New Circle of Friends

by Gregg Morgan

Tonight was the celebration of the full moon —Dumannios— I attended a dance recital to usher out the old and bring in the new year, basically to drive away the darkness. We were ushered into a room, darkened except for light strings that bedecked the upper rafters, drifting downwards like the stars in the heavens.

As we first entered the room, a dancer all in black and veiled, greeted us and asked

“… Are you ruled by good or evil?”

I took this to mean positive or negative influences as I do not believe in good or evil per se. The only sinister forces out there are fostered by man or woman. Since I felt more influenced in my life by negative or damaging forces, (the forces of loss and alienation have been fairly predominant in my life recently) I aligned myself with that side of the circle. Already in place were five dancers draped from head to toe in vibrant colors, particular to the emotional state and feelings that they were to represent.

Apart from the amorphous darkened shape of the one greeting us, not a word was spoken.

Once all of those in attendance had each chosen a spot around the perimeter of the chalk outlined circle, drawn to their respective sides, our eyes had become adjusted to the near darkness. We had arrayed ourselves as to our own inner turmoil and more than half of those present had chosen the positive side of the circle, and a feeling within of jealousy was growing. I was actually envying them for feeling that they had more positive influences guiding them (in retrospect I came to realize how much I had to learn). In the center of the circle was a column, decorated with light strings of blue and white and red, and pine rope, spiraling upwards to join the lights above. The narrator’s voice broke the silence. His individual words were lost on me, melding with the music, and another voice filled my ears but it actually came from my throat:

“Pay attention…” the voice seemed to say.

The narrator spoke of leaving behind of the old and continuing on, words of rebirth and hope droned on to be replaced by the pulse of the music.   He circled the column once, twice, but his words went through me, as if he were speaking a language I knew I should’ve understood, but in a dialect unfamiliar to me. I found that all existed was the pulse of the music and the light ropes on the central pillar. Those surrounding the circle seemed to vanish as well.

Then the music took on a different feel, it seemed to slow down, and become more melodic, where the music at first had matched my heartbeat or my heartbeat matched the music, I don’t know… But now I felt out of sync, like someone had dragged the needle across the album. Feeling like I was five years old trying to catch up to my father’s longer stride.

And then she was there, dressed all in blue, swirling in rhythm to the music.  Compassion circled the column once, twice, three times.  In her journey she imparted to all her wisdom, her patience and understanding.   Forgiveness washed over all present: she made no judgement and shared of herself, asking nothing in return. I felt remorse overcome me, she gave so freely what I refused to. The selfishness filled me and I found myself not being able to watch her, for fear I would make eye contact and she would see me for what I was.  She spent more time on my side of the circle as if to tell all of us with negativity that it was not too late, that she offered us absolution and the voice from within told me that it was true. The voice became a knot and I could feel the bile rise at my own shame.

The central column to me did not so much appear as a column any longer. The steel and drywall and plaster now appeared as a living column of fire that joined the dance and pulsed with the music.

The next dancer was Love, resplendent all in red from head to toe. She lost her anthropopathic qualities and she appeared to me as all the things beautiful, as she dipped I could see the rose in full bloom, and in her motions the rising and setting sun.  As she danced for those under the negative influence, like Compassion, she spent more time drawing us toward her… and then the voice within spoke up:

“Watch her and see what you have lost…”

This time I felt regret, for all the things that I have lost and pain for all things I felt I would never have. I started to become angry. I started to project the negativity that I felt to the girl dancing before me. I asked myself ‘what do they know?’  The Anger began to turn to resentment.

The voice in my chest told me to wait and see what had taken root.  The narrator had circled the column once and again his words were lost to me.

The timber of the music changed — the beat quickened and the melodic tones distorted and changed reminiscent of the beat of a Harpy’s wings. The shadows darkened and what little light there was dimmed and out slinked Greed. The column of living flame now turned to ice at her touch and she tempted the positive crowd with feelings of self gratification as she twirled about exuding an air of justification for their own selfishness impulses.

“Do you feel it…” the voice within was raking its way out of my chest with talons of self pity…

Next was Rage, adorned with flames of incarnadine retribution.  She strutted and poked and prodded, exposing our faults for all to see but that all would deny.   Just like the flames upon her gown, her dance inflamed all the injustices we perceive and mocked our unjustified reaction to those injuries. She tempted those on the positive side with the joy of unrestrained violence and the negative side applauded our understanding of this raw emotion.

I wanted the inner voice to give me some satisfaction by sheer indignation of at least an “I told you so…” but the acids in my stomach churning over this abasement were probably enough chastisement.

The music seemed to pump out faster, and harsher — the beat of wings now a shrill shriek as Intolerance took it’s turn upon the stage.  Again self justification permeated the air and the purple of her gown set her above all the other dancers. She moved in syncopation to the rhythm that filled the room. She followed her own path and looked upon all on the positive side with unveiled disgust.  Her head held high, her eyes closed, she stumbled as part of her dance and dared anyone to tell her she was wrong.  For those on the negative side her dance seemed to explain that we had nothing to learn, and the other side wasn’t worth the effort to teach.

The emotional sea calmed and the figure in black took the stage, as if the shadows spewed forth living tissue. She was a reflection of the darkness that was now filling and devouring my sensibilities.  I was struck with a chord of fear that if I had looked into a mirror at that point in time that she is what I would’ve seen looking back at me through a cold querulous vacuum.

The voice only had one word for me and that was:

“Patience… this story is far from over.”

The tempo of the music changed again and drove away the fear I previously felt. The tune slowed becoming again lyrical and confusion now filled me because as I did not recognize this new character, the narrator was silent, and the music gave no indications.

The shadow seemed to float across the floor in no particular direction.  She would go to the column and then to the negative influences. They reached out for her and I felt panic rise up.  I knew full well what would happen if they got hold of her.   She seemed to be a blank slate; for me she represented a new beginning — she was there untainted by any influence, she just ‘was’.

She approached the positive influences and they reached out for her but she shied away and again I felt lost in the moment. Confusion still weighed heavily on me, and there I stood on a precipice,  tottering back and forth. I discovered I was holding my breath, and found myself feeling concern for her. She moved to the column, her head darting back and forth looking to one sphere of influences to the other.

Maybe she was looking for answers, but didn’t trust her own judgement. I was at a loss, and the anticipation for answers was becoming unbearable.  In this room only fifteen minutes had elapsed but I was lost in the moment.

I was standing upon a road looking back; I could see stretched out before me every issue in my life that I had faced, how every decision I had ever made led me to this place at this time…

The voice again… “it wasn’t easy.”

The two influences, seeing her indecision, entered the circle and approached the shadow, enticing and cajoling her, pulling tugging, pleading, begging…

Torn between the two influences, they sensed her weakness and indecision and separated. They started to attack her individually using their individual strengths to entice her.

Anger flared up in front of her and attempted to divert her away from Love, whose open arms were only inches away.

Compassion  stepped in between Anger and the Shadow, it’s hold over her wavering. The ebony shape crossed to the opposite side of the circle and Intolerance tried to pull her away from the crowd of groping and ensnaring emotions, each still vying for her complete attention.

Each emotion tried to exert influence over her, to show that their path was true. It seemed to me that the music built to a feverish pitch and the feeling over the entire room was one of sympathy for the lost figure in black.

When it looked as though the girl in black would be torn to shreds, a wave of strength poured forth from the onlookers, not for the positive or negative influences, but for the lost one. The empathy that we all felt for her was resounding, palpable.

It was then that she broke free and stood tall.  It hadn’t been apparent to me that she had been bent or stooped over but now she seemed to me all of seven feet tall as she stood erect, reaching with outstretched arms for all to stop.

All was motionless, once again I was standing beside the road.

She pulled the veil from her face revealing a mask of Yin & Yang, black & white. In removing the veil that had clouded her vision, she was able to see everything for what it was.  She now represented Balance.

“Now you understand…” and the voice (of course) was right…

But the dance had not ended there, the majesty of Balance became overpowering. She became the hunter, the antagonist, the protagonist; the influences cringed from her presence like nocturnal creatures caught in the highbeams of an oncoming car. Now she could see them for what they actually were, and the truth in this robbed them of their individual power. They no longer held sway over her; their control was gone.

We were enthralled by the spell she had woven but in this moment of conquest she did not banish the negative and embrace the positive. She did the last thing any of us expected: she took hold the hands of anger and love and joined them together.  At first there was disdain and reticence but soon they realized that they were just opposite sides of the same coin and they embraced and became one;  morphing into protection.   Anger tempered with Love - off they spun like two candle flames becoming one brighter and stronger flame, bonding and exploring this new sensation.

Balance did not stop there, she went after Compassion next.  She didn’t have to go far, Compassion never went far afield.  Hand-in-hand they approached Greed, the others scattering,  but Greed, aloof with arms across her chest, wanted nothing to do with Compassion.  The insistence of Balance overcame Greed — maybe Greed thought that she could use this to her advantage.  She held out her hand to Compassion, who stepped in and encircled her arms about Greed.   Greed melted at the embrace and off they went to perform their dance, once again both becoming stronger for the union.  One would think that they would cancel each other out, but no, together they became Sacrifice.

Balance and Intolerance stood toe to toe; Intolerance, rigid & unyielding, was displaying strength arising from fear, a façade that didn’t fool Balance.

Intolerance tried to duck to the left or right; Balance cut off any retreat. Intolerance, her eyes prized opened and forced to look upon herself, now knew defeat.

The remaining four dancers, now in pairs, circled closer until they were within arms reach of Balance.  Once Intolerance had succumbed to the truth, Balance reached out to take Rage’s hand in her Left, and Greed’s in her right. On the far side of them were Love and Compassion, respectfully now as the two pairs were inseparable, the five of them fairly glowing.   The lights in the room seemed to come from the dancers, auras brighter than the lights they danced among.

There stood Intolerance, eyes darting from left to right looking for an escape, her shoulders slumped in resignation. Love and Compassion held out their hands to her.  With a look of disdain, imbued with false superiority, Intolerance took their hands.

Then the circle was joined and deosil they moved, slowly at first and, as if gaining strength from each other, they moved and pranced faster and with more energy;  now no longer five distinct emotions but one driving force.

“Now is when I say I told you so… ”

I found myself laughing and my tears of absolution caused the lights to blur and shift;  in that capacity I saw her for the first time. In my peripheral vision she was there, bathed in the pure light of understanding and forgiveness.  I kept my eyes fixed on the same point and felt sublime grace and now knew what I always felt to be true.

“Silly boy. I am you. And apart from you. And within you. I have always been here only you haven’t been willing to see me…”

The dancers still deosil¹, their hands joined and held high, moving as one, and breathing as one.  My heart moved and danced with them, now filled with intoxicating joy. I could now see myself as Balance, and I was there in the midst of them. I could feel all their arms about me as they collapsed inward upon Balance, giving up their individual influences to the overwhelming power of Balance.  They stood and began moving deosil again as one unified force, Balance’s work done. She stepped out from the middle of the still dancing group, still joined in an unbroken circle… and I was there.

I learned that night that confusion only rises from not accepting ALL of your emotions, from not being willing to understand that we are a composite of our desires and influencing factors.   It arises from our inability to utilize our intelligence to see the greater picture, a denial of the Balance that has to be achieved, to accomplish harmony.   If any single emotion takes control then all that is left to us is frustration and ineffectuality, leading to further loss and emptiness.  To fill the void that remains one has to look no further than one’s own emotions and sensibilities, for all of our compositeness and all the negativity that we experience comes from within.  You have to look no further than within to discover the reasons for any negativity that abounds.

Adversity may be one external factor but integrity is the manner in which we face it:

To thine own self be true…
Shakespeare, Hamlet — (Act I, Scene III).

These players also taught me that Rage tended with Love creates an inner fierceness: temper that with Greed and you achieve a heightened Passion; add to that Intolerance and you find that you will seek what makes you happy regardless of how others feel about it.  Combine all that with Compassion and you discover the tenderness that makes you want to be, and find what it is you yourself are seeking.

I do not know if the players did or did not realize how prophetic their portrayal was, what they gave to us was a parable on the Pentagram itself.   They gave us five emotions, each dependent on the other to provide stability. If you can picture Greed as the first line in the pentagram from 7:30 to 12:00 and apply another emotion to the next line and so forth then you may have an inclination as to how powerful this whole experience was for me.

Remove Greed and you create apathy
Remove Love and you foster self gratification
Remove Intolerance and you won’t follow your own heart
Remove Compassion and you create existentialism
Remove Rage and you lose the passions that drive you

If you bring two of the lines together, you are lacking three of these five emotions and achieve the emotion at the intersection of those lines…

Note:

1 deosil, or sunwise, i.e. following the course of the sun; would be clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere.