A Boogie with Sole

For nearly a year, twice every month, I attended an event in town known as the Barefoot Boogie.  Set in a beautiful, spacious room with hardwood floors, string lights, and Zen decor, it was, without a doubt, my lifelong fantasy come true.

I was introduced to the Barefoot Boogie by a man I fell in love with, the originator of the event and DJ.  I still remember the first time I wrote about it.  I was so enthralled.  The circle dance made a particular impression on me. Midway through the night, everyone stops, joins hands in a circle, and dances to one song without letting go.

At the Barefoot Boogie, I felt a sense of belonging.  I often thought of the people there as part of my tribe, but that world is no longer open to me.

Last night, they had the first Barefoot Boogie of the year.  I recommended the event to some girls I met at the Zen center, singing its praises, but added that I could no longer go.  They planned their outing while I fiddled with my food.  I hope they made it over there.

I decided not to spend the night sitting at home and found another dance venue, the standard club scene.  Trepidation filled my body.  Ordinary dance venues have, for some time, felt to me like a den of lions.

Shortly before leaving the house, I discovered a swarm of ants on my kitchen floor.  There were so many, and I didn’t have much time to clean them up.  Normally, I brush them carefully onto a dustpan and take them outside.  I pulled out my broom and swept them aside as gently as I could.  One after another curled up and died.

After writing about social death and being cut off, I’ve been plagued by a deep sadness.  No one can offer perfect love, but sometimes our needs are that great.  Inevitably, people we hold dear will leave our lives, but the need for bonds to persist is so strong.  We cannot befriend everyone, yet being turned away is excruciating.  Often, someone will matter far more to you than you matter to them, and vice versa.  What a recipe for suffering!

I cried while I swept.  “Here I am, not wanting to cause a single one of you any harm, and I’m killing you,” I thought, feeling as though I were witnessing a microcosm of humanity.  I cannot be everything to everyone anymore than I can expect everyone else to be everything to me, even when I know how painful it is.  I want to make the world not be like this anymore!  No one ever cut off again!  What kind of a messed up reality is this?

“Well, I’m going dancing with shoes on now,” I thought.  Suddenly, I was reminded of a Buddhist parable:

To cover all the earth with sheets of hide–
Where could such amounts of skin be found?
But simply wrap some leather round your feet,
And it’s as if the whole earth had been covered!

~ Verse 13 of the Bodhicharyavatara

In No Time To Lose, Pema Chodron writes:

The analogy suggests we’ve been walking barefoot over blazing hot sands, thorns, and stones, and our feet are bruised and bleeding.  Suddenly, we come up with a way to end our suffering: we’ll cover the surface of the whole world with leather!   This is, of course, impossible.  But what if we wrapped leather around our feet? Then we could walk anywhere without a problem.

I slipped on my cozy high heels and pulled out of my driveway, wondering, “Where the hell am I going?  Can I really do this?”  I was terrified of spending the evening contemplating the circle dance while sitting alone in a noisy dance club.

I prayed that the resentment in my heart be replaced with love.  Oh God, I wanted the resentment to disappear so badly!  “I don’t want this!” I said.  “Please let me find open heartedness again!”  I felt helpless to put my heart in the right place.

In his introductions to the writings of Rumi, Coleman Barks wrote, “Human beings cannot, and must not, judge one another’s innermost heart.  Only divine wisdom can do that.”  For all I knew, those who cut me off were holding me in their thoughts and sending love.  Grief so easily leads to anger, even when we know that rejection is not a sign of disappearing love.

In times of loss, we are drawn into sadness almost as an empathic communique, a plea for the spiritual presence of those we miss.  But… such deep sadness can become little more than an incessant pain signal to those who are helpless to do anything about it.  Though we often associate our joy with having taken something, joy is an offering.  To simply experience joy is a gift to the one mind and every person who holds us in their awareness.

“Tonight, let my joy be an offering,” I prayed.  I thought of the friends who said they were not friends.  “May they feel joy from me instead of pain.”

People want you to be happy.
Don’t keep serving them your pain!

If you could untie your wings
and free your soul of jealousy,

you and everyone around you
would fly up like doves.

~ Rumi

What if those I believe wanted me far away were actually wishing me well in their hearts?  I believe that those who love us shine through in our immediate surroundings, in the people nearby, even strangers.  If someone wishes us love, that love fills the space around us like a coalescing vapor and possesses whoever in our presence will allow it to be channeled through them.  If we open, we can receive the love of someone far away through the person sitting next to us on a train.

If the beloved is everywhere,
the lover is a veil,

but when living itself
becomes the Friend,
lovers disappear.

~ Rumi

I resolved to receive the love of the Divine and the love of those gone from my life through whatever and whomever crossed my path.

The name of the club event was “Rebirth.”

I arrived way too early for the dance crowd.  The bar was nearly empty.  I sat on a bar stool and ordered a Bailey’s on the rocks.  I must have looked really pathetic.  “What if he saw me sitting here?” I wondered, thinking of the man I once took home with me after every dance.  He would probably think I looked like a sad case.  Perhaps he would feel better about himself, by way of contrast.  Perhaps he would feel stronger, healthier, more loveable, all by way of contrast.

The image was so sweet in my thoughts, him experiencing some positive effect from my pathetic situation.  I am so hungry to feel that feeling of being a source of joy rather than pain that the thought of him benefiting from my pain consoled me deeply.  Or, I was just hungry to imagine him feeling good.  I’ve spent too much time feeling disappointed and frustrated.  The longing to wish him well was so intense, I found myself wishing he would walk in and see me, glance at me with that mixture of pity and mild disgust, and head for another room, feeling healthy and strong inside.  Goodness, how wonderful it would feel!  I can’t really explain it.  It felt painful and good at the same time.  I just… love him.  That is all.  Touching this, my heart became hot and gushed, and I started to cry.  I grabbed a bar napkin and thanked the poor lighting for hiding my tears.  The resentment was gone.

At that point, the psychologist and philosopher in me became fascinated by the twist of desires.  I thought about asking the bartender for a pen and writing my thoughts down on a napkin.  Oh, I love to write!  Just three days ago, I met with my graduate advisor, and she suggested I think about a career in scientific writing.  “You should speak to someone in journalism,” she said.  Her idea was reverberating in my mind when a man sitting next to me introduced himself.  As it turns out, he got his degree in journalism and spent several years writing in France and Germany.  He was also a philosopher with a penchant for Nietzsche, who said, “A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.”  Something to aspire to.

Moving to the dance floor, my soles felt odd but my soul felt right.  I embraced the opportunity to dance.  Soon, I realized that I was the only one dancing, but I didn’t care.

An older black man sitting nearby shouted some encouraging words then danced alongside me.  He must have been in his late fifties.  He had rhythm, style, and a perpetual smile.  The man could dance!

He asked my name, and when I asked his, he said, “IT IS WHAT IT IS.”  I soon realized, as the strobe lights passed over his lapel, that those words were sewn onto his jacket like a name tag.  “What made you choose that?” I asked.  “Because I am what it is,” he said and smiled.

“Of course,” I thought.  The channeler.  The magic of it made me high with love.

He pulled me into a group of his fellow friends, and we danced together for hours.  They formed two rows, and we took turns dancing through the middle.  They really put their hearts into it, dancing with such joy and enthusiasm.  It was a boogie with soul!

The music was fantastic.  As I surrendered my body to the melody, I moved into a trance.  I did not choose my movements.  Even the most minute movement was determined entirely by the music.  No more doing.  Being only.  The DJ played a song about opening the heart, and I soared into the clouds.  Thoughts subsided.  Past and future dissolved.  There was only this.  I was high!  I offered my joy to the Divine and to everyone at the Barefoot Boogie.

I did not feel alone or lost from my tribe.  The man turned around and showed me the back of his biker jacket, which read “Wolf Pack.”

“You’ve got a wolf pack in your life, girl!” he shouted.  Of that, I have no doubt.

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UPDATE: The next day, I followed an ad in Facebook for oil painter, Juliann Jones, and immediately saw this piece, entitled “Wolf Pack:”

Sacred Dancer
copyright 2009 Waking Heart