Dancing

Someone shared this poem with me recently, and I felt like it did a great job of distinguishing between introverted and extraverted Feeling.  In a nutshell, it seems to reject extraverted Feeling and champion introverted Feeling.  ...Maybe?

Extraverted Feeling seems to be shunned in the passages about "pretty dance," and the "jiffy booby, shake your booty for him" dance.  And shunned again with the "monkey see, monkey do" dance, and "not the nice, invisible, self-conscious shuffle."  

The dance that is welcome seems to be about rejecting the Collective and emanating from the personal, the archetypal, the vital.  

Certainly it isn't about being "nice!"  It doesn't "take care of other people's feelings!"

I heard a DomFe express upset when this poem was read aloud because she had such a longing for connection, and this poem made her feel lonely.  Isn't that interesting?

We Have Come to Be Danced

We have come to be danced
Not the pretty dance
Not the pretty pretty, pick me, pick me dance
But the claw our way back into the belly
Of the sacred, sensual animal dance
The unhinged, unplugged, cat is out of its box dance
The holding the precious moment in the palms
Of our hands and feet dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance
But the wring the sadness from our skin dance
The blow the chip off our shoulder dance.
The slap the apology from our posture dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the monkey see, monkey do dance
One two dance like you
One two three, dance like me dance
But the grave robber, tomb stalker
Tearing scabs and scars open dance
The rub the rhythm raw against our soul dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the nice, invisible, self-conscious shuffle
But the matted hair flying, voodoo mama
Shaman shaking ancient bones dance
The strip us from our casings, return our wings
Sharpen our claws and tongues dance
The shed dead cells and slip into
The luminous skin of love dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance
But the meeting of the trinity: the body, breath and beat dance
The shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance
The mother may I?
Yes you may take ten giant leaps dance
The olly olly oxen free free free dance
The everyone can come to our heaven dance.

We have come to be danced Where the kingdoms collide
In the cathedral of flesh To burn back into the light
To unravel, to play, to fly, to pray
To root in skin sanctuary
We have come to be danced! We have come.

by Jewel Mathieson
from This Dance: A Poultice of Poems

TRADEMARKS