Sufi Dance.
 

Sometimes I think
I must be laughing and dancing
and spinning along
a crazy twist in the spiral
of this Sufi Dance called Life,
this little bit of the dance -
that little twist on the end
of a dizzying loop
in this Dervish dance life.

On certain nights I attend Sufi Dance.
I can‚t remember where it is,
or how I get there,
or for that matter,
how I get home
and back into my bed.

I am practicing a very difficult part
of the dance this month.
The Teacher wears orange robes
and the dance is quite difficult and technical.
Last month another Teacher
[who wore red robes]
taught a simpler, stamping dance,
a somewhat angry yet purposeful dance.

Sometimes I seem in one level of the dance,
and at other times in another level,
but lately there is no Teacher,
no particular colored robe
and no difference between
the me  here
and that me there
in that part of the dance
and another me there
in that other part of the dance
and at the same time I am out of the dance
watching myself and all the others
and then the dance becomes
a huge astral entity
a massive cone of light
with layers and bands of colors
and dancers and Teachers.
Each colored circle
one on top of the other,
diminishing in size;
a huge cone of dancing,
color-banded light
rotating amongst the blackness
and stars of space.

And at times while I dance
other dancers come into my space
and bounce and career of me
spinning madly and grinning,
singing and dancing
off  to their destinies
on other paths.
And in this part of the dance
are wild eyed poets
giggling on acid,
dancers that are leaping
and spinning and floating
and fauns and satyrs somersaulting,
leaving behind them
trails of stars and sparkles.

And through the translucence above
I see exquisite dancers,
they are vibrant and ecstatic and perfect,
falling and tumbling,
but O so ever rising
in their total control
of the dance.
And I see beneath me spreading out
the dancers learning the dance.
Some are awkward and stumbling,
some are squabbling like cranky penguins,
and some are concentrating and aspiring.

But now, it seems to me,
I am stuck in a middle part of the dance.
A crazy, insane part of the  dance,
that must be passed through
to finish the dance.
For now it seems,
I have become the dance,
it does with me what it will
and I can only respond to the energy
and lose myself in the ecstasy
of not being here
in this part of the dance.
For I know I am not here
and I know I must be crazy
and I know that life,
at this moment,
seems much too serious
to be taken seriously,
and so much is happening
all at once
that it must be a dance
and it just happens
that at this moment
as my last remnants of reason
and logic
and my past life experience
tells me,
that fortunately and unfortunately
it is a passing,
a mere passing,
crazy, little, dizzying, foot-stumbling,
falling, tumbling, ecstatic,
lost and out of control, twist
in the spiral Sufi dance
called life,
just a little twist
on the end of an outward spiral curve
of the dervish dance called life.
......I think.
 

Fr. Corvus