Dancing With Life

"To dance is to be in tune with the steps of life."
- Sasha Azevedo

The natural rhythms of the creative energy are slower and more focused than the rhythm of life most of us have been taught.

Watch the animals, they are finely attuned to the natural rhythm of the creative life force in Nature. They have to be, it is how they survive. The animals take time for focused effort, focused play and focused rest. They do one thing at a time. If they are distracted from that for whatever reason, then they wholly focus upon the distraction.

Watch a small child at play, you will see the same kind of focus. It is as if there is nothing in the world but what they are doing at that moment.

I’ve tried to hurry my 3-year-old grandson through what he was doing so that we could move on to something else. It was an exercise in frustration. He knew where the flow of energy was in what he was doing. I didn’t, and I just had to be patient while he finished up.

At three years old my grandson has yet to be acculturated into society's rhythm. We go, go, go, work harder, play harder. We feel like time’s a wasting, and rest only when absolutely necessary. I could hope that he would never have to unlearn what he innately knows. Yet, to fit into the flow of our society most of us have unlearned what we innately knew as children.

The natural rhythm of the creative life force is like a gentle music that surrounds us. We are swimming in an ocean of energy. The energy has rhythm just as the ocean waves do. Our bodies are naturally attuned to this energy.

We often are not consciously aware of the rhythm because we have been trained out of it. Our bodies have not been trained out of it however, and are very much aware of it. We are influenced by the rhythm whether we know it consciously or not.

Have you ever tried to dance to music where you couldn’t quite get the rhythm? I have, just recently in fact. It was hard work. I couldn’t get my feet to follow the rhythm of the music. The steps I was doing were too slow, the music was too fast. I felt frustratingly out of step as I stumbled along.

When you dance off the beat, you not only have to do the physical work of the dance, you have to do the work of competing with the rhythm. But when you get it right, when you dance on the beat, the rhythm of the music moves you along, carrying you. Your body flows through the physical work of the dance.

Living in self or other-imposed rhythm rather than flowing with the rhythm of the creative life force energy is hard work. It is like dancing off the beat. You have to do the work of living itself and you have to compete with the natural rhythm of the creative life force.

Life is exhausting this way. It is no wonder that as our lives become more technologically advanced with society valuing achievement above all else and always the pressure to go, go, go, there is an increase in illnesses of exhaustion like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and autoimmune disease.

We are forcing ourselves to work against what our bodies know to be the natural rhythm of the creative life force energy. Why do we want to work so hard at living?

It doesn’t have to be this way. You can choose to learn again how to listen to and dance with the natural rhythms. You knew how to do this as a child. You can remember.

Try this. Put on some good dance music with a strong beat. Stand still and feel the rhythm. How does it feel as the rhythm moves through your body? It’s hard to keep your body still, isn’t it?

Now allow your body to move any way it wants with the rhythm, even if it’s just tapping your toes. Dance if you want. Whatever feels good. Notice how that feels in your body. Does it feel good? Is there flow? Is it hard or easy?

This is what it’s like living within the flow of the creative life force.

Next, see if you can move your body off the rhythm. Perhaps try clapping your hands intentionally off the beat. How does that feel? It may feel awkward and even difficult to do.

This is what it’s like trying to live within your own or other-imposed rhythm. It’s like paddling upstream against the water flowing downstream.

Last, allow your body to move with the rhythm again, on the beat, and notice the feeling of relief and ease.

There is ease and relief when you flow with the natural energies of the creative life force. It is like turning your canoe to flow with the current downstream.

As you live within the flow of the creative life energy you have a positive effect on others. We are all of us linked like a circle of dancers. One dancer, dancing in rhythm affects those dancing nearby. Those nearby will be pulled onto the beat. They in turn will affect those near them and it ripples outward from there.

As each of us dances to the beat of the creative life force energy, allowing it to support and carry us within its flow, we support others to do so.
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May you dance with joy!

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

Your Spiritual Toolbox

​What is required to live within the flow of creative life force energy is your intent and willingness to focus fully upon one thing at a time.

When you give what you are doing your full attention, you slow down, and connect with the creative life force energy.

It doesn’t matter what you are doing. What matters is how you do it.

Today, do whatever you do with fully focused attention. Make whatever you are doing the most important thing you can do for that moment.

That means that you do what you do without any resistance; you are totally focused on what you are doing.

Even if you just playing a game on your phone you are doing it 100%. You are not worrying over the bill that you have to pay later. You are not planning your next blog post or what to have for dinner. You are focused entirely on those silly birds hopping across your phone screen, just as a child would be.

If instead you are paying your electric bill, focus fully upon doing so without resistance to sending off that money.

Allow the flow of energy.

As you do what you do fully, with focus and without resistance, the creative life force energy will carry you and you will experience increasing ease, flow and grace with each day.

​What’s more you become an energetic catalyst for others to do the same.