These articles are mostly about PeaceMakers from our community in action in the world, stories to bring light to the idea of Peacemaking and possibly to inspire you. This month, our contemplation centers on Dance camp experiences and ends with some questions.
Several people have said that they come to Dance camps to find joy, to be on holiday, to get away from their daily lives – they do not want to be dealing with challenges, issues or problems at camp.
However, the Dances attract mostly people from the more sensitive end of the spectrum of human personalities. Dancers in general tend to be, in my experience, more thoughtful, aware of the world, environmentally progressive, musically inclined, sensitive to others and sensitive within themselves than the bulk of the population. That very sensitivity makes the Dance camp experience more transparent, whether we talk about it or not; people’s issues, griefs, darkness, etc. show up in more stark relief at camps than perhaps in the rest of our interactions.
One image of “Peacemaking” is that of two cupped hands, held together, allowing them to be filled with all kinds of abundance and love. I see that image as a potential for our community (and the larger world, but for now let’s focus on the Dance community). When the hands are not in the same horizontal plane, when one is higher than the other, when some parts of the community are not being held at the same level as the rest of the community, there is an opportunity for Peacemaking, for bringing the hands back together.
The unevenness shows up in many ways: people who are musically or rhythmically challenged; people whose social interaction skills aren’t that skillful; those whose emotional wounds cause them to lash out at others when pushed; people whose physical frailties are tested by our exuberance, food, noise level, etc; a few who are so oblivious of how to be respectful that they blunder through the camp like bulls. And more. We are perfectly imperfect beings. And this is our tribe, our community. We don’t come together to “get away from” our humanness, but rather to embrace it and accept it, allow it and relax into the Now and the flow and the this-is-what’s-happening-right-now of our experience.
So, given that, how do we become Peacemakers at our own gatherings where we are singing and Dancing about Peace? How do we include those whose abilities jar us a little bit (or a lot)? How do we act as Peacemakers, guiding the clueless into a moment of learning rather than of punishment? How do we widen our hearts and our circle to include those who don’t quite fit, rather than turning our backs to them, literally or metaphorically? How do we learn to let our egos rest, while still keeping firm boundaries of integrity and truth? This is a situation where “we” does not mean “the collective,” but rather each of us individually, and no, I do not have glib answers, only the questions to shine into our hearts.
May we all be blessed and held within the circle.
