The Dances

"The dream I had involved walking up the hill above the circle at Sweet Medicine Valley, and looking down at the “world. Then a flip to feeling what it is like to hug my father and having the realization that without the Long Dance I might never have hugged him or told him that I loved him. Never would have felt that barrel chest and stiff old ribs. And then realizing that the dance was more than moving around the circle, it was a set of actions that were now part of my history and my way of being …. Part of me. And like the concept of a MEME that spreads, this act of telling my father that I loved him was a chunk of the dance that I’d shared with another (my father) and it then had a life of its own. This is sort of like a virus which replicates but in a way different than just showing another person the sort of spin or hitch kick that I did at the last Dance. Instead it’s spreading a way of being in the world. Much more complex than merely sharing a dance.
Jack Hebrank … & by the way “Thanks!”"

This is a picture of Sweet Medicine Valley, former home of the Long Dance. We do it now here at the Spirit Earth Path "ranch" half-way between Albuquerque and Santa Fe in the San Pedro mountains. c

If you read all the way to the bottom of this page you'll come across a "Note" which says that the 2003 Dance was "one of the most powerful ever." Along came 2004. 2005, 2006, '07, '08, '09, '10 and 2011...... well, read away.... this first piece is one I wrote in an attempt to "explain" it all. Good luch with that............coyote

I get that often. And my usual response goes something like this; "It's an intense ceremonial gathering that lasts about three and a half days and at the end of it it has become a change agent the likes of which cannot be compared to anything else out there." (In the world of workshops and retreats that is.)

That's about the best short hand I've been able to come up with over the years and being an introvert and not really invested in long conversations or in "selling" anyone on the Dance, I haven't really expanded or expounded on it much. But after every Dance we get letters and emails and phone calls and face-to-face comments which really tell what the Dance is for those with the moccasins on the ground. These are "fresh" from this years Dance, prose and poetry, they do a much better job of exposition than I could:

"As I sat on the floor of the Kiva for a few minutes during the dance with the rain pouring down outside, it felt womb-like. And when it was over, and we could see the red streaks in the dawn sky through the east door, it was like a birth, a new beginning indeed. The birth waters had poured down all night and we were born, all of us, like siblings, out into the dawn light.

"As I rested, sitting on the floor near the wall, I could feel the drum beat as it bounced off the wall. I could feel it viscerally and it was as if the drum was altering my heartbeat. The heartbeat of the Mother. It seemed we would all be altered in this way, our hearts sharing the same rhythm. Another way we are all connected."

What drew me to the Long Dance to begin with, besides the blonde beauty I had followed in hopes of relationship, was the drum. It insinuated itself into my mind, heart and soul. I couldn't get rid of it, nor, after a time, did I want to. It seemed right. It seemed, in some strange and even foreign way, to become important, more important than what I thought of as "real life". So, though the whole thing made no logical sense to me I wanted to be close to that drum again. The blonde became irrelevant.

This writer captured, post Dance, that feeling:

The drums are quiet

the dance is over

we have scattered

to the four directions

But hush-listen

to the echo of the drum

inside your head.

Be still-feel

the echo of the drum

in your heart

We have been birthed

out into the World

in a flow of love

grasping to resolve in the one hand

courage in the other

And the echo of the drum

the heartbeat of the Mother

saturates and sustains us

we remember.

and the echo of the drum

the heartbeat of the Mother

connects us.

(Remarks & "Echo of the Drum", K. M. White)

I remember saying before the Dance began, that anyone from outside the boundaries of our experience would be mystified and, if given to reading the N.Y. Times as a life-style, amused at the goings on. They simply would not "get it". When I try to make it fit for them I find that I have, in the process, squeezed all the juice out and all that is left is the pulp. Nothing of the essence, just the structure. In a very real sense, you can't get here from there......not without a willingness to leave that place of certainty completely. With that leap however, everything becomes possible.

Remember the character of the cynical New Yorker played so well by Van Johnson in the movie we so often reference? To understand the magic his more open companion was experiencing he had to suspend his investment in his preferred belief system. So, in ceremony, we "lift" the land and all upon it to another way of knowing....just as valid, just as possible. Then Brigadoon begins to live in us all and the drum carries us deeply into its poetry.

OK. But what is the Long Dance?

It is a means by which a potent spiritual juice is poured back into our bloodstream and infused into our bones. It is an opportunity to bring the magical dreamer back to life in us. It is a time and place of making dreams come true.....the dreams that truly matter, the dreams that make our lives whole. To return to the poetic, it is a re-awakening of the dancer we were born to be.

There is no more pragmatic way to say it; to know it one must do it. One must be willing to enter another world for a time. Sometimes we call it "Oz", but there is nothing behind the curtain in Oz. In the metaphor of Brigadoon, there is genuine essence, real magic that can be hand carried into any reality you like.

Maybe not the pages of the Times, but into your life?

Certainly.

From Michael Fire; "I think after the blessing of so many friends today I finally let the sense of achievement and contentment at my accomplishment sink in, rather than carry a sense of dread and impending loss.

"I walked with a bit more of a sense of the 'warrior' energy in the hall, as well as a sense of belonging and backing that I often lack. I have to say it...can you believe it? Wohoo! Its good to get out of the limination."

From Kirsten, "Something very powerful happened to me at the dance. I haven't felt this much 'change' for lack of a better word in many, many dances. I think that over the past year some movement occurred in me which I was minimally aware of at times, but it never really solidified. Somehow at the dance something shifted and pushed me up to a new level. My heart is fuller, I am more at peace with myself, I am better. My take home message is that, In God's eyes I am not worthless." Love, Kirsten

From Michael Nettelton (the paraphrase of a phone call and email) "My heart is strong and I feel some kind of healing of major importance has occurred in me. I so appreciate your putting me up and making this whole Oz-some experience so wonder-full."

I love that Lon always seems to start what he says with "I was confused" and then comes out with brilliant insights!

I love that I thought Linsley was bowing to the stove in the kiva but actually she had just gotten her scarf caught in the handle and was trying to untangle herself

And I love that I will continue to have other thoughts and insights into my expereince that was so "within, within, within" and is changing my perspective just as the Hanged Man would expect.

Every year I experience "the most amazing Dance" and somehow I believe that no other Dance could possibly be better than this one. Now I realize that I must simply eliminate that idea because each Dance is it's own magical miracle created by everyone and every event that brings it alive.

It is unfamiliar to visit the "resting" dance circle without your footprints having blessed it. And magically, the Kiva has returned to its ordinary size again. However, there is a new life living and breathing in it that seems to be coming from below the earthwe fed Earth Mother a beautiful, great feast this Dance.

Thank you for coming and BEING with all of us. Our lives are rich and full because of it.

I suppose things are getting back to what passes for normal around the SpiritPath ranch. I've been trying to understand what this Long Dance has meant, and all kinds images, thoughts, and emotions have been swirling around ever since I got back to Chicago on Thursday afternoon. You've done scores of Long Dances, and you must sometimes feel that you've done enough, that it's about run its course for you. I have tried to imagine what it would be like to hold a Long Dance where I live, like you do at your place. It must be hard to do that. Part of the allure for me is traveling to a place that's different from where I live but that resonates with the place of my childhood (the edge of the Mojave desert). But I am thinking it must be hard for you to conjure up the enthusiasm for the Long Dance where you spend every day, in such familiar surroundings. I hope it's still magical for you and Elizabeth. As the letter you showed me from Sol attests, the Dance is quite magical for most of us. It still is for me, and I am amazed by that fact. I thought I would have become bored by now, and, lately, at each Long Dance I have found myself expecting at any moment to feel jaded and cynical. But that expectation has always dissipated during the Long Dance, or maybe it does before that, during one of the sunrise ceremonies.

The Long Dance seems to wake me up somehow, to some truths that I have forgotten during the year. Contrary to my expectations, this Long Dance turned out to be about my forging and renewing connections with other Long Dancers. I decided to reach out more to others, and I experienced connections with these people that I had never felt before or had even imagined could be possible a few years ago. At previous Long Dances, I often felt afraid and self-conscious, and I learned at this Long Dance that there is nothing to be afraid of. They are all wonderful people, Dick, and I am grateful to have come to know you, Elizabeth, and so many others through the Dance. Life is short, and this is a gift beyond measure.

I have tried, for years to conceive something, characteristics, of some way to emote this experience. True religion has no bounds. Only Faith and Belief, it's silent knowings. This is where we come together. This is where the Medicine people come to Dance. They don't even know of their Medicine or that I consider them Medicine people. (Do they even know they are?) They are the humblest expressions of the Divine. Light within light captured and sent to appear for us all. They are all Eagles in their own rights and ways. With arms wide open they say, "Come into the Circle and let Love be your guide." 11 years has gone by since I started. The Dance is a multitude of passages and doors simultaneously opened. When a person truly views the horizon of Dancing the Sacred, one can only see the limitless self reflected. This is the well of fulfillment. This is the way it has always been. These ways of connection. This gift of Dancing, of Being, of connecting, of loving. These are the ways of the Divine. To love and experience ourselves, each other. Words merely fall as waste to hold in some pattern, to describe the absolute. The futility of definition supersedes all tapping of the keyboard or the pen... But, I will always try to hold some form to explain this to my limiting mind's sight....

This spider's web, is known, and has no name. This "thing we do" touches all life. There is no separation, only the idea of it. I sit on the drum, in the center. Able to perceive the vastness of the worlds, but not hold or understand it. Each Dancer who comes before the drum, their song is sung by the drum. While it continues to sing the song of the dance. It is a subtle tone and change, but always done. It is the drum that honors in this way. It is also we who honor each other in this way. It does not matter where we sit or how we hold this way. It does not matter which way we hold. The seed, is the knowing that it exists. Faith means you must get yourself ready to receive what comes. Because, being of the divine is far greater than one can imagine. It takes a Tribe to reflect the Sacred in us all. It takes a Tribe to emerge and appear at the Well (each other) to give it's Nectars to the world. It takes a Tribe to hold one another in difference and in similarity. To see the difference as a view yet unseen, yet held in trust by another. To take similarity and use it to uphold the journey home to the Sacred self.

It has been an Honor to Dance. The Drum shall always be my place, my way, my prayer. Because I am the light of Creation dancing among the Light of Creation. We are the mirror, within the mirror, within the mirror.... Pilamiya-Yelo, Wicho-Zani, "Peh pai'i-eh Neh" (One who opens the doors for the people to receive their Medicine") Steven

Here it is almost 3AM Monday. My sleep pattern is out of whack. I've been up since 1:00. I'm wide awake now after having had to pull over on the drive to Santa Fe to take a nap, then falling asleep mid-afternoon after arriving safely at home. My back is sore from dancing all night. My spirit is good.

Elizabeth - I really appreciated your sharing about increasing your capacity for love. That is very much my path as well. My intention for the coming year is to connect with more and more people with whom I can freely give and receive love. (In other words, I'm stealing your idea!!!) I count you and Richard as loved ones in my increasing circle.

What I want to do is to just be with the gratitude of having received so abundantly this weekend - the Dance, stewardship of the men's bundle and the sword for a time, the presence of you and Elizabeth in my life, the give-away, the spirit name from your teach, bracelet, little red heart, the love of so many people ... I want to spend some time steeping in gratitude and in soul-level deserving. I want to be that blooming cactus for a while (actually forever) - no guilt, no story about not deserving. Then, once I really get that I can receive with no strings, from my heart's yearning to give of what I have received I will give to the Long Dance of my time and support.

I love the two of you, not actually for the Long Dance you organized and held space for but for the opportunity you two give me to give and receive love myself. Thank you for modeling what my heart is gathering more and more courage to remember.

(My gratitude, respect and love to everyone those who drummed, danced, prayed, encouraged, let go, rested, dreamed, trusted, stayed, returned, transformed and loved -- we were and are all aspects of the wholeness of the Dance)

When dancing in the barely-lit early morning hours, when I looked at a Long Dancer I "saw" a silhouette of human figure, akin to one I've seen in Native American artwork. A suspended, standing human figure with its feet a little more than hip-width apart, with its hands out to the sides- maybe 20-30 degrees? The figure itself was flat black, and outlined in fire or very bright light. When I blinked it was gone. Joan V

I have basically had a ""case of the WOWS"" since the Long Dance. For many reasons, but one of the main underpinnings is the love that was experienced. I want to thank you both, and my Spirit-driven fellow dancers, along with all who held sacred space, for the opportunity to be a part of the Dance. And I want to tell you a little story. I called my dad ( who is 90 years old) after the Dance and at the end of the conversation I told him I loved him. He then said "Well, I love you too. I guess everyone loves everyone."" Then he paused and added "" I only wish that that were true".

As Elizabeth shared in her goodbye to us on the Give-Away morning, we are the change we want to see and the energy of Love is the essence of Spirit and what energized the Dance. I like thinking that opposite of Love is Fear because it allows me to think through my fears and Fears in a compassionate and loving way that honors my Self and my humanity.

Thank you again for inviting me to be a part of something that has brought a smile to my life and bounce to my step. I had stated out loud that my intents in the Dance were to connect with like-minded "seekers" and to be loved and nurtured, and all the intents manifested.

It will take, as someone said, 360 days to process it all and then we will be ready for the next one. Jack Hebrank emailed saying that he felt like the guy in the last scene of "Brigadoon" re-membering the magic of that fabled place. That image, and my own memory of the movie, led me to see the Long Dance as just such a place, a Brigadoon that descends to the Earth once each year to enchant those who would dance and sing there. (Rent that one sometime if you haven't seen it.)

The Long Dance is a combination of ceremonial experiences, one sweat lodge and a programmed series of workshops which all culminate in the dusk-to-dawn Long Dance. The Dance goes from Friday evening through Monday afternoon and our 2010 Dance marked our 28th year...though cumulatively it seems more like our 30th. The 2001 the Dance was held in Sweet Medicine Valley, That's a picture of it at the top of the page, from then on however it, and all other dances, have been held at the "ranch". Email your snail mail address if you want to be on our list for all events in 2011.

The Shadow Dance is shorter than the Long Dance, usually a Friday-Sunday experience, but it is, nonetheless, a wonder-filled vehicle for personal growth.A typical Shadow Dance consists of one sweat lodge, a series of two to three workshops that focus on work with the "shadow side" of our personalities. At the dance we will be exploring the "Shadow Masculine and Feminine" through the power of dance, discovering the "Inner Teacher" through journaling techniques, learning about the mystery and magic of the Tarot and its link with intuition, drumming to move from Mind dominance to Body awareness, and, in general, re-discovering our own power to create happier everyday lives! (Not bad for a weekends work.) A Shadow Dance used to be a "movable feast", but the logistics involved, not to mention the cost of gas, dictates that all our Dance events will be held here at the Spirit Earth Path retreat center.