Goddess Dance

The golden Moon waits for me, showing me the way 

This way, that way, turning night into day 

Shadows gray, keeping the dark at bay

My path winds through trees that gently dip and sway

In a circled meadow moonbeams play

I dance round and round feeling 

Through tiny marsh with waters spray

I laugh and skip, feeling gay

Lift my face to the sky and bray

Oh Goddess I'm with You if I may

So it has begun, it may never be done

With Her I'll be one

To dance through the beams

A part of Her it seems

I'm there and not, cool and hot

Warm with love

From around, inside, below and above

For awhile I'm taken and given back

Set upon my life track

And as I go I hear whether far or near

Gentle in my ear

The sweet cooing of the dove

And always know that I am loved

Copyright 1999 Gerald L Whittaker

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She created us, and so we dance.
She smiles down upon our dance.
She grows happy because we dance.

We are her grandchildren, and so we dance.
Our dance is our best prayer to her.
She laughs in happiness because we dance.

We are her children, and we must dance.
If we were ever to forget, she would weep.
She would never cease her weeping.

She is the mother to whom we dance.
If only insect tracks marked our dancing grounds,
she would forget us too, and we would die.

She is the goddess who dances through us.
We are her children, and we must dance.
She created us, and so we dance.

  -- Shawnee bread dance song

The universe dances around us and through us.  Why is it so easy to forget
that it is our nature to ceaselessly grow and change?  Even when we sit
silent and still, our breath flows and our blood courses and our mind whirls.
 Even when our life seems calm, inner forces bubble and surge, moving us
toward new actions and new ideas and new insights.

We celebrate the goddess when we fully engage in this dance of life.  As the
Shawnee people of the great American woodlands realized, we most honor the
universal mother by participating in her creativity.  Life smiles on us most
when we mimic her dancing spirit.

We are each the dance and the dancer and the dancing goddess.  It is our
task, as children of earth, to dance the most beautiful dances we can, dances
composed of the innumerable instants of our life.  We do not control the
setting; we do not control the lighting; we do not control the costumes.  We
control only the dance, the movement itself, the way we move through the
circumstances of life.  And that choice takes place in each moment.  The most
important choice we can make is to live gracefully in that moment.

From Patricia Monaghan's "The Goddess Companion"