SACRED CIRCLES
Richard Hazlehurst
The matter that has been exercising me for some time now is this business of the Sacred. It is clear that those who brought the Dance from Findhorn and opened it up to the rest of the world were committed to the idea of the Sacred as the centre of the Dance. Somewhere along the way this idea seems to have been lost or, at least, diluted and largely hidden. Yet somewhere, at the back of my mind, there is something that ticks restlessly to tell me that this idea of the Sacred is important.
There appear to be those, judging from correspondence in the Grapevine from time to time, who seem not just to ignore the idea of Sacred Dance but to actively resent it, as if afraid that somehow it is going to detract from their enjoyment of Dance. I suppose that it is these people I really want to engage with, while hoping that my reflections will also prove helpful to those who are on a different Journey.
I would like to start with the proposition that the Sacred is something which actually exists, not as a private personal experience but as something transcendental which can be recognised and shared. Secondly I would like to examine the way in which the Dance can offer a way to experience this. Finally I offer some thoughts on the way in which dancing groups may facilitate this experience while still catering for all-comers. I must emphasize that all this is part of an ongoing dialogue which I have with the Dance and which is not intended to be either prescriptive or final.
First, then, what do I mean by the Sacred. Note that I don’t refer to the Sacred Something. It is easy to confuse ideas and to project an abstract idea onto what T S Eliot called ‘the objective correlative’ – an object which acts as focus and symbol for the emotion. Some of these objects are more useful than others: the candle which is widely used in Circle Dance has a wide ranging symbolism – light, warmth, hope, love – and may prompt us to think of it as the Sacred Flame. But many groups dance without a candle and still achieve the spiritual dimension that we call Sacred.
It is, I think, an integral part of being human to seek connection, not only to our fellow human beings but also to something which encompasses the whole of life. For much of our lives we can manage to disregard this urge as we concentrate on the more practical aspects of staying alive. However, for most of us, there come times when we need to return to silence and stillness to make connection with the world around us; to listen to the birds and gaze upon the sunset. All religions seem to recognise this need and minister to it. But when we retreat to the wilderness to meditate, it is not the wilderness which is Sacred, nor is it the wearing of a particular colour or the performing of a particular ritual. These are props which help us to make the inward Journey towards a clearer picture of ourselves and our place in the universe. The Sacred is that Journey to its moment of connection. And, because our human experience tends to fragment and compartmentalise, the Sacred Journey is interrupted, stalled, distorted as we go through our busy lives and needs to be repeated. The return to the wilderness is an inevitable part of the whole Journey.
There are, of course, many wildernesses and many ways of making the Journey and my way may not be your way. In claiming Sacred Dance to be one way of making the Journey, we are not claiming any sort of exclusive power for it. It is not the Dance which is Sacred but the Journey which it facilitates. Reading June’s book (Circle Dancing) I was taken with the idea that she was brought up in a Methodist Manse, as Bernhard had been brought up in a Protestant Minister’s family. It brings back memories of my own childhood, particularly the New Year’s Eve celebrations at one of our chapels. The evening was spent in feasting and dancing, the whole congregation – adults and children together – enjoying fun and laughter. At half-past eleven we went from the schoolroom and the revels into the church where the watch-night service, led by my father was solemn, peaceful and profoundly moving. I have been in many New Year services since but none had the same sense of connection and wholeness than the ones which had followed the joy and fun of the party.
This element of progression from fun and laughter to quietness and a sense of shared spirituality is something which I have recovered in the Dance Circle. Sometimes the movement has been made explicit at the start of the session; sometimes it has been allowed to develop organically. Frequently the final silence is a moving experience, when the spirit is uplifted beyond the self and into that feeling of transcendence, however brief, which is the Sacred. It is not guaranteed and often the final feeling is of physical well-being without any spiritual dimension. But the possibility is always there and I cherish it.
How does the Dance achieve this? First, by its acceptance of the Dancer, as individual and as part of the circle. By the gentleness of its invitation it encourages us to lose any fear of embarrassment or initial clumsiness. As we take the Dance into ourselves and explore it through our bodies and their movements, we find that the Dance itself is giving us the tools to learn ourselves as physical beings. As we improve our footwork and our posture and the gestures of arms and hands, we find that we have gained the freedom to experience being in the Dance.
Bernhard points out (The Dancer’s Journey p 44): The art of dancing is a symbol for the law that everything passes. When the Dance is over, you have nothing to hold onto except what your mind and body remembers. The important thing is for the Dancer to incarnate the essence of the movement and his understanding about the transitoriness of things. Whatever we are creating through the Dance in time and space is just there for the moment.
This is the final act, when the last Dance is done and we hold the silence, not to think or reflect but for a short while to just be, joined by the Dance, by a common humanity and by the eternal, of which this is a passing moment. For each of us it is a unique experience at the same time as being one which is shared. There is no need to make too much of this or go too far into mysticism. It is similar to the feeling an athlete gets when everything comes together, when the mind sees possibilities which the body seems to carry into action automatically, instinctively. I have played many games of rugby and cricket where for a brief while in the game I seemed to be playing in another world. Rarely this feeling has carried me through an entire match. It has come at times when I have been so attuned to myself that I can take my skills for granted and use the freedom to play instinctively. No counting the steps, no analysing the performance as it takes place, just free confident movement for now, until it is over.
To carry the possibilities of this sort of experience the Dance makes demands of us which we need to take heed of. First it requires the acknowledgment that these possibilities exist. If we do not experience Dance like this, that is our own business. What we need to accept is that others in the circle may be looking for something more profound than just fun and that to deny them the opportunity is as disrespectful as an attitude which implies that laughter has no place in the Sacred Circle.
Secondly, the Dance itself demands respect. Each Dance is the way it is for a reason and even if we do not know that reason it makes sense to learn the Dance as accurately as possible and to Dance it to the best of our ability. Circle Dancers are, on the whole, a tolerant lot and will help us through our stumblings and confusions but the help will be more willingly and effectively given to those who are truly setting out to go deeper into the Dance. This is about familiarity through repetition and concentration. Another potential barrier to this sort of development is the constant cry for the new. Creation comes from within the creator and works most truly when it responds to an internal drive. Many of the new choreographies express this drive so perfectly that they convey something of the creator’s spirit to those who join the Dance. Others seem created for no other reason than to offer something new. In time many of these will be forgotten.
This is not a question of New Dances versus Traditional ones. The Dancer’s Journey takes in both but all need to be thoroughly learned if they are to help in the development of that awareness which I have called the Sacred. There have been times when the Network seems to have become unnecessarily defensive on these issues. “We are not competitive Dancers. We are not putting on a show for an audience.” No, but that doesn’t mean we can afford to ignore the values that other forms of Dance can share with us. Watching a television programme like Strictly Come Dancing, we hear judges and professional Dancers constantly referring to the Journey into Dance made by the amateurs. It may not be our sort of Dance but I think we would have to be blinkered and churlish not to acknowledge the personal growth achieved by those who reach the later rounds. It may be possible that some of them experience more of the Sacred through Dance than some of us do.
The final question remains: How do we find the balance in this? I think all of us who experience the ultimate richness of the Dance, especially those who offer ourselves as teachers or facilitators, should be aware of our responsibility to the whole Circle of Dance. If we are too insistent too soon on ‘getting it right; being authentic’, we may succeed only in turning away those who have different agendas. I confess that I can sometimes feel uncomfortable when there is too marked an emphasis on Pagan festivals, connecting to the Earth Mother and other such ideas. I can accept other people finding them as helpful ways into the Sacred Circle; I do not wish to have them imposed on me. As Janet Douglas wrote (GV Summer 2003): ‘If you need the trappings to dance, you aren’t experiencing the dance.’ I appreciate those leaders who offer the trappings they have chosen in a simple understated way that lets me be myself in the space they have created. I also find, increasingly these days, that a day of newly created Dances leaves me longing for a chance to dance some of the ones I have danced and loved for years but which seem to have gone out of fashion. This is not becoming a Grumpy Old Man but realising that the old, familiar Dances allow me to slip more easily into the inner space where the Dance takes me towards the spiritual.
There is, it seems, a growing number of courses which invite us to go Deeper into the Dance, to experience the subtler nuances of steps and gestures, of the figures and sequences of the Dance. I wonder if it is time for the Network to think about providing support for those who wish to take this Journey, particularly those who intend to become part of the next generation of teachers and leaders. I think we can and should provide at least moral support for all those who attempt to provide such opportunities. The experience of Dance is a dialogue between Dancer and Dance. Lionel Trilling pointed out that great works of literature read us as much as we read them. As well as answering our questions they provide questions of their own for us to contemplate. Great Dances do the same. As a Network I think we bear a responsibility to keep the idea of the Sacred at the centre of our circle, whether or not we call it by that name, for this is ultimately where the joy and richness of our experience originate.
This item appeared in Grapevine 2007 | 
