Dreaming of Dancing

To dance well among friends at a feast foretold joy, weddings, good news arriving with music. For the poor and the burdened it promised relief, a lightening of the load.

To dance in a strange place or before strangers was read as exposure, your private matters performed in public. For the sick, the old texts held it an unquiet sign.

Dancing is the body and the unconscious keeping the same time for once, instinct and awareness in step. It often arrives when a split-off part of you is being welcomed back into the room.

Dancing you cannot stop, or dancing alone at the edge of a crowd, may be motion standing in for feeling, a mask over grief. The shadow likes a costume.