The Players:
Mike Ward - Bass & Backing Vocals
Laurel Dewitt - Keyboard and Backing Vocals
Auberte Campeau - Percussion
Eugene Smith - Drums
Bob Ryan - Guitar & Lead Vocals
Recorded, Mixed & Mastered in 1995 at Lakewood Media Studios
(LYRICS)
Words & Music by Bob Ryan (c)1991
Dancing the dance of love
Swirling ‘round the mists aground
Spinning shadows barely seen
Holding out the eternal doubt
Will it be or come to naught?
Hearts beat and eyes gleam
as we dance the dance of love
Dayspring, the rising point
Limbs uncurl and muscles stretch
as the eyes begin to know
Emerging from a spiritual slum
To the life of the Crimson Heat
Breathing the exotic air
Sparks are flying at every turn
with every touch and sight
Holding tight in that tender flight
As it scales the heights it gains
The Dance of Love
This song is a meditation on the degrees or levels of love and it's manifestion in this world. There is the love of things, cars, works of art, guitars, jewelry, nature, pets etc. and there is the love of people generally, family, friends etc., and there is divine love as expressed in religion and spirituality in general.
Of love, Abdu'l-Baha said:
"...love is the cause of the existence of all phenomena and that the absence of love is the cause of disintegration or nonexistence. Love is the conscious bestowal of God, the bond of affiliation in all phenomena."
"As we look upon the universe, we observe that all composite beings or existing phenomena are made up primarily of single elements bound together by a power of attraction. Through this power of attraction cohesion has become manifest between atoms of these composing elements. The resultant being is a phenomenon of the lower contingent type. The power of cohesion expressed in the mineral kingdom is in reality love or affinity manifested in a low degree according to the exigencies of the mineral world.
We take a step higher into the vegetable kingdom where we find an increased power of attraction has become manifest among the composing elements which form phenomena. Through this degree of attraction a cellular admixture is produced among these elements which make up the body of a plant. Therefore, in the degree of the vegetable kingdom there is love.
We enter the animal kingdom and find the attractive power binding together single elements as in the mineral, plus the cellular admixture as in the vegetable, plus the phenomena of feelings or susceptibilities. We observe that the animals are susceptible to certain affiliation and fellowship and that they exercise natural selection. This elemental attraction, this admixture and selective affinity is love manifest in the degree of the animal kingdom."
"Finally, we come to the kingdom of man. In man we find the power of attraction among the elements which compose his material body, plus the attraction which produces cellular admixture or augmentative power, plus the attraction which characterizes the sensibilities of the animal kingdom, but still beyond and above all these lower powers we discover in the being of man the attraction of heart, the susceptibilities and affinities which bind men together, enabling them to live and associate in friendship and solidarity. It is, therefore, evident that in the world of humanity the greatest king and sovereign is love. If love were extinguished, the power of attraction dispelled, the affinity of human hearts destroyed, the phenomena of human life would disappear."
"But these are only degrees of love which exist in the natural or physical world. Their manifestation is ever according to the requirement of natural conditions and standards."
"Real love is the love which exists between God and His servants, the love which binds together holy souls. This is the love of the spiritual world... If we are of those who perceive, we realize that the bounties of God manifest themselves continuously, even as the rays of the sun unceasingly emanate from the solar center. The phenomenal world through the resplendent effulgence of the sun is radiant and bright. In the same way the realm of hearts and spirits is illumined and resuscitated through the shining rays of the Sun of Reality and the bounties of the love of God. Thereby the world of existence, the kingdom of hearts and spirits, is ever quickened into life."
(Abdu'l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 255)In and of themselves, all the aspects or levels of love are divine in nature, but, it seems to me, when one's journey on the path of love, from the material or lower kingdoms of love up through to the more refined and subtle levels of divine love, if one becomes stuck along the way - without the context of love in its most complete expression: divine love, - these lower manifestations of love can become twisted, uninformed, devoid of context, and causes of great trouble for the human being.
The journey needs to be completed; dance to the end of the dance, or the dance, the journey, finds no satisfying purpose, remains confusing, full of pain and sorrow, just petering out in the end....and so much is missed.
