Becoming A Sacred Dancer

What is the allure for a dancer to embrace the sacred within?

Is it just simply a moment in time or an experience that influences our destiny?

Do the Muses push us toward our path?

I believe we are all dancers in our hearts. Our bodies feel rhythms to which most of us will move our heads, others tap their feet while some of us release our inhibitions and let our bodies move in rhythmic expression.

Dance movement gives us a creative connection to our inner spirit. It is liberating to our souls and healing to our mind and body.

“The dancer’s body is simply the luminous manifestation of the soul.” Isadora Duncan. 

The beginnings of civilization and the evolution of communication into ritual to honor the seasons, animals, and elements brought us the earliest expression of sacred movement.  Thus, such animated movement and spontaneous dance became a necessary element in ancient rituals that honored the highest entities, Goddess and God.  

Our ancestors knew how to communicate their joys, sorrows and spiritual desires through movement.  Their bodies became the best instrument with which to express their desires, needs, and prayers. 

Movement evolved into a language of dance for communication with the forces of nature, joining the ancients to the mysterious and awesome powers of Deity.  As ritual, stylized dance became part of every religious and social occasion such as birth, death, marriage, war, victory, harvest and hunting. 

Not only was dance an integral part of celebration, but it also developed into one of the primary Magickal tools for healing, obtaining fertility, protection, forgiveness, etc. In time dance came to be the province of religious specialists – Priestess, Priest and Shaman alike.

One after the other ancient Priestesses danced in ritual processions moving to freely choreographed aerobic phrases while banging tambourines, cills, rattles, flutes and sistrums. The dancers’ ritual energy conjured up an atmosphere of joyous festivity and sacred Magick.

Sacred, mystical or Magickal dancing are the embodiment of a powerful and focused inner spiritual motivation. To many dancers such movement transports them into an inspirational meditation of motion.

Sacred Dance is this integration of the spirit to the mind which expresses the meditative voice within and truly allows the dancer to embrace the Divine. 

Sacred Dance becomes ritual whenever and wherever it is performed and experienced

Our ancient roots lay in the celebration of life’s splendid harmony, the panorama of the seasons, the mysteries of the moon cycles, the sadness of death and the eternal joy of rebirth.

Sacred Dance can become the true expression of your physical self and your soul’s inner motivation and essence. 

At every Full Moon, as they have for thousands of years, Goddess cultures still gather to celebrate the passage of another Moon cycle with processions and spiraling dances that move to the rhythms of the Earth and Heavens. 

Sacred Dancers in the moonlight spontaneously beat out the rhythm of Nature’s pulse with their feet as their bodies weave the swirling patterns of the spiral procession. Sacred Dancers snake within and without to create their own hypnotic sacrament.

Those of us who hold onto the ancient threads that bind us to the past still rejoice in the lively dances that honor the Moon Goddess. Let the strength of these primordial movements flourish in each of us as we carry on the tradition of dancing under the Full Moon.

As a long-time member of the Sacred Dance Guild, I ascribe so perfectly to their mission which: “promotes sacred dance as prayer, and as a means of spiritual growth, connection to the Divine, and integration of mind, body, and spirit.” 

Wherever I go I share the joys and ecstasy of Sacred Dance

The late Lady Olivia Robertson co-founder of the Fellowship of Isis and I danced together in the past. I have shared and danced with her my choreography for “Healing Dance” which is based on medieval circle dances. There is a center focus usually of flowers upon an altar or simply a cauldron that honors the Goddess. The dancers form a circle and dance various steps into the center as an offering. Back and forth we skip and then turn and circle ‘round while raising our positive creative energy for the good of all.

Laurie Cabot of the Cabot Kent Hermetic Temple and the Official Witch of Salem is also a Sacred Dancer. Together we’ve swept with the sacred besom and twirled around the ritual circle to create consecrated space. And once my fellow dancers and I enchanted ritual participants at a Sabbat where Laurie was priestess, when we appeared as dancing Faeries running between the trees to encircle the springtime meadow ritual.

On Samhain night we Witches, Pagans and Goddess worshippers’ alike dance around the cauldron’s blazing fires with our energetic dancing culminating in a crescendo of ancient Magick as we raise the immense cone of power we created. 

On Beltaine we twirl and intertwine our dancing ribbons around the Maypole in abandoned merriment weaving fertile wishes everywhere. With the rhythmic lyre as accompaniment, we dancers weave a colorful spell of beribboned gaiety around the proud Maypole. 

Sacred Dance manifests into communion with the Goddess and can take on a multitude of formats running the gamut from the deeply spiritual to the lyrical. It can happen with formal preparation and planned choreography or simply spontaneously or a combination of both.

It is purpose, focus and a sincere desire to establish a spiritual connection with the sacred that allows the creative process of dance to extend beyond the boundaries of the norm. Let your imaginative spirit inspire and guide you on new and different sacred dancing journeys.

I celebrate dance as sacred art

As a Sacred Dancer I acknowledge the blessedness of spirit within movement which brings me closer to the Divine. We all become one with the Goddess when we dance with Divinity to honor the beauty of the sacrosanct.

I’m best described as having a Witch’s spirit and a Sacred Dancer’s soul and I dance with the Divine Feminine, for the Goddess enfolds me in Her arms. 

Let us be inspired to join hands at all of our ritual gatherings and allow the mystical movements of Sacred Dance to bring us closer to the Goddess and Her cosmic world. The ancient traditions are still reborn every year.

“Wherever a dancer stands ready, that spot is holy ground.” Martha Graham.

–Excerpted from Lady Haight-Ashton’s newest book “The Temple Priestesses of Antiquity”

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2021 Lady Haight-Ashton