beguiling joy

Opportunities to gather in collective joy have diminished over the years, suppressed by our puritan ancestors, dismissed by the everyday time crunch, considered a unneccessary frill attached to the fabric we wear. It isn't necessary, some believe. Too frivolous. Who has the time when just getting through a day fighting off the blues is the order of the day? Day in and day out? Who has the energy even? Besides, get a group of people together and all hell would break lose. We've seen that happen after sport matches. It started out as a celebration and ended up in brawls, looting and even deaths. It's happened so often that our opportunities for collectively joyful celebrations are policed and reined in. damn those drunk rowdies!

We are pent up anal retentive beings aren't we? When did this become the norm? When did a gathering of joy become a frightening concept void of decorum? Like a virus, it seeped into our psyche, penetrated by class domination and the dismissal of cultural and religious traditions. Instead, we slapped rules and judgements on what is acceptable in our society. Boundaries, rules and the banning of gathering en masse has stripped us of opportunities to feel the rapturous energy of ourselves and others.


Even our entertainment choices became one dimensional......on a stage, on a screen, in a polite forum in a park. Our churches grew in hierarchical top down sermonizing, where the congregation sits and does what its told.....pray NOW, sing NOW, give money NOW.....and then go home. God forbid you yelp out an amen at the wrong time. God forbid someone in weeping tatters should arrive and join the self conscious starved congregation. How embarrassing that would be?? Audiences with no role except to receive the stimulation all around, leaves a feeling that possibility has left the building along with spontaneity, along with the very desirous feeling of collective joy.



It used to be there were common squares in villages and towns set up to promote the Hallelujah moments of the people who gathered. Now, if they still exist, they have more often than not beened turned into a place to stick monuments, or filled with cultivated gardens too perfect to tamper with. If for example a small group arrived at the common square intent on drumming their music as a means of generating joyful energy, we would smile politely at them all the while thinking they were odd hippie types, and move away from the sound.


Are we too busy, important, focused on our dutiful tasks to appreciate the freedom of the drumming? I want the feeling of the heart beat pulling us to others.....the intensity of releasing ourselves from the prison of "self" where the wild beauty of sheer joy and a hot beguiling belonging can erase all negativity. Drug me with a joy which shatters a hundred griefs.


We may have created a society where we have little opportunities to swell up to release this energy, but we haven't lost our yearning and deep deep need for it. Most of us have experienced it in our lives. We do know how it feels........and we know how magically freeing it is when our egos evaporate unnoticed, when the scattering of individuality merges into an orgiatic one. It is an immersion where anything is possible....



We've had a taste of this elixir, and nothing is more powerfully life affirming. Nothing strips away depression than sharing this drug. Nothing compares to immersing oneself in the sea of sheer rapture. (Isn't that THE best word? RAPTURE! The mind possessing feeling of intense joy and love that pushes away all other emotions.... loveitloveitloveit! Gotta get me some more of that rapture.....!)

Rapture....the holy fire of joy bursting from an inside grin too delighted to remain still anymore. The grin has got to express!

Ecstasy

Bliss

Elation

Wildness

Messy in all its glory

JOY-FULL Rapture

There is something wrong with this? I don't think so! When I have found myself in the middle of collective joy, it's like my limbs grow outward beyond my flesh and body entangling with others naturally, my voice blends into the harmonious esctasy of a choir, my heart opens to possibilities. Joy expressed sizzles in delightful joy, a cacophony of messy contagious hysteria. When I have felt it in my life, I have been given a glimpse of what heaven holds.

Bring on the song and dance......bring on a celebration......let spontaneity spark a holy AMEN of beautiful voices stepping beyond the boundaries and into the choir of joy. We need to feel it again......the whole world needs to feel it collectively again. Think of the possibilities....a world party beaming.