The Dance of Life: The Endless Sway Between Joy, Power, and Pain

“Sometimes I go about in pity for myself, and all the while, a great wind carries me across the sky.”- Ojibwe saying

We are born, naked, terrified into an indifferent and cold world. As infants, we are helpless. We can’t feed ourselves or bathe ourselves. We depend on our parents for everything — love, warmth, shelter, food. Even before we understand language, we understand this relationship, that we are at the mercy of others. There is a beautiful symmetry to all this, the interplay between parent and child, as a child grows older.

But the other side of this interplay is darkness and pain. Our parents are flawed people. Even the luckiest and most privileged of them do not get to escape suffering. And in this suffering, our parents, and their parents before them, have built a congregation of defenses. The world, as I said above, is terrifying from the beginning. We are dependent on others for survival. As we grow older, a thousand little cuts — but also sometimes a stab wound — enfeeble us. They may seem inconsequential looking back over our lives, but they are not. Perhaps it was being told one is ugly in 2nd grade or not being picked to dance at an 8th-grade party. Perhaps it is our parents screaming at us after a poor grade. Perhaps it is the death of someone we love. Or perhaps it worse, some physical or…