144. It’s Never Too Late to Dance
I’ve written about dancing before. Some day in September I wrote about dancing every day at the beginning of the day and at the end of the day. Want to guess how long that lasted?
But the intention is there. And the love of movement is there. I don’t remember it as a child. I do remember at some point in my 30’s or 40’s becoming fascinated with folk-dancing. I went as often as I could and learned to do a number of dances. And then loved doing the Electric Slide at wedding occasions.
In the 80’s I went to a center outside of Boston to a workshop titled “Movement as a Tool for Transformation.” I danced from 9-5 and I had never done that before. I stretched my body and my mind to absorb all that leader was teaching. And one of the things she taught was “All you have to do to lead a dance group is be one step ahead and sometimes you don’t even have to be that.”
In the 90’s at Union Theological School I experienced Walter Wink and his wife June Keener-Wink. In a week long workshop we talked and discussed the cosmos or world-views with Walter, and then we would go into the gymnasium and transfer what we had talked about into dance. It was astounding to me.
A few years later, Kirkridge Conference Center offered a course in Play, Movement, and Reflection, and the leader of the dance part was June Keener-Wink. The play part I’ll save for another whole posting. I sank into the dance part as if I had been waiting since I had last seen her and relished it.
Still a few years later, I went to her home and sought her counsel for starting a dance group in the church I was serving as co-pastor. And I did it, led it—me, an amateur dancer. We danced at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church every week for a while—a group of seven or eight of us, ranging in ages from 30 to 80, and we loved it.
So where do I end up in this posting. You get the idea that even at age 79, I love the reality of dance, the therapy of dance, the things I can do with dance. I can breathe in positive feelings. I can support my own self-esteem. I can extend and stretch myself, physically and in mind and spirit.
Excuse me—I think I need to get up and dance.
