Dancing in the Ocean of Life
By Leslie Sann
And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Everyone’s wearing white, except for the soon-to-be bride and groom.
A live band plays.
The woman’s voice is low, sultry, and moving.
Alisha and Lana step onto the dance floor—
two sisters, 28 and 30,
dancing in joy.
I join them.
We dance and dance.
Then others come—
young people, decades younger than me—
drawn by the movement, the aliveness.
Hannah twirls into the circle,
white dress flying, crutches and all.
And suddenly—
I am not on a dance floor.
I am in the ocean.
And they are coming to swim with me.
The ocean of life,
The Joy
There is a freedom in letting life move the body.
No management.
No performance.
Just movement.
And it is joy.
The Interruption
The mind doesn’t like this kind of freedom.
It throws up a red herring—
something to pull me out of the moment.
Sometimes it works.
I get hooked—
pulled into a familiar pattern:
a lot of activity,
going nowhere.
The Return
And then—
I look into someone’s eyes.
Or I capture a moment with my camera.
And I’m back.
Right here.
Watching God loving itself,
expressing in form.
The Rhythm
In and out.
In and out.
In and out—remembering.
The mind tells me it should be all in, never out.
That’s the hook.
The Way Through
I unhook myself
by loving the one in front of me.
That’s what happened on a dance floor in Oaxaca,
on the night before my niece’s wedding,
when the music moved, and I said yes.
Blessings and Joy,