Wanna dance?
Some thoughts on our divine birthright; on society's tiny boxes; and the joy that could be ours.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never danced like no one is watching. Even when no one is watching, I don’t dance like no one is watching.
Probably there are some actual humans out there, who just naturally dance like that. Free. Easy. Completely unconcerned with what anyone might think. (If you’re one of them, please introduce yourself and say hi.)
Automatic inner witnessing of every self-conscious dance move wouldn’t be a particularly big deal, except for one thing: Joyful self expression—the kind that doesn’t require alcohol, or shamanic plant medicine, or any other intoxicant to loosen our inhibitions—is what humans are actually wired for. It’s one of the clearest and least-obstructed pathways to palpable knowing of the divine.
Yet somehow, this kind of completely unself-conscious joy, the kind that sparkles with heavenly delight, seems an incredibly rare phenomenon (generally speaking), in our grownup existence. Doesn’t it? And that’s tragic.
Because spontaneous, childlike joy in our communion with the divine, is an integral part of what makes us human. Or at least it ought to be.
Our knowing of divinity (while dancing or at any other time), is supposed to be easy as pie. Completely natural. Playful, even.
The low-hanging fruit of divine connectivity, ripe and ready for plucking from its heavenly branch, is always right here for the taking; perfect in its nourishment, its sweet sacred juices capable of quenching our deepest thirst.
So many reach hungrily for that joyously innocent harvest. Yet few of us are able to taste its sweetness.
Our social conditioning gets in the way, dammit.
This observation is not new; self-help coaches and spiritual teachers alike have been talking about all of this for a long time: How our conditioning changes our childlike nature as we mature, and gradually becomes the distorted lens through which we experience self and world.
Kind of like the veil. Actually, exactly like the veil. It’s all part of the same inner and outer programming setup. Beginning shortly after we’re born, as the veil wraps itself around us, heaven slowly recedes from our awareness (if not from our presence).
Some of us fall into line and swallow the social conditioning exactly as delivered; others spend a lifetime rebelling against it. Either way, the conditioning has done its job: The human being’s original sweet innocence is gone from the equation—never fully extinguished, but papered over and forgotten.
Nobody is to blame for it. Our parents and teachers and society itself, have done a grand job of instilling that conditioning. But they did it because they themselves have already been thoroughly conditioned, as were their own parents and teachers and so on.
Conditioning replicates itself. T’was ever thus.
I suppose the case could be made that social conditioning is useful up to a point. Share your toys. Don’t barge into the neighbors’ house without knocking. That sort of thing.
But beyond the most rudimentary of society’s behavioral rules, I would argue that the social conditioning process of turning us all into jaded grownup adults, is harmful not only to our general mental/emotional wellbeing as we move through life, but also and especially to our primary love relationship with the divine. Which can only ever be approached in childlike fashion, drenched in joy and wonder.
So…who would you be, without your conditioning?
How has this pervasive societal programming altered your own experience of self and world…not to mention your all-access pass to heaven’s joyous playground? It’s a good line of questioning to ponder.
Here is how thoroughly my own conditioning has colored my perception of life:
For many years, whenever those spiritual teachers would mention how spontaneously joyful, innocent, and playful we all are, when we start out as children (before the conditioning takes hold, in other words)…I didn’t get it. I couldn’t relate.
Not me, I thought.
I couldn’t think of a single moment of my own childhood that fit that description: Not playful, not spontaneous, not joyous.
My childhood was full of daytime anxieties and nighttime monsters in the closet. But while all of that stuff certainly occurred, it doesn’t even begin to tell the whole story.
It’s just that I’d thoroughly forgotten any memory that didn’t fit the storyline. I forgot the bit, in other words, that didn’t conform to my later conditioning.
(They don’t call it a veil for nothing.)
It’s only recently, with the veil in tatters and my own myopic fog rapidly lifting, that I’ve spontaneously remembered a few random flashes of a completely unknown self: Long-forgotten early childhood episodes of total joy—episodes of life, before any social conditioning took hold.
They point toward a startlingly different way of being in the world—and an entirely different connectivity to my own pure innocence—than the one I’ve ever known.
This extremely early episode tells it pretty well:
During that stage of development where one is fairly mobile, yet still in diapers (I did warn you, we’re talking extremely early), I took great delight in a game of my own invention:
In mid-diaper change, I would escape my mother’s grasp, dash outdoors and run down the sidewalk, chortling with glee.
Part of my joy was due to liberation from clothing; the other part was in the game of causing my mother to chase and catch me. Her consternation was part of the delicious fun.
Who was that kid? Nobody I recognize.
Nowhere in evidence back then, was the person I would later become. The one who absorbed society’s body shame; the one deeply concerned about what people might think. The one who would never dream of breaking the rules set for me by others.
The one who dances like dance critics are watching.
Societal conditioning shapes and continuously re-molds us, until we either fit, or don’t fit, into the identical boxes laid out for us. Insider or outsider, rebel or conformist, it scarcely matters which—we still identify ourselves all throughout our lives, by how we interact with the boxes.
Can you remember a time before conditioning played any role at all in your life? The details aren’t important. Let the story fade out, let the boxes dissolve, and see if you can feel into just purely the energetic frequency of what’s left, when the boxes are gone:
The freedom of a human being, just…being.
Beginner’s mind
Beginner’s mind has been on my mind alot lately. I used to think I knew what it meant: To be present with what is; to see what’s in front of you without preconceived notions about what it is you’re looking at—giving it space to reveal its true nature, not crowding it or covering it up with your own historical ideas about it.
All of that is true. But there’s a big chunk that I missed, and that’s to do with stepping out of our social conditioning. Moving beyond the boxes. Rediscovering the innocent spontaneity of our untrammeled childhood joy. Back then, we weren’t yet conforming—nor were we rebelling against conformity. We hadn’t yet realized there was anything to conform to. (Or not.)
That’s the true beginner’s mind: Empty of inherited ideas. Un-straitjacketed. Light and free, neither defiant nor compliant. Naturally receptive to pure spontaneous joy. Naturally receptive, therefore, to the divine.
This is the mind that is our birthright; the mind that tickles the underbelly of heaven, causing all the angels to giggle with glee. It’s the way of being that showers us with divine beauty and wonder, where every meadow flower and noxious weed alike displays its dazzling finery, and all of it lands on our consciousness like fourth of July fireworks.
I’m bringing all of this up for a very good reason, not just for the purpose of oversharing about my own childhood.
In these times of ever-rising frequencies on this planet, we’ll soon have little choice but to let go of whatever suppresses the human spirit. (Even though at the moment, there’s a strong push toward more suppression, not less, out there in society. As you may have noticed.)
As time goes on, I suspect we’ll all be reckoning with this issue of human joy, spontaneity and freedom to be. What it means, and where we draw the lines, individually and collectively on that.
Total freedom from societally-imposed conditioning—not just for you and me, but for everyone. Does the idea of it make you a little uncomfortable? Do you equate the dissolution of societal straitjackets and tiny boxes, with potential mayhem? Understandable. There’s a bit of truth in it…but only a bit.
As we each reconnect with our own divinity—and therefore the divinity of all others—rigid societal rules will be replaced quite naturally over time, by wisdom, care and respect for self and others. Of course you’ll want to freely share your toys. Of course you wouldn’t dream of barging uninvited into others’ houses.
That’s true self governance, from the inside out. It’ll happen…but yeah, probably not right away or all at once.
It’s gonna be messy for a while, in other words. People may overdo and/or underdo it for quite some time, as we all relearn the ropes of what it means to be truly human.
(On that note: In telling you of my own story, let me state for the record that I’m not recommending we all strip down and run up the sidewalk, dribbling pee. That is not the way to re-kindle childlike joy; that’s the way to get arrested.)
Nevertheless, messy or not, true self governance is what’s coming. Because the bottom line here is that suppression of self and other never really works. The cost is always way too high.
Suppression is the bitter fruit offered us from society’s withered branches. There’s no nourishment there. Heaven is nowhere to be found in it. As frequencies rise ever higher toward knowledge of our own true divine identity, our conditioning must dissolve right along with the veil.
Then true innocence and joy can blossom once again. That’s when the fun begins. This love relationship with the divine (which is none other than the divine self) becomes one of deepest inner friendship, as well as awe and wonder.
How do we do it? I guess we start by showing up as honestly, as willingly, as unveiled and (dare I say it) as nakedly as possible, whenever we go within. Beginner’s mind, in other words, as applied toward our relationship with (and as) heaven.
And then to listen closely for the sound of that sacred music, which is perpetually playing at the dance. How long it takes before we hear it, is down to the nature of our own individual journey.
Right now, humanity doesn’t dance in anything like the way we once knew.
But someday soon, we will all surely relearn the steps.
Big thanks for this. And such beautiful writing. I have no real awareness of 'a veil lifting' myself, which is why I find it so encouraging to hear from those who clearly do... Thank you!
Once again, thanks for the reminders : )