Here I am: Rosary dance insights

I had a wonderful time leading the Advent Day of Reflection for the Diocese of Joliet: "Dancing the Rosary: Moving through the Joyful Mysteries" on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception back in December. It was a wonderful group of nine prayerful, loving women.

I learn and tweak, add, subtract every time I give a rosary dance retreat. This time I choreographed very simple movements to the Our Father and Glory Be. My goal was to create movements that were VERY simple. Easily remembered and embodied. Intuitive so people didn't have to think them, but could truly pray them. I also wanted to give people a variety of movement experiences - opportunities for creative movement reflection and for choreographed unison movement, some easily remembered movements that they could take home.

The personal highlight of the day for me was Joy Sloan playing on the piano and all of us singing and swaying and dancing Anne Carter's Magnificat (which is Mary's prayer) at the end of the Mass at the end of the day. I had been leading/directing/in charge all day, but now it was my turn to be led and fed. And, there's nothing like live music to inspire the soul. And, that Magnificat is great because it is to the tune of Amazing Grace and everyone knows (and loves) the tune of Amazing Grace so all can really sing it.

I had been fed throughout the day, too, though, by the wonderful sharing. Just a few highlights:
- Clare's gestural interpretation of conception
- Gena's unexpected tears as she explained how integral Mary is to her spirituality
- Kathy's interpretation of the last phrase of the Hail Mary: "at the hour of our death" as a resurrection

Thank you, thank you all!

* * * *

On another note, next Sunday, January 13th at 10am, I'm dancing for the installation of Autum Lum as youth pastor at the First Presbyterian Church in Wilmette. I don't want to say too much on the very off chance that she would read this as it's a surprise, but the song is "Here I am, Lord" by Dan Schutte and I will be embodying God - quite a challenge and a new role for me. I've embodied the Holy Spirit, the woman at the well, Mary of Nazareth, Mary Magdalene, but never God, except in so much as we all do as children of God.

Movement and stillness inherent in the Sorrowful Mysteries

Reading Garry Will's book The Rosary: Prayer Comes Round, I realized that I needed to get back in the gym as that is where I pray the rosary. For me, it's a movement meditation. When I got there Monday, I discovered that I didn't have a bible with me, which was really annoying, because I like to start from the scriptures -- to be grounded in the scriptures. Usually, I choose one mystery, read the associated scripture passage, and spend my whole prayer time on it. So, since I couldn't focus on one scripture passage and mystery, I decided to do a whole rosary (or five mysteries), and given everything I'm going through, the sorrowful mysteries seemed right. Sometimes, one just needs to turn it all over to God in prayer. So, as is often the case, my prayer time in the gym was very enlightening. Helpful. Wild the insights I get in that gym.
I thought of Jesus facing death and how it must have felt. 1. The agony in the garden: "Not my will, but yours be done." It really is tough to acknowledge that one's life (or a chapter of life) is ending, to truly let go, to say "Good-bye." To see death foreordained and keep moving toward it.
I had been pacing round and round the gym counter-clockwise, then clockwise, then back and forth before beginning the rosary and through that first decade, and I was beginning to want to end what had become an almost frenetic pace.
2. Scourging at the pillar: Ah, I stopped moving. This mystery is still. Jesus wasn't moving. wasn't allowed to move. trapped. The mystery requires a giving in. an acceptance of fate. I stood by a volleyball pole (my pillar). Just said the prayers in place. (Of course, if I had been identifying with his floggers, the movement would have been frenetic.)
3. Crowning with thorns. I'm on the floor, sitting regally. Again, this is still. just take the mocking. Jesus didn't respond. No point in dignifying the taunts with a response. He knew the truth, his inner truth. Didn't matter what others said. What strength Jesus had to just take it quietly.
4. Carrying the cross. now, I'm moving again. slowly though. resigned. with a large imaginary cross on my back.
5. Crucifixion. I'm against the wall now. my arms up. I keep sinking down and then revive myself, trying to hold my arms up. I have to endure ten Hail Mary's before it's finally over. A death on a cross is slow and painful . . .