Leading Ritual as High Play

Cynthia Winton-Henry–A Mystic Tech SIMStuff they don’t teach in Sunday school, Temple, or PE

ContentsRitual as High Play

Checklist for Creating Moo- ving Ritual‐Ceremony of Wings, Pine Branch Spiral, Dance of Apology, Caution Tape Dance, Solstice Chant

Dance and other Rituals

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Don’t ask me how I started designing dance for worship in high school or taking artful liturgies to congregations in my 20’s. I only know It was fun to think about ritual structure. Enough so that I went on to study worship and the arts and to teach it.

Needless to say, I’ve attended rituals that were beautiful, meaningful, and necessary. Some bored and irritated me. But, my favorites are often leaky, transparent, messy and swing on that mysterious hinge that makes room for a serendipity that rises from somewhere beyond human intention.  Witnessing the ritual play of indigenous people I’ve glimpsed the quality of effortless mundane humor give way to radiant transcendence. I’ve wondered at ancient forms that allow people to drop ego, improvise and have fun. For this reason I don’t resist tradition. There are necessary roots there.

To me good ritual is high play, art handed over to a higher power. This ritual rattles us in just the right way, moving us deeper into life and opening us up to the power that goes against all odds. It doesn’t require money, crowds or tools.

The big secret of high play is the way that simple ingredients create great effect. As a body rests on bones, underlying pulse, room to be, and lots of breath so too does ritual. For this reason, bodies are the best place to start. Profoundly simple, mysteriously complex! I always start with what are the bodies doing?

Another simple awareness is the clean and modest template known as beginning, middle and end. This structure births imaginative space for the actions that might transform ordinary time into sacred time.

The third simple thing is the way high play calls forth Mystery. This requires willingness to not know, one place many a ritualist falls down. If we fill up time with our own needs and agendas how can something “Other” get through?

Terah Cox suggests in The Light of Invisible Bodies, The Path of the Heart Song

It’s not the destinationBut the path that takes you thereIt’s not the path But the dance that moves you down it.It’s not the danceBut the song that drives it.It’s not the song But the dreaming hearts that sing it.

And how are we to trust our ability to mess around and let loose of the ordinary, become playful, holy and wild?

To RITUALIZE IS TO BREATHERonald L. Grimes wrote Defining Nascent Ritual: Beginnings in Ritual Studies and defines ritual as that which transpires. Trans-spirare” means to breathe across…

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Breathing always gets away from us. So does ritual. We can form it and modulate it, but because it is a response to processes that encompass and exceed us, we cannot contain it for long. It escapes, finds other forms, and spans new modes.

TO ANIMATE to “enspirit.” Whether we imagine an animating power as a soul, deeper self, god, state, spirit, animal, cosmos, or society, the body in some sense borrows the life breathed into it.

TO ENACT–ritual action is not an ordinary action. It is action thick with sensory meaning… Non-goal oriented actions...are the seedbeds of ritualizing. Not exhaustively explainable but

not without sense, even though those doing them cannot say what their actions mean.

TO GESTURE...formative gestures–the total bearing of a body expressing a valued style of living, ritualizing physical ways of searching for the sources of creativity, struggling to connect what feels disconnected, trying to discern climactic turns in ongoing processes.

TO HONOR VULNERABILITY where receptive surroundings expose a vulnerable (vulner=wound) side where the more deeply an enactment is received, the more an audience becomes a congregation and the more a performance becomes ritualized. “Sacred is the name we give to the deepest forms of receptivity.”

TO RECOGNIZE CRUCIAL TIMES Where we concentrate, and thereby consecrate time. The auspicious moment, the kairos, is a pulse of opening and closing… occurring when enactment and receptivity are in synchrony...in once-in a life times and here we go-again times. ‐ ‐ ‐ ‐

TO FIND AND CLAIM SPACES that are curiously vacant, even haunting, when the actions of ritual are not occurring in them …spaces sequestered from the hubbub…by establishing boundaries: inside/outside, hidden/revealed, open/closed, front/back.

Being able to dance, understand choreography, and improvise are a perfect set up for ritualizing. Especially where “Sacred is the name we give to the deepest forms of receptivity.” Catherine Bell another ritual scholar quotes Foucault claiming the body as “the place where the most minute and local social practices are linked up with the large scale organization of power.” The body is a political field. “Power relations…invest it, mark it, and train it, torture it, force it to carry out tasks, to perform ceremonies, to emit signs.” She underlines that, “the body is the most basic and fundamental level of power relations, the “microphysics” of the micropolitics of power. Ritualization, therefore, is a strategic play of power…within the arena of the social body...that does not assume or implement total social control… a flexible strategy that requires complicity to the point of public consent, but not much more than that. Ultimately, the resistance it addresses and produces is not merely a limit on a rites ability to control; it is also a feature of its efficacy.”

In the Last Word: Hallelujah! an online writing by Osho he encourages Prayer as the Highest Form of Play.

The mind is a very small thing – it cannot contain the vastness of truth. So there is no way to say it. It can be shown but cannot be said. It can be indicated... fingers pointing to the moon.

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That’s what all scriptures are: fingers pointing to the moon. But the finger is not the moon and the word ‘god’ is not god; the word ‘love’ is not love either – just fingers pointing to the moon.

The fingers have forgotten – one has to look beyond the fingers; one should not become too much attached to the fingers. One should not start sucking the finger. That’s what people have been doing down the ages. Reading the Bible again and again, or the Gita again and again, is just sucking the finger. Just like a small child sucking his own thumb – utterly stupid; it is not going to help. See where the finger is pointing and don’t be caught in the finger itself. All words are impotent when trying to say the truth, for a very basic reason: language is schizophrenic. It divides reality, and god is indivisible, whole. If you say ‘God is light,’ then of necessity you have denied darkness its divinity, then darkness is excluded and nothing can be excluded; god contains all. He is light and he is darkness too, because only he is. If you say ‘God is love,’ then what will happen to hate?

Just the other day I was reading a very strange but very beautiful Hassidic saying: ‘God is not nice; god is not an uncle. God is an earthquake.’ But again, even though the saying is beautiful, something is excluded: ‘God is not an uncle.’ I say he is and he is not; he is both. God is a rose flower too, as much as he is an earthquake. And yes, god is sweet and bitter both. But this is the problem: if you say one thing, you exclude the other, and nothing can be excluded. Language cannot say anything without excluding something. Language cannot be all-‐inclusive, otherwise it will be meaningless. It’s meaning depends on creating a split in existence. Only music comes very close to saying it, but music is not language. No word is used – you can only feel. Music makes no statements. It simply shows. You can be engulfed in it, you can be lost in it, you can have a taste on the tip of your tongue, or you can have a great pain in your heart – sweet, ecstatic. You can fall into oblivion, you can become drunk with it, but it says nothing: it shows. Music comes closest. Music is the best finger pointing to the moon. Even a song is not so good. A song is a compromise between language and music; a song has to use words. It becomes contaminated that much, but music is pure.

[Veet samvado] means: It cannot be said but it can be experienced. Just as one experiences music, just as one experiences love, god is an experience, an existential experience. God is not philosophy but music, not theology but a dance.…Make it a meditation... go deeper into it. If one can find some bridge between oneself and any kind of music, that is the best thing in life. Then everything else is unnecessary. Music is the shortcut to god; all other paths are long and arduous. Just go deeper and deeper into it.

Ritual as high play invites us to step into suffering, love, and the transformational nature of life. Holy Play is our birthright. Whether or not we lead it we recognize it when an Other is afoot in collective breath, vulnerability, space, gesture, time, and receptivity. Bev Voss trumpets this call in A Danger of Angels

Tradition says: Stand by the well and draw up water, bucket by small bucket. Stand on the shore. Watch waves lap up. Draw back from the tide.

Sit in a concert. Hear the music. At the end, clap your hands. If you’re bold, whistle. Give a brief shout. Oh! So bold! And all the while,

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something is restless. Something stirs. Something dark whispers at your back. A rustle of wings. But no one’s there. You gaze down the well’s stony sides and see a face rippling back at you. Beckoning. A whisper: Come in. Get wet. Go deep. See what lives down here. A river perhaps that rushes under your life? You feel terror. You feel no. You feel yes. The ocean too murmurs: Come in. Get wet. Swim. Let waves hold you up and knock you down. Sweep you off your timid feet. Batter you on rock, in swirling sand.

And the music says: Be mine. Move out of your still, pale appreciation and into heat of color and sound, the place your body knows. The breath on your neck grows hot. A danger of angels say: Go! Into the well. Down dark stone walls where your very breath echoes, your heartbeat quickens and you meet the face that’s waited for you. The face that saw the stirring. The one that knew a bucket of water was too small a portion for your growing thirst. Go! say the angels. All your life you’ve stood on the shore. Stayed in your seat. Jump! Swim! Dance! You may die. You may drown. You may live.

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Checklist for Creating Moo- ving Ritual ‐

Stay simpleLet there be breath Be embodied Be yourself Let mystery surprise youPlay in present timeRemember that spirituality is experiential. Use simple forms to retrieve and refresh soul: Dance, Story, Song, Stillness, Touch.Focus on form and content, a simple structure and key story.

1) Gather in body (Seated or standing warm- up, breath, song) ‐2) Gather the people’s story (Walk Stop Run with 3 sentence stories.) 3) Uplift stories with dance, song, music. 4) Offer a tale for the time. (presentation) 5) Respond or notice in dance, song, music, stories, stillness, poems, actions. 6) Bless and Raise the Energy 7) Close

Do respect the group. It’s the only way forward. Do release unrealistic responsibility for conjuring emotions or saving people. Do build community each time you gather a group. Do create clear endings and beginnings for each section and for the whole,

except when the best transition is no transition, then just JUMP! Put the group body first, while paying attention to individual needs. Balance individual and group needs. Over-focus on either creates fatigue. Attend to your own physical affect on the group: Leading too long, too fast or slow will drain energy. Play with rhythms of lead and follow or call and response to both engage and help players let go.

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How to Recognize A Common Western Ritual Form

Beginning Call to Ritual: Sung or Spoken Prayer/Act/Call and Response Middle–

Song Sacred Text Response in Dance, Song, Instrument, Silence, or Storied forms A Telling (Big Body stories etc.) Prayers or Dances on Behalf with dancers or congregation Offerings Gifts, Song and Dance

End: Spoken, sung or danced Blessing. How to Implement a Simple Body Prayer Form: 30 minutes 1. Gather bodies through silence or song (3 minutes) 2. Gather to move energy, sing, or be still using InterPlay warm up and meditation. (7- 10 minutes) ‐3. Intercessory movement and voice. Dance/sing/speak on behalf of those for whom we carry concern (3- 5 minutes.) ‐4. Make an offering or share particular needs for prayer. (10 minutes) 5. Blessing (hand- to-‐ hand contact, contact dances, circle dance, song, or stillness (3‐  minutes) Template for a Dance On Behalf Of (DOBO) Prep one hour before: set up musicians/space/focal point/ beverages 15 minutes prior: ask people for requests to dance, sing on behalf of. Welcome: verbal introduction and invitation to witness or join in. Opening Prayer: Music/Dance/Spoken word assigned in advance. Seated or Standing Warm-up to Awaken Spirit. Collect Words of joy, concern: brainstorm and write on individual pieces of paper. Dancing on Behalf of Individual Concerns

Place an empty bowl in the space to receive prayers. Distribute prayers to dancers. Dancers read requests then dance or sing on behalf, placing prayer in bowl before or

after dancing. Alternate: Read concerns of the people while all dancers move side by side.

Special Prayer Focus: Special guest offers an improvised or prepared piece focusing on a collective concern such as Energy/Place/Peace/Food.

Or, a leader may call forms that involve everyone along with space to witness stories, poems, or offerings, and observe stillness. Closing: Toning, Group Songs, Group Hand Dance, other form.

Share Names, noticing, invitations to upcoming events and announce any refreshments

Final Blessing to release the circle. Invitation to Participants

Remember to1) Allow people freedom to just witness! 2) Expose people to the wider global social movement. 3) Build your email list. 4) Tell about events. 5) Have fun and play.

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Welcome to a place to chill, sing out, witness, move and center in a space where dancers, musicians, and poets create on behalf of our hopes, dreams, and concerns.

Join hands with friends and strangers, breathe, play, and drink in beauty and truth. Stay for refreshment and bless the neighborhood.

Have anything you need dances on behalf off? We'll dance for you.

Want to dance? Your beauty changes the world. Come improvise with silence, music, movement, dance, and spoken word on behalf of our communities, to lift up our physical connection and creative energy, to make an offering, to offer your body to pray for transformation. Want to offer more? Come early to support movement, voice, art, ideas, and musicians Set the space, set out luminaries and signage.Bring beverages/snacks Ask people for DOBO requests and write on postcards. Offer a card about DOBO event. Share requests at the DOBO. Greet people at the door; invite them to sign in with their email. Pass the hat at the end. Clean up.

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Here are some rituals that others have grabbed hold of and shared.

To Ritualize Passages A Ceremony of Wings Hoopla to affirm anything that got easier.

Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qya_eyIt_jI

You crossed the desert, danced backwards, snuck by alligators, dived to the bottom for treasure. You played and survived. You surrendered. You fought, lost and won. You may have a certificate, but, have you received your wings?

Wings are granted by Spirit and loving community when we advance from one season to another. Wings are creative power multiplied by collective witness. Wings offer flight, freedom, and new views. Many have diminished wings for lack of community witness, wanting to remain discreet, or that in aging our ceremonies grow few. What do you need to ceremonialize, or are you called to witness others? Come, Play, and Celebrate.

Reflect on Bev Voss’ poem Going the Speed of the Body

My body- -‐ slow as growing grass. ‐And cool. It breathes the ghost breath of wind

that rustles the top of the sycamore. And is gone. Can it match your heartbeat?

It’s faster… a silver fish darting Behind the water hyacinth. Suspended there...perhaps forever. Perhaps there is no matching. Only the dance of slow and quick Gold and black flickers between Dark and the morning star Ancient wheelings of touch and go My body is restless as the dance when the music is captive still inside the wooden box. When the musicians delay fiddling with their strings, their bows. Stretch out a leg, an arm Let out the sound, the song, the groan. Fall into the moan of movement. Be the song. The dance. Wait no more for the musicians. They could tune themselves all night.

OrderWarm up Meditation Where Are We Now?

WSR with 3 sentence stories Whine Made Up Language Popcorn: Things We Saw or

Learned Recently Share Wisdom of Flaps Up, Flaps Down, Letting Go of Over-Integration.

Dance with a Witness: Witness Each Other’s Wings

I could talk abouts Gifts, miracles, superpowers used. Where was I alive? Notice Did I Move, Sing, Tell, Stillness,

Make Contact or Art Where was I in service– Body Mind

Heart Spirit: needn’t be work Write, Doodle, Draw or Map Your

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Practice Wild Affirmations in partners or group. Brief Naming of things we did this week or anything we practiced that

got easier as witnesses give a burst of wild clapping and hoorays.

Optional DT3’s on initiations in Health, Learning, Family, Spirituality, Love, Business, Courageous Exploits. Create “I Got WINGS Certificates” for one another in small groups.The Wings Hoopla

Using feather boas, a hula-hoop, wings, and certificates now celebrate anything that got easier or that you can now move toward.

One by one initiates choose a boa from the center to do a dance talk walk once around the outside of the circle sharing what got easier, culminating as they step into the hula-hoop in

the circle as it is lifted and shaken up from the floor and over their head saying

HOOOOOOOOPLA!

They then receive their “WINGS certificate” as group sings

I’m gonna lift my sister up she’s not heavyI’m gonna lift my sister up she’s not heavyI’m gonna lift my sister up she’s not heavy

If I don’t lift her upIf we don’t lift her upWe all fall down.

After all are initiated, form a closing circle to end.

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Pine Branch Spiral Dance Honor the Spiral of Life, Tree of Life, Beginnings, Endings, Ancestors and Changing Seasons.

The Tree of Life is a world-wide symbol of life and generational connection. The human body mirrors its roots, limbs, trunk and leaves. In a ceremony of music, drumming, song, movement and candle light we create a spiral with branches from the tree.

This form can be used for many needs including honoring ancestors if you have invited participants to bring an ancestral object to share. They can take time to write ancestral names on leaves and move these offerings into the heart of the Tree in honor or our ancestors.

--------- A Reflection by D.H. Lawrence When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego, and when we escape like squirrels turning in the cages of our personality and get into the forests again, we shall shiver with cold and fright but things will happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves. Cool, undying life will rush in, and passion will make our bodies taut with power, we shall stamp our feet with new power and old things will fall down,

we shall laugh, and institutions will curl up like burnt paper.

Place branches in the four corners of room or landscape. If desired place candles or something to write on at the four corners as well.

With music or drumming invite participants into a warm up dance. This may include dancing with a single branch.

When you are ready start the spiral by placing the first two branches yourself at the very center. Invite others to do the same.

Once the spiral is formed, invite people to reflect on a prayer or need they want to take into the center of the spiral. Participants may then write on a piece of paper or find a candle to dance into the center.

Invite people to enter whenever they are ready sharing the spiral with as many as desire. You may need to demonstrate.

Once everyone has danced the spiral form a ring around the outside. Take a moment there.

Invite people move the branches inward to form a wreath.

This is a good time to tone, notice, and share words of gratitude. It could be a time to be seated for a reflection.

Sing a closing chant and release the ritual.

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InterSoulstice Chant Dance

Gather 1- 3 Chant Leaders of different faiths ‐Flowers in vase by the entrance Altar: greens in large vase, candle.Drum, Instrumentalist, Rain stick, Meditation Bell. A Reader

Welcome everyone. Invite them to be seated or stand. “During this solstice meditation you are invited to move, sing along or sit in stillness. “ Chant Ishe Oluwa–One Earth or other earth chant in call response http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQK-‐ixb8jxQ feature=youtu.be InterPlay warm up as a drum or instrument travels among and blesses movers. Stillness 1Leader hands flower to each participant. Lead people into shape and stillnessReader "Hymn to the sacred body of the universe" Drew Dillinger

Let’s meet at the confluence where you flow into one breath and me swirls between our lungs 16 million tons of rains are falling every second on the planet an ocean perpetually falling and every drop is your body every motion, every feather,

every thought is your body, and the infinite curled inside like invisible rainbows folded into light every word of every tongue is love telling a story to her own ears let our lives be incense burning a hymn to the sacred body of the universe.

Flower Offering: Eastern Chant or Instrument plays as each person places a flower in a vase in gratitude for Earth, Creation, Creator. Others follow. Stillness 2Invite people to lie down, be seated or stand to focus on breath, welcome renewal and let go of what is no longer needed.

The following poem can be read to begin and end. my religion is rainmy religion is stone my religion reveals itself to me in sweaty epiphanies every leaf, every river, every animal, my body

Dancing to Raise the EnergyYemanja Chant from Brazil (Queen of the Waters)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlQmDIpZztE

Walk Stop Run with Flaps Up to “My cup overflows psalm 23”

Interlocking contact meeting palm-to-palm and then look at hands to Chant: You are engraved on the palm of my hand/Hayn al kpayim chakotich

Join hands for sung call and response before leading into a line dance.

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http://rabbicreditor.blogspot.com/2012/11/olam- chesed-‐ yibaneh-‐ sung-‐ by-‐ ‐smiling.html (Setting: Menachem Creditor) Olam chesed yibaneh. La la la la… I will build this world from love And you must build this world from love. And if we build this world from love, Then God will build this world from love. In a circle hum and step side-to-side in place, naming what we are grateful for.

Stillness 3: Be seated and witness or find a place to dance to final reading. 10 million people are dreaming

that they are flying Junipers and violets are blossoming Stars exploding and being born God Is having Déjà vu (…) Let’s meet at the confluence where you flow into me.” Closing circle: Say each other’s names, notice, share announcements.

Repeat a chant or invite a solo voice to bless everyone.

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Caution Tape Ritual in Five Movements

This ritual fulfills a need to dance on behalf of issues of violence wherever we notice growing suspicion and want to reweave the web of community. This public dance requires strong improvisational leadership to hold space, call people in, and move them through simple processes with as few words as possible. Versions have been done at public and private events with up to 1000 people. PrepareA few participants prepared for special roles. A large roll of hardware store caution tape.Singer, Flute, Drum, Bell, Amplified Music, or Poetry. Names of victims can be incorporated. Movement One: Admission A leader or a group unrolls caution tape through the people encouraging the audience to grab on (during music or poetry or a bell).

“We admit we live in a web of caution, struggling against violence and rage.”

Movement Two: Confession Tighten and lift the tape to view the tension. Dancers may dance along and around the lines.

Movement Three: Intercession

“Violence hurts us all. We lower the tape and stand together in silence (with music.) bearing witness to the harm done.”

Dancers may move into shape and stillness dancing on behalf of victims. Movement Four: Reassurance Never underestimate the body’s need for reassurance. We begin by connecting to one another. Dancers make contact or engage hand to hand connection to music poetry, flute.

Movement Five: Dream of throwing caution to the wind If desirable, small groups can lift dancers

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and move them through the space to music or a song to demand and dream of a world safe for every female, every child, every man and boy. Or Invite people to point up in the air and sing I’m going to lift my sister up she’s not heavy,I’m gonna lift my sister up she’s not heavyI’m gonna lift my sister up she’s not heavy If I don’t lift her up. If I don’t lift her up. If I don’t lift her up. She will fall down. Dancers may gather caution tape, toss, play and dance away with the tape if

appropriate to drums or percussion.

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Ask about other High Play Rituals including

The Ritual of Public Apology When we awaken to injustices perpetrated by our group on people or the land and long to offer apology this ritual offers InterPlay practices to perform a collective apology as we step toward living amends. Anyone oppressed or harmed needn't attend unless they desire to do so.

Those under age 50 set the space. Elders who doing work related to the trespass are primary participants. This apology is not meant to be cathartic. Participation requires advance preparation.

Reflection Praise What Comes by Jeanne Lohmann surprising as unplanned kisses, all you haven't deserved of days and solitude, your body's immoderate good health that lets you work in many kinds of weather. Praise talk with just about anyone. And quiet intervals, books that are your food and your hunger; nightfall and walks

before sleep. Praising these for practice, perhaps you will come at last to praise grief and the wrongs you never intended. At the end there may be no answers and only a few very simple questions: did I love, finish my task in the world? Learn at least one of the many names of God? At the intersections, the boundaries where one life began and another ended, the jumping- off places between fear ‐and possibility, at the ragged edges of pain, did I catch the smallest glimpse of the holy?

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Blessing the House of Sacred Stories: Body and Soul

When did you last dance? When did you last sing? When did you last tell your story? Indigenous elders know that the Sacred shows up in many forms. Sometimes we can articulate what we know, sometimes we can’t. Yet we can honor the holy in our body, mind, heart, and spirit, see Spirit in others, and offer our part of the story. In the Spirithouse there is room for faith and no faith, the simple and extraordinary, the recognizable and mysterious, the contemplative and flamboyant, the funny and sad. Playfully listen in on sacred messages among us. Relection: circle wisdom by sedonia cahill

I invite you to enter for a moment into Sacred Time and Space, into a way of seeing that is broad and spacious. See this Day, from the time you arose this morning until you sleep this evening, as one Ceremony, divided into small and familiar rituals, your Heart as the Altar. You, part of the Cycles of Light and Darkness. Now begin to see your Life, from the moment of your Conception until the time of your Death as one long, continuous Ceremony, filled with many rituals, some familiar, some unknown and challenging. Your Home and all Your Relations, the Altar. You, part of many Seasons and Cycles.

Now see this Ceremony of your Life as part of a much larger Ceremony that extends Seven Generations into the Past and Seven into the Future, made up of many Births and Deaths. This beautiful spinning Earth the Altar. You, part of the great Ebb and Flow. Now, if you will, imagine this larger Ceremony to be but one part of a Ceremony so grand, so magnificent as to be hardly comprehensible, a great, vast Ceremonial Circle, rich and vibrant with millions upon millions of swirling Circles of Dancing Light, and You, one of those Dancing Circles, a Dancer on the Altar that is the Universe, where Time is Eternal. May You Dance In Beauty

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A Permission Slip Ritual

To create a more beautiful, restful, or creative life we discern if we need permission for our big or little body, make a permission slip and then claim permission in community! Reflection by Bev Voss–Do This

Follow color. Follow the look of gold- yellow ‐next to burnt sienna next to turquoise and cobalt blue that look like Persian script escaping from a prayer. Follow the shadow cast by sun that paints an inky branch of redbud on the morning blind.

Follow the smear of brush dipped first in grey, then red, then orange. Fall into the darkness of wet black paint glistening like an oil slick or like death. I pause and want to weep. Nothing I write, nothing I draw shows the beauty I see. Nothing shows the restlessness, the horror, the danger, the dread. Nothing praises enough the green tulip that opened pink- -‐ ‐a gasp of quiet glory. Who cares! whispers the muse. You are the song of God and the song is never God. But in failing to be God, sing louder. Draw more wildly. Dance more freely. God will smile and you will be the smile of God.

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