"I Am the Cosmic Dancer"
A personal tribute to Friedrich Nietzsche and Houston Smith

I am the Cosmic Dancer.   I spin and weave, tap and whirl, reach and bend, not landing heavily anywhere, but lightly turning and leaping from one place to another, a still point of energy.  I dance the Uni-verse, the one song, Oneness.

Billions of years old – essential and infinite; my hair a trail of star dust and comets, circlets of galaxies around my neck,  arms extending like meteor showers, twin suns for eyes; the numinous moon for my heart, planets circle my hips,  my skirt eternal darkest space.

The shawl I wear is the world’s clothing. Distinction and diversity are my colors in the varied tapestry which delights this world.  I am the World Citizen.  All people are me.  All cultures are me.  All religions are me.

I dance and weave my shawl with Buddhism, the Four Noble Truths and the Eight-fold Path.  I too sit under the bodi tree – seeking enlightenment.  I inhale suffering and exhale the bodishattva’s promise.

I dance and clothe myself with an orientation to the four directions:   listening for the rhythm in the elements of earth, air, fire, and water.

I dance and weave my shawl with Judaism:  the face of God found in the Torah, a God found in history, hearing and obeying the legends of Moses, and in the Kabbalah even dancing into the white spaces between the words.

I dance and clothe myself with Islam.  In the Qu’ran I find the newest testament of the Abrahamic tradition, gift of the reluctant prophet, Mohammed holy be his name. 

I dance and weave my shawl once again, lightly pausing a little longer in this space called Hinduism.    Opulent colors, realms of gold on gold, luminous jewels, a paradise lush with birds and flowers, oil burning lamps, rich carpets.  I fall in love with the blue skin of Krishna, the Bhagavad Gita his epic battles shared with Arjuna, he consorts with Radha the completion of love and himself found on a floral swing hung with ropes of sky; the thread of the Goddess woven throughout with a pantheon of gods and goddesses -- companions & metaphors for human life and experience:  the Creator Brahman, the Preserver Vishnu, Shiva the Completer, Kali the Destroyer, Ganesha the remover of obstacles and instigator of mischief.  The human potential found in the four arms of yoga --  the way of knowledge, the way of love, the way of work, the way of the body.  I pause to play, hiding behind masks and becoming all creatures, all worlds.  I dance and bow low taking the wise and good teacher into my heart.   I hear the summons of life, death, and re-birth -- the lonely journey of confronting reality and the self --  samsara leading to infinite being, infinite awareness, infinite bliss.  I discover Atman the divine within, the depth of being.  Karma is my embodied choices.

I dance and clothe myself in the experience of humanity.  I attend and notice the experience before feeling, the experience of no time and no identity, the experience before words.  I find myself in the incarnation & connection in nature, all my senses -- immanence more profound than transcendence.

Finally, I dance and weave my shawl with Silence.  Waiting and resting, hearing the whispers from beyond, within, and between --  the pull to once again join the dance.   Ultimately, I am without form; Ultimately I am everything and yet no thing.  Ultimately I am the song underneath, I am Om, the original vibration, the primordial sound, the All.

I am the Cosmic Dancer.  I embrace the world.  I am a World Citizen, always at Home.

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