In Defense of Ecstatic Dance

By Alistair Johnston

The Impolite, The Sacrilegious, and the Pain of Devout Eyes Sans Spark

There have always been voices. Always the old have grumbled against the young. The genius of age seems to consist in finding grievances. There is always something wrong, something not how it ought to be. Something is always amiss, something unsavory; there is always something.

It was Elvis Presley once, then The Beatles. In the 50s they banned the Mambo. Henry Miller was expelled from polite society, having never requested admission. For generations, they sought to expunge Lawrence and Hamsun. To Kill a Mockingbird, a book about a lawyer, generated flames and scandal on its release. As recently as 2006 they were still trying to outlaw Charlotte’s Web. It was once indecent for a woman to display her ankles. It was infinitely more proper for her to stuff herself into a crinoline, swelter, and swoon on the bus. Meister Eckhart was tried for blasphemy. John of the Cross was thrown in jail. In parts of the Muslim world, Rumi is still considered sacrilegious.

Habits crystallize into rules; newness upsets the orthodox. We who accept limitations tend to project them. But God subscribes to no dogmas; like a magician, He offers illusions of certainty, then delights in smashing them. How many humdrum lives have passed in stodgy presbyteries, circumscribed by rules, but untouched by Grace? How many devout eyes contain no spark? Yet Walt Whitman, The Holy Blasphemer, Son of Democracy, the Great Swaggering Yank, lurched forth one midsummer’s morning — indecent, amorous, gruff, rough, rude, earthy, nude — and belched. He lay naked on the banks of a stream, and felt his “soul [vibrate] back to [him] from sight, hearing, touch, reason, articulation, comparison, memory, and the like.” In reflection, he writes, “The real life of my senses and flesh transcended my senses and flesh… [it was] proved to me this day beyond cavil that it is not my material eyes which finally see, nor my material body which finally loves, walks, laughs, shouts, embraces, procreates.” God took a liking to this rude American, and how did that American celebrate the touch of the Holy Spirit? He went off, laughing, to drink beer, eat beef, stay up late dancing and singing, then fall in love with a stranger for the light in his smile. And all the pious hand-wringers blanched and asked God, “Ah! Ah! But is it fair?”

Ecstatic Dance and Ecstatic Living
Robert Johnson said the greatest act of worship is simply to be happy. Meister Eckhart said, “if the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.” How are we to thank God for music if not by dancing? How are we to thank God for life? Is not this world just His dance? Sunlight dances on the water, colors dance in our eyes; the seasons dance, feelings dance, our minds dance, and our hearts…oh they dance. The whole world is a festival, Jesus is on drums, and Krishna is playing his flute; only the sanctimonious remain seated in the delirium, counting their beads, looking upset, and refusing to join in the fun.

Rumi did not say “Contemplate, when you’re broken open. Contemplate, if you’ve torn the bandage off. Contemplate in the middle of the fighting. Contemplate in your blood. Contemplate when you’re perfectly free.” Ramakrishna told his favorite disciples that they must dance unashamedly when they are touched by holy joy. Theresa of Avila distrusted demure nuns. We forget too often that in the Presence of God, King David danced. God only knows how King David danced then. Aurobindo said that “to listen to some devout people, one would imagine that God never laughs; Heine was nearer the mark when he found in Him the divine Aristophanes. God’s laughter is sometimes very coarse and unfit for polite ears. He is not satisfied with being Molière; He must also be Aristophanes and Rabelais.”

I do not see anything innately spiritual about downcast eyes and long silence. Surely God can be found as readily in a whoop, a cry, a burp, a scream, a laugh, a giddy child rolling down a hill. I do not claim to have mapped out the metaphysics of ecstatic dance; I only offer you my poor man’s certainty that God would not create music and limbs and then place them under apartheid. When the music of life was playing, did we sit demure in silence? Or did we rise up to sweep the world our darling off its feet? Will we live? Or will we die? Will we end our eighty years of penance, float up to Heaven, find God couched in splendor, drinking wine, and dancing in bangles and drag, look up at us, and ask, “Did it never occur to you that it was all just a party?”

So I resolve to celebrate: to meditate as celebration, pray as celebration, walk in the woods, swim, read…all as celebration. I will celebrate myself, I will celebrate life and God. On Sunday mornings you may find me cross-legged. When that is done, I shall tear off my whites, strap on my headband, don the sequin top, stretch the calves, put on the Best of ABBA, and dance, dance glorious, until the sweat is streaming off me, and I collapse, laughing, in the sand.

“What a burden I thought I was to carry —
A crucifix, as did He.
Love once said to me, ‘I know a song:
Would you like to hear it?’
And laughter came from every brick in the street,
And from every pore in the sky.
After a night of prayer, He changed my life when He sang,
‘Enjoy me’.”
–St. Teresa of Avila

Alistair is a Hridaya Yoga student and a frequent contributor to our blog.