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May 2, 2024 · Shayndel Plotkin

The War Dance

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Wiggle and sway and fall and rise and open your arms and close your eyes.

We dance wildly without limit, without hesitation and without reserve or apologetics.

Dance will come in waves and forms and movements as our body reels with the need to move and move forward and abandon thought and contemplation, abandon all reason and leave no ration and silence the words that mean nothing.

When our breath is choked and hindered and we must move our bodies in order to receive and we express our loud screams and frustrated words through this War Dance.

Jump and jump even higher now as you reach for something unreachable. Unattainable.

In the Heavens. Can you catch it, Can you glimpse it, Can you touch it for just a moment?

Shake and shake this way and that way, swinging in anger, fear, hostility, frustration, denial and finally exhaustion.

Wiggle and sway and fall and rise and open your arms and close your eyes.

Do not stop the War Dance. You are like a wild man at prayer in the mountains or like a woman birthing a new life into the world. Painful, scared, desirous and delirious.

Feet are pounding, arms are swinging, heart is racing, mind is quieting, eyes are tearing.

There are No words in a War Dance.
There are No partners in War Dance.
There are No pauses in a War Dance.
There is No music in a War Dance.

There is only Dance. In a War Dance.

Wiggle and sway and fall and rise and open your arms and close your eyes.

This is a War Dance.

Originally published in The Times of Israel

Come as you are. Belong as you are.

No pressure. No religious prerequisites. No need to know anyone before you arrive.