I woke up to find myself in a dark and swirling place where dancing figures brushed me as they passed.
"Stay! I cried. "Stay and tell me where I am!" But the dancing figures danced on and ignored me.
I lay in that place of darkness waiting for someone to touch me. At last they touched me and I cried out: " Stay! Tell me who I am! " But they ignored me and danced on.
Again something touched me and I reacted saying: "Stop! Stay with me because I don't know what I must do."
The dancing figure wrapped itself around me for a while but did not answer. I learned to wrestle myself free and move about alone.
So I lay in the dark wondering where I was and who I was and what I must do but no one came and no one cared. I was alone. The dancing figures were my friends. They knew what to do. They danced and so I danced. They were still and so I was still.
We danced together in a primitive rhythm and my body grew in strength and in the rhythm was the dance. I was a dancer and became the dance; I knew how to dance and I loved the dance. I loved to feel them brush me gently as they passed. How I loved to make my own circles in my little dark world, knowing they were there with me! Then as I grew I could not feel them any more but I had learned how to dance like them in the dark, so I forgot them and danced on until there was no more room to dance.
But then it was time to pass into the light and the dancers were gone into a dream. Here there were no soft touches on my arms. Instead there were strong, enclosing embraces that held me tightly and did not let me go. I wrestled myself free so I could be the dance once again.
The dance faded from my mind until there was no more than a fleeting shadow that touched my eye corner in the fragment of an idea. I was alone with a sense of something missing but I knew how to dance.
I looked into myself, searching for that vague memory of the other dancers, but they eluded me. For many years I stared into the mirror searching my face for the answer to the mystery of who I was and who would dance with me.
Voices often came to me in that bright world, calling me and asking me questions about things I did not know so I didn't answer because I could not. I was dancing alone in a forgotten dream and there I stayed.
Someone touched me on the arm and I remembered my dancers and was glad. So I closed my eyes and danced my silent dance. But she did not know how to dance with me. She did not brush gently past and pass on like the dancers in my dream. She kept holding on to me so tightly I had to wrestle myself away, for I was dreaming of a touch that does not hold. She told me I was bad because I did not know how to hold her, and dance in her new way. I was hurt and angry because this was not my dance; I danced alone and it was good and I knew this with all my heart. It was her dance that was different from mine!
So I tried to dance her dance but I always stumbled and got it all wrong. Then I taught her to dance my dance and she left me alone to make my lonely circles and all was right again until she begged me again and again to hold her.
I was happy if I did not listen and kept my eyes closed and danced alone, but when I opened my eyes there were always people telling me that my dance was wrong. They railed and shouted at me, they harangued me about the way I danced and said I was bad because I danced alone. I did not understand. They did not know that I am the dance and I dance alone and that is me.
Then one day I explained to my friend that I dance alone and the dance is me, and she understood. " Teach me to dance like you" she said.
So we made a new dance. I stood a good way off and danced alone and she mirrored everything I did. I danced alone and so did she. We danced alone together. And as she danced my dance I saw my dance in her body. We danced in unison for many days and it was good.
"Now try this"' she said and she stepped towards me. I stepped forward, and we danced on.
"Now a little nearer. I won't hurt you or trap you," she said and she laid her hand gently on mine. We danced on with hands touching. Her body moved with mine.
Her hand lay on mine with such love that I let it lie there, trusting her to let me go whenever I needed to dance free and alone. We danced our new dance. Her touch was loving and good and I knew that I could break away at any time and be free.
She smiled at me with kindness and said: "This is the best dance in the world." Once again I could live my dream and be the dance and the dancer. And this is how we made our new dance together in the clear light of day.
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