There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
Edith Wharton

You may have noticed that you are happiest when you are doing something that you truly enjoy. In such a state, you are not encumbered by fear, being, instead, so completely absorbed in whatever it is you’re doing. It is quite a different state of consciousness to the ‘ordinary’ or ‘conditioned‘ states of consciousness that we spend most of our lives in.

I remember when I was a little child, perhaps three or four, I would dance with gay abandon in front of a mirror. For a few minutes, perhaps even an hour (I did not have much sense of time then), I would lose myself completely. Looking back on it now, it seemed like I was in a different world altogether, an enchanted world.

I can see myself now, lifting into the air and landing on the wooden floor, leaping across the room, arms flaying, face as if in a trance. At times , I would move with such intensity and speed, at others, slowly. As I watch myself now in a memory replay, it looks as if I was engaged in a wordless conversation, sometimes leading, at others, responding. What impresses me most is the state of oblivion or selflessness that I seemed to have been in, at least until one day when…I heard laughter.

A couple of older children had been secretly watching me. It was a terrible shock, a very painful one, as I was an incredibly shy child. I was transfixed. I stayed rooted to the floor for what seemed like an eternity. When I finally came to, I ran as fast and as far as I could go, tears streaming down my cheeks. It was an event I was hugely embarrassed by and told no one about, at least not until today! I never danced like that again for a very long time.

So why recall and share it now? Well, the recalling was really spontaneous but the decision to share it is motivated by my desire to alert us to the nature of  fear which can so unforgivingly cripple us when we let it. Consequently, we forgo countless opportunities to be happy.  In my story, my fear was of being ridiculed, laughed at ever again!

When are we really going to allow ourselves to live fully and freely? When we know that we are about to breathe our last? When are we going to allow ourselves to dance the dance of life? There really is no better time than now. Indeed, there is no other guaranteed and real time than now!

When The Lover is asked angrily about time, he says:

Time will get rid of itself and with it all illusions, all lies, all that does not speak of love.

Now is real. Now is here. Now is free of fears. Do your dance now, whatever shape or form it takes.   And when you do, you will be both the light of the candle and the mirror that reflects it, for you will be expressing the truth of your nature!  You are a creature of joy, of happiness. Do not deny yourself any longer!

Lucy Lopez – Hire Me!
Dancing Joy!

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