrying water, as such a learning unit would have to generate resources from living and nourishing. The knowledge was passed from higher to lower, from elder to younger, although not strictly so - it does make sense.

So how does one find the teacher of knowledge? Well, I think the 1st question would be, "which facet of knowledge is one interested in learning?" When that's decided, it is not one's parents, but a powerful urge, creates an intention to learn whatever is needed to learn to make the individual complete. True learning is without boundaries, and one can never limit himself and set the boundaries of place, time, and resources. I know that for fact, as I always have gone to great efforts to get a book that I was interested in and to find a human who could share what they know. Usually I think of myself as successful in that endeavor, because it is sometimes amazing how things that were meant for me invited themselves up into my lounge.