Dare to dance Week 2 - Awareness

April 22, 2012

Dare to Dance Week #2: 

Series Title: Dare to Dance: Moving towards Healing

Anchor: Judy Emerson’s drawings

Frame:  Awareness

Threads: Prayer beads, healing prayers, Dance, Song - Healed Healthy and Whole

Image:  Child is naked, fearful, beginning to look up 

Psalm 143, from Nan Merrill’s Psalms for Praying

O Bringer of Joy, awaken my heart;

            pour your love and blessings

                        through all my being!

Free me from attachments and desire,

            that I may become a clear mirror,

                        reflecting your love to

                                    the world.

For fear has pursued me, it has

            crushed my spirit to

                        the ground;

            it has veiled your light so

                        that I dwell in darkness.

Therefore, I cry out to You,

                        O Great Awakener;

            Help me to rise once again

                        like the phoenix of old!

I recall days gone by; I meditate

            on all that You have done;

            I muse on the Covenant of

                        your love.

I open my heart to You;

            my soul thirsts for You like

                        a parched land.

Strength comes with  pureness of heart.

            Cleanse me anew, O Gentle Healer.

This yearning within my soul is

            naught but the inner birthright

                        to know and live in You.

Let me hear your Voice within the Silence,

            for in You I put my trust.

Teach me ways of loving service,

            that I might co-operate with You,

                        O my Beloved.

Help me face my fears,

                        O Divine Nurturer!

            I call on You for healing!

Instruct me in your Divine Precepts,

                        cultivate my soul!

Lead me into deep silence and

                        solitude,

            let peace become my mantle.

Divine Light shines in those

            whose lives reflect love.

            As the river makes it way to

                        the ocean,

            may I surrender to the flow

                        of new life!

then I will trust that all is

            working together toward the

                        wholeness of humanity.

            Then will I help to rebuild the

                        soul of the world with Love!

If you compare Nan Merrill’s version of Psalm 143 to a standard translation you will find they are very, very different. Merrill’s approach, as she says in the title of her book, is for praying not for scholarship. That being said, her Psalm 143 captured for me the full sweep of what I think our second week is striving for. I tried to edit it down, knowing that the psalm is not short. But each stanza takes us through the process of awareness, listening, yearning, turning outward from inward isolation.

The words chosen to describe this second week of our process of Daring to Dance are awareness and listening. I see that dawning awareness in the opening line of the psalm: O Bringer of Joy, awaken my heart. As our figure begins to move out of the defensive, fetal position I hear the psalm as the prayer she might speak. The wounded person needs the joy of being awakened, being aware that there is more to life than pain.

I don’t know where awareness begins or what rekindles hope and vision. But I do know that at some point we must get tired of suffering and long for a better life. In AA they speak of hitting rock bottom. Somewhere there is the dawning that life is meant to be more. One person I knew who was in rehab for at least the third time said that before he wanted to be sober. But now he wanted serenity. Again, I don’t know what brought that awareness, but it made all the difference in the world. Awareness may be the difference between life and death, or at least the difference between a dead-end life and one that is worthwhile.

Bringer of Joy, Great Awakener, Gentle Healer, Divine Nurturer, Beloved; these are evocative names that Nan Merrill uses for God. It is not just up to us to become aware. God is beckoning us to awake, to see, to hear the whispers of promise and hope. God is working in us and around us, holding our place until we can rise and join the Dance of Life.

Here is a fascinating video about how music brings awareness back to someone who has become isolated. I’m not sure it fits snugly in with our main metaphor, but the man’s reaction – his quickening – is phenomenal indeed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHCiMCtIJT8