Mourning and Dancing

Fall is a time of opposing truths for me. On the one hand, it is absolutely invigorating. I feel my insides come alive as the weather gets cooler and everything is made out of pumpkin. But it’s also a time, for a variety of reasons, I’m more tenderly aware of endings, of death. There are some days I am sluggish, nauseated, have no appetite, and can barely get out of bed.

Our bodies are fascinating containers for our emotions. When I walk out into a crisp autumn day with sunshine, a blue sky, flaming red and yellow trees, and a cup of warm coffee in my hand, leaves crunching under my feet, I naturally walk faster with more bounce in my step. And when I’m deep in grief, it feels like I’m dragging three times my body weight to get out of my desk chair just to walk to the bathroom.

Several years ago, as I was on my way to a final interview, a dear friend texted me Psalm 30 as a guiding Scripture for my discernment. It was the encouragement I needed; I had recently left an abusive, toxic call, and discerning a new call was clouded by the grief and trauma I was carrying with me. I read Psalm 30 and was struck by these words: “You have turned my mourning into dancing.” As a dancer, it was the sign I needed. I was offered the job and I’m still, happily, in it today.

Isn’t it interesting how Scripture sets dancing, rather than joy or happiness or gladness, as the opposite of mourning? I think it’s because these aren’t just opposites; they sit at opposite ends of a spectrum. There is no sadness deeper than mourning. How many of you, when you are mourning, find yourselves not only seated but bent over, maybe your knees pulled up to your chest, stuck in place with your tears? And there is no expression of joy greater than dancing. How many of you, when you rejoice, move a part of your body? Raise your hands in the air, applaud, or jump up and down? Joy moves us in our totality: heart, mind, soul, and body. Mourning transformed looks like dancing.

This ancient spiritual wisdom still serves us today, both in the ways we can recognize this transformation, and the way we can help bring it about. More and more research is showing the mental and emotional (and spiritual) benefits of physical movement. Exercise scientists are quantifying what the ancients already knew. Our mourning transformed looks like dancing; our dancing can help transform our mourning. 

Now please hear me: on those days when you are curled up crying because it would have been your sister’s birthday and you still can’t believe you have to move through the world without her, the solution is not to just get up and do some cardio. Eff that noise. Or, to be a little more religious about it, “for everything there is a season… a time to mourn, and a time to dance.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1,4) You stay on that couch and cry, you hear me?

But the seasons change. They always do. Fall, for better or worse, won’t last forever. One day you’ll walk into Starbucks and wonder when pumpkin went away and peppermint moved in. And one day, you’ll find yourself dancing again.

How have you experienced this juxtaposition of mourning and dancing?