Sunday, February 22, 2009

Come Dance With Me

Not the God of names, Nor the God of don'ts, Nor the God who ever does anything weird, But the God who only knows four words, And keeps repeating them, saying, Come dance with me." Hafiz, Sufi poet
We were eleven people in the boardroom. A couple of friends had graciously asked if they could come and support me in my first presentation of The Passion Test. The other attendees were clients of the shelter where I work plus one staff member. One of the attendees was a man, I'd never met before. Another client had suggested he come and take part.

As we worked through the program, talking about passions and desires, and life and yearning, one of the attendees said, after I had described The Passion Test as, "The effortless path to discovering your destiny", "I don't like the word destiny. I know we all have one, but destiny sounds too big, too forced. We've got too much invested in that word. It makes me uncomfortable."

"What's a word that would feel more comfortable for you?" I asked him.

"End," he promptly replied. "We've all got an end in our lives."

"Okay. Then whenever I say 'destiny', you change it in your mind to 'end'. Would that work for you?"

He laughed. "Sure. As long as you know I'm not using the word destiny."

Awhile later, another client, after reading one of the handouts said, "I notice they use the word 'love' five times on this page. How do they define 'love'?"

"How do you define 'love'?" I asked him.

"Oh, you mean they mean to be ambiguous. They want me to define it?"

"Would you rather work according to someone else's definition or your own?"

"Mine," he said, a big smile spreading across his face. "I can do that."

It was a magical morning. My audience was supportive. Willing to be there to help me. Willing to be there to help themselves.

Reciprocity in motion.

Giving is receiving.

One of the clients in attendance was the man who had gone through Choices the week before. He is on fire. In the fire. Fired up about living, loving and laughing. He had said to me the day before, "I know everything's not 'healed.' I know there's still more to uncover. I know I'll still go through rough patches. It doesn't matter. No one can stop me from being me, except me. And I'm not going to do that. I don't want to go back to where I was."

In the class, he wrote out his top five passions on his Passion Card, folded the card up carefully and slid it into his wallet. "Cool. Now I've got something to focus on every day." he said.

We danced yesterday. Together and apart. Alone and as one. We danced and spread our wings and strutted our stuff and got down to it. We learned new steps, got in sync, stepped out, moved into the groove of being outside our comfort zones.

We danced and the universe kept spinning and we kept moving and turning and growing and learning.

We danced, and became one with all that is Divine in the world around us.

The question is: Are you willing to answer the invitation to Dance?

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