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August 19, 2001 |
Dancing the Sacred Circleby Iris J. Stewart |
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The circle is perhaps the most ancient of mystical symbols and the most universal of all dances. It is the earth and the sun in eternal movement, an unbroken, unbent line symbolizing continuity and eternity. The circle dance represents the wholeness of things, the roundness of pregnancy, the breasts, vessels, house and temple. The dance brings life full circle. The circle creates solidarity. Because it takes more than two people to complete a circle, the circle creates community. It is the perfect democracy; there is equality. The circle provides a protected, consecrated, all-inclusive space. It is nonlinear, multidirectional, and endless. Before the town square became square, it was circular. For example, several villages in the Catalonia region of the eastern French Pyrenees still have a circle in the center, some laid in beautiful mosaic or ornate tiles, specially built for the local circle dance. How wonderful to build a village around the dance floor! The circle is charmed because it encloses emptiness -- an emptiness constructed by, and charged with, the concentrated energy of our moving, connected bodies. When we leave the center empty and direct our dancing toward this unmoved stillness, we create within ourselves the quiet of the unmoved center. Dancing as one person within a group, we feel the rise of this invisible energy in response to our bodily and musical invocations, as in an orchestra when a single instrument merges into the musical sound while remaining an individual part of the organic whole. Like birds flying in formation, a new body is created, linked together as though by invisible elastic threads, and receiving from the unified vibrational wavelengths the energy necessary for each individual's propulsion. In the process, a higher being is discovered, namely the group soul. Encircling is the incorporating, the giving and receiving of power. While it encloses and possesses, the circle also empowers through a concentration of energy that is ever-flowing and ever-changing. The circle leads back into itself and so is a symbol of unity, the Absolute, perfection. But does the circle have any real power? According to Marija Gimbutas, "The circle -- be it fairy dance or ring of standing stones -- transmits the energy increased by the combination of the powers of stone, water, mound and circle motion." Starhawk says, "Witches conceive of psychic energy as having form and substance that can be perceived an directed by those with a trained awareness. The power generated within the circle is built into a cone form, and at its peak is released -- to the Goddess, to reenergize the members of the coven, or to do a specific work such as healing." The natural electromagnetism of the human body is strengthened and enhanced by clockwise and counterclockwise movements. The dance ring literally operates like the winding of an electrical motor, the rhythmic movement of the circle inducing the local collection of energy in the cells of the body as precisely as does a metal turbogenerator, albeit on a more subtle level. Evidence shows that the circle dance was practices as far back as Upper Paleolithic era and was carried into the Neolithic era and down through history. Vase supports from the classical Cucuteni culture, dating back to the second half of the 5th millennium B.C.E., are shaped like women in a ring with joined arms, illustrating women performing a circle ritual. These vases, called hora vases, depict ring dances still done today. In his book World History of the Dance, Curt Sachs describes the round dances of devout and solemn characters sedately performed in honor of the deity: "No wonder, then, that the enmeleia (the sacred concept in Greek) devolved mainly upon the women -- it is the old distinction of close and expanded movement. Festive processions to the shrine and fluctuating circles around the altar are the forms these dances take. They have come down to us most beautifully in the marvelously preserved partheniads, in which the Virgins, hand in hand like Graces, worship the Goddess to the sound of hymn-like songs, Here we have magic elevated completely to worship, to devout celebration...The whirl dance must be acknowledged as the most thrilling expression of the feminine power of conception. Imitations of astral movements led to the circle dance; the foundation map for astronomy and its companion, astrology, was laid out in large-scale pattern on the temple pavement. Rotating stars, the revolving sun and moon, and celestial turnings synchronized to seasons and cycles were a deeply meaningful mystery to the ancients, and the sky an open classroom. Priestesses, the first astronomers, opened the door to time keeping, mathematics, and science through their dance of stars, a very intricate dance to which, moving in synchrony with the Divine Order, the priestesses danced from east to west around a sun or moon altar, making the signs of the zodiac. The ritual dance, which varied with each month, was performed with appropriate movement and in the correct costume, with chants that affirmed instructions, praises, and prayers for the period The Mevlana dervishes (derv means "to rotate") move in a circle as one body around the room, with each dancer simultaneously pivoting around her or his own axis, symbolizing many cosmological realities. Every religious system reveals a system of twelve units of power. There were twelve patriarchs and twelve prophets in the Hebraic tradition. The celestial Jerusalem had twelve gates on which were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, Jesus had twelve Apostles; twelve legions of angels could be summoned by him. The Tree of Life bore twelve kinds of fruit, yielding one for each month. There are twelve people in the Circular Council of the Dalai Lama. In Greek mythology there were twelve Titans and twelve Olympian deities. Hercules is given twelve labors, twelve representing the solar number, the cycle of the solar hero, whereas the moon cycle is thirteen. Hermas of Hellas visited the twelve virgins on the sacred mountain, clad in white raiment, who performed a round dance. They symbolize twelve powers that emanate from the hidden secret source. The Etruscan state was itself divided into twelve states. There were historically twelve peers of France. Knights came in sets of twelve, often with a dark or "black" prince as the thirteenth. Henry VIII had twenty-four knights. Even Robin Hood had twelve knights and twelve Merry Men.
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