Dancing Five Layers

January 2, 2012 Today I went to the dancing event known as IM Jam at Farnsworth Park in Altadena, CA. The dj/musician/spiritual healer was leading the group through cooling down exercises when I arrived half way through the event. He urged dancers to see through their toes and breathe with their fingers. Everyone was encouraged to listen to the music and to let it move their bodies. No judging, no conversations, no cell phones. Of course I felt awkward, but I'm a dancing fool. Still, I felt eyes on me and didn't know what to make of it. At a dance club, I do. But here, the idea was to not perform, but to be in the music with your body. Not sure if I did that, exactly, but I am a dancing fool, so I  had fun. There's a lot more space than at a dance club, and the other people are free-styling and dancing as if no one is looking, even though we are. But I had promised myself the fun and the exercise, and my shoulders felt lighter than they have in years. Later, one of the dancers, of which there were abut 35, invited people up to his house in the hills. Everyone said, "His house is amazing." So I went to see the amazing house. I was urged by an acquaintance to step out onto the patio. And there lay out below the entire half of Los Angeles, from mountain to the sea, glittering in mostly golden and silver lights. It was beautiful. And then I turned around, and saw the mountains, rising up against the sky, pushing up against me, in the half moon light, rising, pressing, opening, embracing. All I could say to the host was, "and then I saw the mountains."  And he said, "Yeah, it's halfway between man and God up here."