Curious about Dance: Do You Dance Through Life? If So, What Kind Are You Doing? Does It Help in Any Way?

“Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf.” - Rabindranath Tagore, Indian poet

“When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It's to enjoy each step along the way.” - Wayne Dyer, American psychologist

I recently heard a guru compare life and life’s journey to dance. What a perfect metaphor for our lives. When dance is smooth and under control, we are centered and in balance. We follow the rhythm and have fun and peace.

However, when we are facing many challenges, we can lose the beat and have to work to get back into harmony. I challenge you to think of other life-dance comparisons. I know there are many.

In looking up this week’s quotations, I found depth and width and some surprising thoughts:

• “Life is like dancing. If we have a big floor, many people will dance. Some will get angry when the rhythm changes. But life is changing all the time.” - Miguel Angel Ruiz, Mexican author
• “Music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance... poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music.” - Ezra Pound, American poet
• “I would believe only in a God that knows how to Dance.” - Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher
• “Never give a sword to a man who can't dance.” – Confucius, Chinese philosopher
• “Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.” – Voltaire, French writer
• “You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems and suffer and understand, for all that is life.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti, Indian philosopher

And, a few others:

• “The web of life is a beautiful and meaningless dance. The web of life is a process with a moving goal. The web of life is a perfectly finished work of art right where I am sitting now.” - Robert Anton Wilson, American writer
• “Dance is bigger than the physical body. When you extend your arm, it doesn't stop at the end of your fingers, because you're dancing bigger than that; you're dancing spirit.” - Judith Jamison, American dancer
• “Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music.” - William Stafford, American poet
• “Dance is the hidden language of the soul.” - Martha Graham, American dancer
• “Dance is for everybody. I believe that the dance came from the people and that it should always be delivered back to the people.” - Alvin Ailey, American dancer
• “Every day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music and rings the whole day through, and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life march, as you will.” - Thomas Carlyle, Scottish philosopher

In addition, two that really resonate with me:

“The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses - behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.” - Muhammad Ali, American athlete

“Be aware of wonder. Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.” - Robert Fulghum, American author

I don’t know if the above work for you, but they do for me.