By Sr. Doreen, SSJD
To God, the Holy One, Great Dancer of the Cosmos, whose presence I often sense as I move among the treasures of our beloved planet. (Joyce Rupp)
There has been much written and talked about using the word ‘cosmic’ – a word that encompasses something vast, global and universal. Pondering this has enriched my own spirituality and begun an adventure into a new space and understanding that seems to me has the possibility of contributing to a deeper understanding of how we might live together better in a way that could offer healing to both the earth and ourselves and everyone and everything around us. This broken and fractured angry world needs something new – I wonder perhaps if the ideas that a Cosmic Holy One and a Cosmic Dance just might offer a glimmer of hope.
David Steindl-Rast in his old age (he wrote ‘being 96 now’) wrote a book called “You Are Here – key words for life explorers.” I have always found his books filled with wisdom learning, and so his being 96 years old when he wrote this book, I felt for sure there would be much wisdom contained between the covers! To my surprise David, in his introduction, zeroed in on a subject called The Big Picture, an attempt at getting the whole into view. He quoted Piet Han “I want to know what this whole show is all about, before its out.”
I would like to share some quotes from this book that best confirm my own understanding and search: a truth that is it only by looking at how everything is interconnected and interdependent can we ever hope to find our own place as human beings within our world and understand our place within this global view: that is true for myself and for everyone and everything. We must do this within all the changes and chances, all the movement that seeing a big picture introduces us to: nothing is static.
David wrote: “Although everything is moving, and we are moving along with it, all is – at the same time at rest in itself, in its own inner stillness ‘ ‘still and still moving’ (T.S. Eliot). Stillness, therefore, as well as movement, belongs to the whole, and we will have to acknowledge both in the big picture we draw. But can we find an image for the whole of all there is – for ‘the whole show’ – that expresses both movement and stillness in one? What comes to my mind is a circle dance. Everywhere in the world, young children enjoy holding hands in a circle, singing and moving to the rhythm of their song. And not only children: sacred dancers of many ancient traditions also follow this pattern of a movement that rests in itself. As the big picture we might even imagine a circle dance without beginning or end.”
He goes on to say: “We do not dance in order to get somewhere. The dance isn’t moving toward a goal, yet it does have a goal: perfect dancing. Thus, the dance metaphor shows us that the whole can, paradoxically, at the same time have and not have a goal. Its direction has no goal, but its performance does. Each movement is an end in itself; each reaches perfection by being fully itself. As we share in life’s dance, our goal is the perfection of being in step – now and now and now. What it ‘is all about’ is one opportunity after another to interact with all other dancers through the one partner next to you – to be in step, to be in tune with the universe.”
Life really is about experiencing our unity with each other and all of life. It is a call to live compassionately with each person and all of creation. Living compassionately will mean experiencing the pain and the need for care, the enjoyment and appreciation of life. Within it all – this being in step – I believe we begin to see the unbreakable goodness in ourselves and in everyone and everything around us.
I think there is a cosmic dance in all of us. For most of us along the way in life we may have lost some of the awareness of this in the midst of the busy day to day of life, failing to see the miracles in the ordinariness of life and all of creation. To rediscover this – to take up a deeper pondering of the ‘cosmic’ nature of everything, of which I am a part, is to begin once again to see that everything dances with everything else! I am part of an intricate dance with all of you and all of creation!
Thomas Merton in his book “New Seeds of Contemplation” wrote: “When we are alone on a starlit night; when by chance we see the migrating of 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 Basho, 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 makes themselves evident, provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.”
We have all experienced times when this newness has awakened in us something of a deep and mysterious unity within, a oneness with all that is. It is good to recall the times when we have experienced unity with each other and all of life. It is this that gives us the longing and the desire to be part of the responsibility and care of ourselves, of others, and of all of creation. It opens us to an enjoyment and appreciation of life, to compassion and the essential goodness in ourselves and in each other and all of life. it is this that can enable us to approach not only the experiences of newness that are pleasant but also those that are painful, prickly, and irritating: it helps us to come into the presence of this newness with an attitude of awareness, an openness, and a humbleness – intent on learning from it.
Joyce Rupp wrote in her book “The Cosmic Dance”: “it is easy for me to feel one with the shining stars on a shimmering summer night, to appreciate the dance in what appears good or in what appeals to me. It is quite another thing to feel at one with an angry person or a poisonous snake. How difficult it is to see the inner dance in what repulses, divides, alienates, tests, or challenges me. I now understand that the cosmic dance is in destructive elements like tornadoes and earthquakes and in animals that destroy. It is also in the perpetrators of evil, in the hostile, the violent, the aggressive, and in those who have maimed our planet by indifference, ignorance, or greed. Yes, all are part of this vast dance of the cosmos and I am daily challenged to live compassionately with each person and particle of creation. It does not mean that I accept the reality of evil or harm. But it does challenge my ability to look deeply and keenly at certain aspects of creation in order to see an implicit relationship hidden beneath what I abhor or find difficult to accept.
As I said earlier, ‘cosmic’ – a word that encompasses something vast, global and universal – our interconnectedness with each other just might contribute to a deeper understanding of how we might live together better in a way that might heal both the earth and ourselves and everyone and everything around us. This broken and fractured angry world needs something new – I wonder perhaps if the ideas that a Cosmic Holy One and a Cosmic Dance just might offer a glimmer of hope.
Joyce Rupp wrote a poem called “We Are One” (The Cosmic Dance) – and I share it to close this reflection:
“Little dance feet full of energy enlivening ever particle of the universe,
Tiny feet skipping, hopping, jumping, strong feet stomping, jiggling, prancing.
Leaping to a rhythm that defies regulation.
Airy, bright feet of sailing stars, wrinkled, callused feet of clay cliffs,
Waxy, webbed feet of succulent leaves, fast flowing feet of winding rivers,
Endless feet of unobserved tree roots, soft feet of every form of fetus.
With an eye as fresh and delicate as birth, sneak a peek as each pulsing part of life
Comes dancing, whirling, weaving, secret neutrons, veiled photons, hidden electrons,
Whirling, skipping, pirouetting, forming a circle of oneness with each other.
If you ear is keen enough, you will hear the instant, silent symphony,
Moving freely in chasubles of beauty.
Receive the music of their secret unity as the glide within each other’s life,
Unaware of barriers built by static minds.
Slip off the glaucoma of your heart and revel in this signal beauty dancing passionately
In the universe, and trembling in each atom.”
Diarmuid O’Murchu: “Energy is the substance of life, the unrelenting wellspring of pure possibility, escalating and undulating as in a great cosmic dance.”
Deep pondering and challenging openness I know offer opportunities to re-balance myself between hope and despair, and lay hold of all that life has to teach me in a quest of newness, wholeness, and unity in life. We are offered an opportunity to catch a glimpse of the harmony and unity that is much deeper and stronger than what often appears on the surface of the reality of our world situation. There is a limitless Love that connect us all.