Especially now with the wild flows of energy, life, fear, despair, joy, love, compassion, and beauty rocking us and spinning us around, the idea of a Cosmic Dance makes a lot of sense to me.
I was recently referred to Joyce Rupp, a writer who has written an excellent book about this dance. When I looked her up, I found this wonderful piece from another of my favorite sources, the Center for Action and Contemplation. I copied and shared it here in full, as it says it all so well.
Spiritual writer Joyce Rupp understands all of creation as part of a “cosmic dance”:
No one person has been able to fully communicate this amazing dance of life to me, but Thomas Merton comes close with his description in New Seeds of Contemplation. Merton’s use of the phrase “cosmic dance” set my heart singing. When I read it, I felt my early childhood experience [in nature] of the inner dance being echoed and affirmed:
“When we are alone on a starlit night; when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children; when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet Bashō we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash—at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the “newness,” the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.” [1]
Rupp continues:
The soul of the world and our own souls intertwine and influence one another. There is one Great Being who enlivens the dance of our beautiful planet and everything that exists. The darkness of outer space, the greenness of our land and the blue of our seas, the breath of every human and creature, all are intimately united in a cosmic dance of oneness with the Creator’s breath of love. [2]
Rupp celebrates the restoration that takes place by her conscious participation in the dance:
There is such power in the cosmic dance. Each time I resonate with this energy I sink into my soul and find a wide and wondrous connection with each part of my life. I come home to myself, feeling welcomed and restored to kinship with the vast treasures of Earth and Universe. I am re-balanced between hope and despair, slowed down in my greedy eagerness to accomplish and produce no matter the cost to my soul, beckoned to sip of the flavors of creation in order to nourish my depths….
Whenever and however I join with the cosmic dance, it jogs my memory and gives me a kind of “second sight,” a glimpse of the harmony and unity that is much deeper and stronger than the forces of any warring nation or individual. My trust that good shall endure is deepened. My joy of experiencing beauty is strengthened. My resolve to continually reach out beyond my own small walls is renewed. The energy that leaps and twirls in each part of existence commands my attention and draws me into a cosmic embrace. I sense again the limitless love that connects us all. I come home to that part of myself that savors kinship, births compassion, and welcomes tenderness. I re-discover that I am never alone. Always the dance joins me to what “is.” [3]
References:
[1] Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation (New York: New Directions Books, 1961), 296–297.
[2] Joyce Rupp, introduction to The Cosmic Dance: An Invitation to Experience Our Oneness (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002), 10, 11.
[3] Rupp, Cosmic Dance, 17, 19.