Great Spirit,
give us hearts to understand;
never to take from creation's beauty
more than we give, never to destroy wantonly
for the furtherance of greed;
never to deny to give our hands for the
building of earth's beauty;
never to take from her what we cannot use.
Give us hearts to understand that to
destroy earth's music is to create confusion;
that to wreck her appearance is to blind us
to beauty; that to callously pollute
her fragrance is to make a house of stench;
that as we care for her, she will care for us!
Amen.
If prayer is the central core of life, then dance becomes prayer when we are expressing our relationship to God, to others, and to the world of matter and spirit, through movement originating from our deepest selves -- this same central point of worship. The movements of dance-prayer start from our deep center, flow outward like rivulets into the stream of life, and impart life everywhere. So dance can be a part of prayer, just as stillness can be a part of music. There is one root; all the rest, movement or stillness, silence or sound, is its expression. The closer the source, the purer the song.
