THE SUNDANCE

Recollecting what has gone before, we begin with the existence of a Universal Idea concerning the mystery of creation. The idea can be expressed as, “Out of the One came the Many; the Many are One.” The idea can be expressed more personally: We are each a unique individual, yet at the same time we are One Being. This perennial notion has been portrayed for us by one of our participating subscribers, Vyasa Dass, in his diagram of the World Mandala.

Next we have my suggestion that this Universal Idea has associated with it a collection of images having a common or general form - the Sundance motif. In the first essay, I presented a number of these images, such as the May Pole and the Sun Dance, and proposed as their general form the model of the gyroscope. Aspects of the gyroscope suggest analogies to different aspects of the Universal Idea. First is the central axis - Oneness. The axis is related to the symbol of the Tree of Life and to the symbol of the “center still point of creation.” Second is the circular motion around the axis - the Many. This motion is related to the various symbols concerning the theme of “twelve around one” and to the symbol of the Dance. Then there is the dynamic tension between the axis and the rotary motion, which contains the secret of the gyroscope’s ability to balance itself. I related this dynamic tension to the symbolic meaning of suffering and the transcendence of duality, and to the fact that the Many and the One are complementary aspects of the same reality.

Our idealization of community, as Joseph Campbell points out in his Masks of God, is patterned after our image of creation. In my first essay, I outlined the relationship between the community theme in the Sundance motif and the workings of a gyroscope. Another illustration of this relationship is provided by two insignias from a contemporary organization, the International Cooperation Council.

The I.C.C. describes itself as “an association of organizations researching universal principles, developing new states of awareness, facilitating evolvement of universal persons, and implementing new civilizations based on unity and diversity.” Similar to our gyroscope analogy, the vertical component of their insignia is labeled “unity” and the circumferential component is labeled “diversity,” suggesting balance.

An older insignia, now unused, portrays cooperation in the form of a round clasp of hands. This image is reminiscent of a game where children run and spin around together in a circle, achieving dizzying speed and thrills limited only by each child’s ability to maintain a balanced posture.

Insignias of the International Cooperation Council

As a physical analogy to the abstract Sundance motif one that people can directly experience, this children’s game is an instructive and delightful exercise. In experiments with this type of activity, I’ve been encouraged to discover that a group of dancers can cooperate to support each individual’s attempt to maintain the necessary balance, as well as to bring an energetic swirl to a graceful landing. (“Sufi dancing,” a more sublime recreation, is also highly recommended.)

The proposition then arises that there exist methods, perhaps originating in something as spontaneous and primitive as a children’s game, by which people can experience a revelation of the mystery of creation. As an example of this proposition, I described in my first essay a dream of a “research dance,” where people come together to conduct an experiment in enlightenment and then discover that dancing is to be the method of the experiment. I also presented a description of Jesus’ “Round Dance,” from the Apocryphal Acts of St. John, which may have been an initiation ceremony for the Apostles. Another example discussed was the Native American ceremony for the communal quest for vision, the Sun Dance.

If methods do exist for experiencing in community the mystery of the Oneness of creation, the question arises, how can we find a method that will be effective for us in our contemporary situation? Shall we adopt from the past an archetypal dance? The effectiveness of the Sun Dance, for example, comes only partly from the ceremony’s archetypal form. A significant aspect of the Sun Dance’s integrity comes from the process by which this ceremony came into being. The ceremony originated as if from a dream within the native community. Thus it is conceived in terms of symbols that are specially suited as “triggering stimuli” to the Native Americans. We would require our own, original variation on the universal theme. The hypothesis of the Sundance Experiment is that we can pool our dreams and our applied knowledge to discover a contemporary invention of revelation.

In a past issue of Womanspirit (called to my attention by Dick McLeester - see p. 243), there is an article by Hallie Mountain Wing describing an overnight wilderness event attended by twelve women. The purpose of the venture was to share dreams, become deeper friends and explore the meaning to each of them of being women. To prepare for dreaming together, the twelve women arranged their sleeping bags into a “wheel” surrounding a central pole. In addition, each woman had two strands of ribbon attached to her sleeping bag which were then attached to the pole, making a “dream net.” The arrangement is quite similar to the May Pole and Sun Dance ceremonies; except, in this case, the people are lying down, asleep and dreaming. As an approximation to a contemporary experiment in revelation, a twelve-person “dream wheel” inspires continued exploration.

I’ve heard rumors that such a dream party can lead to a mutually experienced, common dream - a provocative possibility. The preliminary group dream experiments I have conducted yielded either a collection of distinct dreams that fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle when interpreted or that provided a basis for a shared experience of Oneness when the dreams were enacted in a psychodramatic medley.

12 Cocoons make a Dream Wheel

While writing the first essay on the Sundance experiment, I indulged in some side play to express the Sundance motif in a different manner. The result was the painting, “May Day,” and the following story:

May Day

Since I had “made up” the story, I couldn’t help but feel that it must be somewhat contrived. I’m sharing it with you now because of a coincidental dream that recently came to my attention. The dream was sent to me by a subscriber who is a member of a dream study group. It was dreamed by another member on the day our subscriber brought the first issue of the Journal to the attention of the group. Here is the dream:

The group recognized the imagery of the Sundance motif in the dream but had no way of suspecting its close parallel to my fantasy story. The timing of the dream and its content form a double-level, meaningful coincidence. Such synchronistic events will characterize, I believe, the pursuit of the Sundance Experiment.

In explaining the Sundance motif in my first essay, I mentioned that an important dimension to the motif is a concern for the regeneration of plant life, a concern for the Earth in Her life-giving capacity. It was with some surprise and pleasure that I received the following letter, with diagram, from one of our participating subscribers:

Dear Journal:

What a correspondence! On the basis of the principle, “as above, so below,” we should expect to find as productive a process as photosynthesis within the human psyche and within the human community.

I’ll include this report with a dream that points to further ramifications of the Sundance motif:

The dreamer, Peggy Specht of Toronto, Canada, sent a paper sculpture based on her dream, called “The Four Powers.” You can get an intuitive “feel” for the concept of the dream by imagining giving the paper a twist with a snap of your fingers.

Something that can be easily accomplished is a “snap.” The image points to the myth of creation by psychokinesis - God creating the world out of His mind! Joseph Campbell, in his Masks of God, discusses the Apache myth of the world creator, Black Hactcin, who created the world by first forming a bird, then whirling it around so fast that the bird got dizzy and began hallucinating the images that became the world. Campbell gives many examples of the “whirling bird” motif and relates it to the more general image of the swastika.

The swastika, according to Campbell, was the first geometrical symbol to appear in the history of humanity. Its appearance was associated with a number of evolutionary events, including the first organized, stable cities, and the discovery of writing and of the wheel. The swastika has somewhat ambivalent connotations for us today, as it is associated both with the Hopi’s reverence for harmony and the Nazi’s quest for power.

Mixed feelings about the swastika can also be related to the more general pattern of the several pairs of opposite and complementary meanings associated with the opposed directions of rotation of the archetypal spiral. For example, Campbell points out that Hactcin, the world creator, spun the bird in a clockwise rotation to spin consciousness out into forms. The spiraling swastika image associated with the meditating Buddha, however, is one of counterclockwise rotation; symbolizing, according to Campbell, the withdrawal of consciousness from the forms of the world. The complementarity of the opposed interpretations becomes paradoxical because the apparent direction of rotation of a spiral is relative to the position of the observer.

But the ambivalence is reason enough to pause and consider our own standpoint - our Ideal. The potential of the Sundance experiment, whether for weal or woe, depends upon that determination. For more graphic images of this concern, I refer you to our “Subscribers’ Dreams.”

Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: I Primitive Mythology. (Viking Press) See pp. 140-150; 232-234.

International Cooperation Council Newsletter. 17819 Roscoe Blvd., Northridge, California 91324.

Hallie Mountain Wing, “Dream Weekend.” Womanspirit, 1975 II(6), 10-11. (Box 263, Wolf Creek, Oregon 97497 $2 ppd.)

Jill Purce, The Mystic Spiral. (Avon Books)