The Divine Dance

by Richard Rohr

  Although different movements and finger-folding evolved in different cultures, it was always accompanied by the Trinitarian formula: “In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

  Expanding on what I wrote earlier in the book, let’s look at this and see if this ancient gesture might have helpful meaning for us today, especially as we need symbols that move spiritual messages out of the head and toward a cellular and bodily knowing, what is often called “muscle memory.”

  First, it is very telling that one is allowed to bless oneself, which seems to offer the individual a certain self-confidence and spiritual authority.

  Second, this self-signing also seems to be a renaming and even a reclaiming of the self in a different identity. In most ancient cultures and in common literary usage, when any action is preceded by the phrase “in the name of,” it changes your identity into another persona, with a different authority—at least while doing that action: “I am not now speaking or acting in my personal name, but I am now standing in the identity of ____________.” It is not insignificant that athletes and those facing death or a difficult ordeal often sign themselves for all to see. “It’s not just me here now,” they are somehow proclaiming!

  Third, it is often seen as both a shielding and an honoring of the body itself. We begin with the forehead, honoring our thoughts and minds as the source or the beginning point of all our decisions to act: “In the name of the Father” is certainly offering our thoughts and our mind over to God as the Ultimate Source.

  Then we move directly downward, crossing over our heart, toward the solar plexus, or stomach, which is certainly blessing our own enfleshment and incarnation as the body of Christ: “And of the Son,” we say.

  And then, now trusting and enjoying the flow, we cross our body from shoulder to shoulder, again crossing the heart, and say, “And of the Holy Spirit.” Note the sweep, the movement, and the fullness of both vertical and horizontal.

  The whole key and sacramental power lies in your ability to do this consciously, choicefully, lovingly, and prayerfully.

  This is a way for the body itself to know holy things, to honor itself as the temple and container of the Mystery, and to live with a newly-conscious and self-declared dignity.

  “Amen!”

  (To watch a video of the sign of the cross, please go to TheDivineDance.org.)

  2. Walk: Walking Meditation

  When I was young, one of my spiritual directors told me to try walking meditation when I was having trouble with exclusively sitting meditation. It turned out to be a Godsend and balance for me personally, and also allowed me to invite many other highly energetic types, “Sensate” types (on the Myers-Briggs personality profile), younger types, and macho types to literally “dip their toe” into an initial meditation practice.

  That same spiritual director said that an exclusive reliance upon sitting meditation did not allow many people to expend pent-up energy; without this needed release, sitting meditation was often abandoned. At certain times in our life, we must find our core energy by consciously releasing pent-up, nervous, depressive, sexual, or even happily excited energy. Sometimes we find it by releasing it—that is walking meditation.

  I have often sent groups on walking meditation exercises during retreats or done this with our students at the Living School, inviting walkers to process the experience as a group once we return. This is invariably enlightening, humorous, and truly helpful for all of us. One of our students, Jonathon Stalls, even runs a walking cooperative called Walk2Connect.com, combining many of our values spiritually, ecologically, and relationally. They encourage, invite, and train thousands of people to connect to themselves, to others, and to their surroundings by foot.

  We are made to move this way. We simply see and listen differently when we move with others and ourselves at a walking pace and out in the real, open, and unpredictable world. Into new neighborhoods and worlds where they might otherwise never go. Walking in “pretty” places isn’t often the goal, but practicing presence, connection, and reverence wherever we are, is!

  My guidelines are usually simple (sometimes, I sent them out wearing our Mirror Medallion, but this will be the next practice on its own):

  Leave alone and in silence. Return alone and in silence.

  It is not a buddy experience; break from any need to make it chatty, pretty, or quick. You must do the seeing on your own and own it as your own.

  I often noted the phrase used by Shakespeare “walking like a friar,” referring to the early Franciscan custom of walking some distance behind one another as they walked from town to town—so the other person, their personality, or experience does not immediately become mine, as shoulder to shoulder walking often does. This is a good meaning to “individuation,” and taking responsibility for your own thoughts, emotions, and sensations—for good and for ill. Then they can be a teacher.

  Holy goal-lessness is your goal. The journey is the total destination.

  Just place one foot lovingly and intentionally in front of the other, and honestly trust in guidance. Those who expect the Spirit, receive the Spirit.

  Take no books or journals. “Don’t think, just look” is your motto.

  Do not come back hoping to have something profound or meaningful to say. If you do come back with something to say or write, that is fine, but profundity is not the goal. Any expectation is a disappointment waiting to happen.

  It is what it is, and that is your teacher.

  As Jonathan Stalls says, you are now living life at “2–3 miles an hour”—the way you are designed to. And that is very good!

  You have a very good chance of thus experiencing the pure flow of the Trinity through your body.

  3. Watch

  (a) The Mirror Medallion

  During my Lenten hermitage in 2003, I first read Catherine LaCugna’s book God with Us. It gave me theological language for what I felt I had experienced for many days during that Lent, and I came back with an idea to help other people “live and move and have their being” inside of the same flow.283

  I knew that the flow was happening at different levels—mental, spiritual, psychic—during that time, and yet when I assented to any of these, it always took shape and feeling in my body, too. This flow was always toward me, in and through me, and also from me toward the outer world. All of these seemed to be needed, or it didn’t feel like an authentic Trinitarian FLOW.

  So back home at the Center for Action and Contemplation, we created what we called the “mirror medallion,” which we have since used at many conferences, retreats, and walking meditations, and now use with our Living School students on-site. (You may order your own—see it at the back of this book.) It doubly serves as a signal that the person wearing it wishes to keep silence at present, and to protect them from any judgments of being non-sociable. They are just being social and relational in a different way, I would hope. It serves as a very practical aid in forming “the mirror mind.” And you do have to practice for a long time to create it within yourself naturally.

  The round mirror faces outward as you wear it over your chest. It thus receives the outer world exactly as a true mirror should—without distortion, adjustment, denial, or judgment. What comes toward me first of all deserves to be honored in its bare existence, and then also that it is what it is and does not immediately need my analysis or commentary or labeling.

  The mirror, however, also faces inward, looking directly at your soul and your heart—without judgment, symbolized by the Trinitarian “Eye of God.”

  Gazing perhaps at what you cannot or will not see: the divine image that you carry.

  Honoring what we are often afraid to honor—our own soul.

  The quote on the inside is from Paul: “Our unveiled gaze receives and reflects the brightness of God.” There was unfortunately no room for the next important part of the verse: “Until we
are little by little ‘turned into the image that we reflect; this is the work of the Lord who is Spirit.’”284

  It is all an invitation to allow such an “unveiling” of our face and our gaze—both from the flow in and also from the flow out.

  And I offer one further and seldom-noted Scripture to stir this full and free flow. It is James 4:5. Although I have read many translations, this is my favorite: “‘The longing of the spirit [God] sent to dwell in us is a jealous longing.’” Try to allow the divine flow through you as the longing, the desiring, and even the jealousy of God for your soul’s response. It is a biblical theme starting in Exodus 34:14, “Yahweh’s name is the Jealous One; he is a jealous God.”

  (b) Mirroring the Divine Gaze

  Invite a trusted beloved (friend, significant other, parent, or perhaps yourself through a mirror) to spend a few minutes sharing each other’s gaze. Sit facing each other and begin by lighting a candle or ringing a bell. Take a couple of moments with eyes closed to find your center—the stable witness. Then open your eyes and simply look at the face of the person across from you.

  Give and receive this gaze in silence, being present to the other and to the presence of Love within and without. Let your eyes, face, and body be soft and relaxed while also alert. Breathe. If your attention wanders, bring your awareness back to your partner’s eyes and to the presence of Love flowing between you.

  When two or three minutes have passed, ring the bell again or bring your hands together and bow to signal the close of the practice. Share a few words, an embrace, or an expression of gratitude.

  4. Breath

  (a) The YHWH Prayer

  What was usually called the “second commandment” was often translated as “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”285 We Christians were told that meant we should not cuss or curse people. But a Jewish rabbi taught me that we had it completely wrong and had missed the major point:

  It was actually teaching that any speaking of the divine name was in vain!

  Any attempt to capture the Divine Essence in any spoken word was futile; this is the best way to interpret the name that was given to Moses, usually translated as some variant of “I Am Who I Am,” and in its original Hebrew form YHWH (the letters yod, he, vav, he), which we usually translate as Yahweh.

  This was to preserve God’s final unknowability, and to keep religion and believers humble about their ability to know who God is. The word was quite literally unspeakable and unpronounceable by any fervent Jewish believer, as it is for many to this day.

  But it gets much better!

  It was also unspeakable because it was meant to imitate and replicate the sound of human breathing in and out. Try it now!

  ~ First inhale. (Say Yah breathing inward; to do this correctly you must keep the mouth cavity completely open, not using tongue or lips.)

  ~ And then exhale. (Say weh breathing outward and again keep the channel completely open, not using the lips but letting the breath glide over your tongue.)

  You cannot ever say “God” and know what you are talking about, but you can breathe God. In fact, this means the first word you ever “spoke” when you came out of your mother’s body was the sacred Name.

  Your naked existence gives glory to God by the one thing it has done constantly since birth, which is to take in and give back the breath of life—in equal portions, by the way—or you will suffocate. I think there is a lesson here!

  There will be a last breath someday, and it, too, will be the sacred Name.

  So right now, try setting a timer for ten minutes with no other agenda than to consciously breathe the sacred Name. And whenever you feel the need for greater awareness, joy, and presence in your life, stop and hear this Name in your breathing.

  (b) All’h Prayer

  When once teaching the YHWH Prayer to an interfaith gathering of contemplative teachers, I noticed an Islamic Sufi across from me in the circle suck in his own breath and begin to tear up as I shared with the group.

  After the session ended, he quickly came over to me and asked, “Do you know the strict etymology of our Muslim name for God?”

  I said that I did not, and would like to know. After all, Allah is also the name for God used by many Christians across the Middle East. It is simply “God” in Arabic.

  He told me that Al is the definitive article for The, and if you add another l, it gives it special emphasis, as The Very or perhaps The Only.

  He said it is most correctly spelled with an apostrophe before the h, although many other people spell it Allah, which is fine.

  But then he looked straight at me, again tearing up and almost shaking. He said, “Do you know what this means? We come from the same primitive, ancient experience of God as the Jewish people, with whom we have wasted centuries in fighting and hate.

  “Our name for God is the very ‘HA!’ pronounced as a strong exhalation. We have the same name for God, while imagining it is so different!”

  We stood there gazing at one another in deep discovery and almost disbelief—and humble reverence before the Unspeakable One.

  Feel free to try the YHWH prayer with the same breathing motion of All’h.

  (c) The Hawaiian Prayer

  While recently teaching breathing divine name prayer to a large group of Hawaiians, they grinned with excitement and broke into my teaching, unable to wait to tell me that the Hawaiian word for both “breath” and “God” is also HA spoken as an exhalation!

  And it took till the twentieth century for us to come up with a word like the “Collective Unconscious”! The Perennial Tradition simply spoke of it as the One Spirit.

  5. Seeing (in the Dark)

  Lectio Divina is a way of reading Scripture and other sacred writings with the heart, rather than the head, driving the action. It’s a way of entering into the words themselves as a means of directly experiencing the presence of God.

  In the following meditations, imagine the process biblical scholar Walter Bruggemann calls orientation, disorientation, and new orientation. When we let go of painful images of God—images that no longer serve—we often feel like we’re stumbling in the dark. It takes awhile for our eyes to adjust, and for us to find new footing. Baptized as we are into this Trinitarian mystery, the God of our youth once again becomes strange.

  Take each of these passages and really savor it. Turn it over in the chambers of your heart. Take these as slowly as you’d like—one per day, even—and pay attention to any new portrait of God that emerges.

  The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.286

  I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you

  Which shall be the darkness of God.287

  He parted the heavens and came down;

  dark clouds were under his feet.

  He mounted the cherubim and flew;

  he soared on the wings of the wind.

  He made darkness his canopy around him—

  the dark rain clouds of the sky.

  Out of the brightness of his presence

  bolts of lightning blazed forth.

  The Lord thundered from heaven;

  the voice of the Most High resounded.288

  Clouds and thick darkness are all around him;

  righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.289

  And when the priests came out of the Holy Place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord ord. Then Solomon said, “The Lord ord has said that he would dwell in thick darkness.”290

  I will give you the treasures of darkness

  and hidden riches of secret places,

  that you may know that I, the Lord,

  who call you by your name,


  am the God of Israel.291

  There is in God (some say),

  A deep, but dazzling darkness.292

  Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing.293

  The darkness of faith bears fruit in the light of wisdom….

  …The very obscurity of faith is an argument of its perfection. It is darkness to our minds because it so far transcends their weakness. The more perfect faith is, the darker it becomes. The closer we get to God, the less is our faith diluted with the half-light of created images and concepts. Our certainty increases with this obscurity, yet not without anguish and even material doubt, because we do not find it easy to subsist in a void in which our natural powers have nothing of their own to rely on. And it is in the deepest darkness that we most fully possess God on earth.294

  Trinity, which exceeds all Being, Deity, and Goodness! You who instruct Christians in Your heavenly wisdom! Guide us to that topmost height of mystic lore which exceeds light and more than exceeds knowledge, where the simple, absolute, and unchanging mysteries of heavenly Truth lie hidden in the dazzling obscurity of the secret Silence, outshining all brilliance with the intensity of their darkness, and surcharging our blinded intellects with the utterly impalpable and invisible fairness of glories which exceed all beauty!295

  Now you say, “How shall I proceed to think of God as he is in himself?” To this I can only reply, “I do not know.” With this question you bring me into the very darkness and cloud of unknowing that I want you to enter.296

  You will…be led upwards to the Ray of the divine Darkness which exceeds all existence.297

  Here the hyper-presence of God is experienced by the religious participant as a type of absence, for our minds are unable to make the God who is there intelligible to us.298

  [God] alone has endless life and lives in inaccessible light. No one has ever seen him, nor can anyone see him. Honor and eternal power belong to him! Amen.299

  They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?” He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.” Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. Jesus sent him home, saying, “Don’t even go into the village.”300