Dancing the Dream Comes Alive

These are some very beautiful visual interpretations of some of the poems in Dancing the Dream

(©Copyright, DANCING THE DREAM by Michael Jackson published by Doubleday 1992, Videos by sofurgofromashes )

Two Birds

(remember the two birds in Tame the Wild Cobra :smile: )

Its hard to tell them what I feel for you. 

They haven’t ever met you  and no one has your picture, so how can they ever understand your mystery?

Lets give them a clue:
Two birds sit in a tree.

One eats cherries, while the other looks on.

Two birds fly through the air.

Ones song drops like crystal from the sky while the other keeps silent.

Two birds wheel in the sun.

One catches the light on its silver feathers, while the other spreads wings of invisibility.
Its easy to guess which bird I am but they’ll never find you.

Unless . . . .
Unless they already know a love that never interferes,

that watches from beyond,

that breathes free in the invisible air.

Sweet bird, my soul, your silence is so precious.

How long will it be before the world hears your song in mine?

Oh, that is a day I hunger for!

Love

Love is funny thing to describe.

It´s so easy to feel and yet so slippery to talk about.

It´s like a bar of soap in the bathtub – you have it in your hand until you hold on too tight.

Some people spend their lives looking for love outside themselves.

They think they have to grasp it in order to have it.

But love slips away like that wet bar of soap.
Holding on to love is not wrong, but you need to learn to hold it lightly, caressingly.

Let it fly when it wants.   When it´s allowed to be free, love is what makes life alive, joyful, and new.

It´s the juice and energy that motivates my music, my dancing, everything.

As long as love is in my heart, it´s everywhere.

Mark of the Ancients

He had lived in the desert all his life but for me it was all new. 

“See that footprint in the sand?” He asked, pointing to a spot by the cliff.

I looked as close as I could. “No, I don’t see anything.”
“That’s just the point.” He laughed. “Where you can’t see a print, that’s where the Ancient Ones walked.”
We went on a little farther and he pointed to an opening, high up on the sandstone wall.

“See that house up there?” He asked.

I squinted hard. “There’s nothing to see.”
“You’re a good student.” He smiled. “Where there’s no roof or chimney, that’s where the Ancient Ones are most likely to have lived.”
We rounded a bend and before us was spread a fabulous sight, thousands upon thousands of desert flowers in bloom.

“Can you see any missing?” He asked me.

I shook my head. “It’s just wave after wave of loveliness.”
“Yes,” He said in a low voice. “Where nothing is missing, that’s where the Ancient Ones harvested the most.”
I thought about all this, about how generations had once lived in harmony with the Earth, leaving no marks to scar the places they inhabited.

At camp that night I said, “You left out one thing.”
“What’s that?” He asked.
“Where are the Ancient Ones buried?”
Without reply, he poked his stick into the fire. A bright flame shot up, licked the air and disappeared.

My teacher gave me a glance to ask if I understood this lesson. I sat very still, and my silence told him I did.

 

Innocence

It’s easy to mistake being innocent for being simple-minded or naive.

We all want to seem sophisticated; we all want to seem street-smart —

To be innocent is to be “out of it.”

Yet there is a deep truth in innocence.

A baby looks in his mother’s eyes and all he sees is love. As innocence fades away more complicated things take its place.

We think we need to outwit others and scheme to get what we want. We begin to spend a lot of energy protecting ourselves. Then life turns into a struggle. People have no choice but to be street-smart. How else can they survive?

When you get right down to it survival means seeing things the way they really are and responding.

It means being open.

And that’s what innocence is. It’s simple and trusting like a child, not judgmental and committed to one narrow point of view.

If you are locked into a pattern of thinking and responding, your creativity gets blocked. You miss the freshness and magic of the moment.

Learn to be innocent again, and that freshness never fades.

 

Magic  (To me the best one, but alas, for some reason the author has disabled embedding so you have to watch it on YouTube)

My idea of magic doesn’t have much to do with stage tricks and illusions.

The whole world abounds in magic.

When a whale plunges out of the sea like a newborn mountain, you gasp in unexpected delight. What magic!

But a toddler who sees his first tadpole flashing in a mud puddle feels the same thrill. Wonder fills his heart, because he has glimpsed for an instant the playfulness of life.
When I see the clouds whisked away from a snow-capped peak, I feel like shouting, Bravo!

Nature, the best of all magicians, has delivered another thrill. She has exposed the real illusion, our inability to be amazed by her wonders.

Every time the sun rises, Nature is repeating one command: Behold!

Her magic is infinitely lavish and in return all we have to do is appreciate it.
What delight Nature must feel when she makes stars out of swirling gas and empty space.

She flings them like spangles from a velvet cape, a billion reasons for us to awaken in pure joy.

When we open our hearts and appreciate all she has given us, Nature finds her reward. The sound of applause rolls across the universe and she bows.