Dance, Friends

I was recently leaving a video message for a friend on one of my favorite apps, Marco Polo. We were chatting about grief, as we do, and I shared a triad of recent experiences that have been shaping my perspective:

A couple years ago when I was taking a weekly Afrobeats dance class, I started having spiritual experiences in my post-class shower. One evening while showering, an ancestor who I was getting to know came into my mind. I “heard” his spirit say to keep dancing, and said that the more I pounded my feet on the ground, the better I could connect with the ancestors. The dance studio changed the time of this class and it’s no longer convenient for me to attend, but I incorporate dance and movement into my weeks in other ways…

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In late winter of this year I dreamed of a man dressed in blue wax cloth covered in a fish design; he was eating fish at a table and put a book about fish on the table in front of me. A woman walked behind me and she and the gentleman spoke about their love of fish. Upon waking up I meditated on this visitation and asked for more insight. When I asked who the man and woman in the dream were, I intuited that they were way back ancestors, but too far back for me to place. Now they are spirit guides. More importantly than locating or naming them, however, I received the instruction I should go to the waterfront with an offering and dance - regularly. On my first visit, as I approached the waterfront with a small bouquet of foraged flowers (gathered after asking and receiving permission from the land), before I could even begin to dance, a song came to my tongue. This humble song and dance at the water’s edge now is a regular offering now.

These messages were reinforced yet again last month when I was learning more about The Friendship Bench and Dr. Dixon Chibanda:

“It wasn’t unusual for [the grandmothers] to suddenly get up and break into song and dance when they debriefed together or when they were discussing difficult cases with me. This custom came from traditional African funerals and other ritualized events. It provided a cathartic release of any residual emotions that might be lingering - a very different approach than Western model of sitting in a hushed room and talking matter-of-factly about difficult emotions.”

As I was sharing these 3 experiences with my friend, I jokingly said, “So based on all these things, if I were to give you a prescription for grief, it’d be to stomp your feet on the ground and dance, girl, dance!”

Right about then I saw a doe and her 2 babies walking down the street towards me. Slowing my car to a stop, I melted into tears of gratitude and awe as the 3 deer turned the corner prancing away.

Later that day, still full of awe at seeing the deer family (and at such a synchronistic moment!), I looked up synonyms for “prescription” in a Merriam Webster thesaurus: tradition, birthright, custom, heritage, inheritance, values, lifestyle, legacy.

Prescription as tradition? Prescription as inheritance? Prescription as legacy? This is quite the departure from what I would associate with a prescription (pharmaceuticals is where my mind goes, and the definition of prescription also includes “establishment of a claim of title under common law...”). My little cheeky comment was actually speaking to something, just as the deer, the grandmothers, and my spiritual experiences confirmed.

Those African grandmothers somatically knew (as wisdom keepers and technologists) that they must sing and dance to release the loads they carry as community caregivers. As humans we must return to our birthright and dance. Let me remind you that homo sapians come from Africa; this prescription is for everyone. It is our heritage to slap our feet on the soil in rhythm (not unlike the click clock dance of the deer shuffling down the street).

Are you willing to receive this inheritance?

Are you willing to take this medicine?

Dance, friends, dance!

The deer family