December Aside

An Aside: Peace

The work we do in our improvisational dancing is work that awakens peace. It is not sitting by a fire on a dark and stormy night with soft music playing kind of peace. It is active, joining together with others, the earth and its world making peace. Engaging this kind of peace is work. It is not easy, although it maybe joyful. It fills the heart with an expanded sense of being together and of making a difference because you yourself are made different in these moments conjoined because of space, within time and its eternity with others. The fullness of being not alone. The work we do is illuminating in that it lets us know just how much our presence in the world is a relational practice. What we bring to each moment becomes the moment for more than one. How significant a lesson can that be? I remember hearing about Thich Nhat Hanh’s presence and his remarkable influence on all the spaces he entered. He was always practicing peace. I understood that this was so and that he had to be dancing on the level of his body mind. I honor the peace-making that is an action of the individual moving as a collective multitude. Peace that refuses to make choices and decisions that influence others from any other place of being. Peace is a dance, and to dance is our responsibility, response-ability. We are dancers. We bring care that touches peace. “May peace be with you” in this sense is to say,“may you dance the world.”