The Party Is Now!

My friend celebrates life
with “BIG ASS DANCE PARTIES!!”
Death too.
She dances the continuum of human moments –
Plunging – laughing and fearless – into the sea!!
Or silently sipping tea, bent and worried.

In both,
tiny particles surge,
creating her body in wave after wave –
just like the creation of trees,
stars and
all the invisible rhythms
that just dawned a sudden smile on that boy’s face
or rises and falls each breath in that old woman…

It’s all now!
The party is now!
Time to Celebrate!
Time to celebrate our past –
not curse it, not fight it, not waste it.
Time to move in,
move on
and move with the joy of life –
All of it.
Even death, horrible and ecstatic,  
the marriage of human with Divine.
Even there.
Even dancing there too.

Time to get out of the wailing room of lack,
of morose funeral,
and step outside to the Big Ass Dance Party!
To the open air that equally holds
the cracking thunder
and the quiet, bursting miracle of the butterfly
on the swaying blade of grass.

Time for us to stop making ourselves
do what is “good for us,”
even if it hurts
and instead, walk around on foundations that feel good!
Time to stop being angry that someone told us we’re not allowed to ……..
and just live.
Time to stop believing that if we suffer enough
we can take away someone else’s suffering.
Time to stop living in limbo,
playing dead,
one eye cracked half open –
hiding from ourselves as much as anyone else’s judgement.

Time to stop punishing ourselves for “doing it wrong.”
The mountain can’t be anything but Itself.
The tree can’t be a cloud.
Each of us is the unique animal that we’ve been built to be –
with our own ways of looking,
Of being,
Of loving.

Time to wake up!
Time to join in!
Time to throw our arms around ourselves
and each other!

Time to welcome every glorious morning
and embrace every wretched moment of despair.
This dance cannot leave anyone or anything out.
And it has never, ever held itself at arm’s length.

Time to move close,
hips and cheeks and breath as one
in the ecstatic pleasure and pain of it all.

Writhing, laughing, twisting, aching, pounding, flying, spitting, gasping, touching, whispering, feeling, moving, embracing……


Here.

Now.

Is the celebration of our lives.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dancing with you all in love,
Chris