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April 9, 2009

the survival dance and the sacred dance

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A friend just emai­led me this excerpt from “Soul Dance”, by Bill Plot­kin. I liked it so much, I thought I’d share it with y’all. It cer­tainly reso­na­tes with my current day job. Bri­lliant.

The Sur­vi­val Dance and The Sac­red Dance
Har­ley Swift Deer, a Native Ame­ri­can teacher, says that each of us has a sur­vi­val dance and a sac­red dance, but the sur­vi­val dance must come first. Our sur­vi­val dance, a foun­da­tio­nal com­po­nent of self-reliance, is what we do for a living — our way of sup­por­ting our­sel­ves phy­si­cally and eco­no­mi­cally. For most peo­ple, this means a paid job. For mem­bers of a reli­gious com­mu­nity like a monas­tery, it means social or spi­ri­tual labors that con­tri­bute to the community’s well-being. For others, it means crea­ting a home and rai­sing chil­dren, fin­ding a patron for one’s art, or living as a hun­ter or gathe­rer. Every­body has to have a sur­vi­val dance. Fin­ding and crea­ting one is our first task upon lea­ving our parents’ or guar­dians’ home.
Once you have your sur­vi­val dance esta­blished, you can wan­der, inwardly and out­wardly, searching for clues to your sac­red dance, the work you were born to do. This work may have no rela­tion to your job. Your sac­red dance sparks your grea­test ful­fill­ment and extends your truest ser­vice to others. You know you’ve found it when there’s little else you’d rather be doing. Get­ting paid for it is super­fluous. You would gladly pay others, if neces­sary, for the oppor­tu­nity.
Hence, the impor­tance of self-reliance, not merely the eco­no­mic kind implied by a sur­vi­val dance but also of the social, psycho­lo­gi­cal, and spi­ri­tual kind. To find your sac­red dance, after all, you will need to take sig­ni­fi­cant risks. You might need to move against the grain of your family and friends. By honing psycho­lo­gi­cal self-reliance, you will find it easier to keep focu­sed on your goals in the face of resis­tance or incom­prehen­sion, ini­tial fai­lure or set­backs, or eco­no­mic or orga­ni­za­tio­nal obs­tac­les. And spi­ri­tual self-reliance will main­tain your con­nec­tion with the dee­pest truths and what you’ve lear­ned about how the world works.
Swift Deer says that once you dis­co­ver your sac­red dance and learn effec­tive ways of embod­ying it, the world will sup­port you in doing just that.
What your soul wants is what the world also wants (and needs). Your human com­mu­nity will say yes to your soul work and will, in effect, pay you to do it. Gra­dually, your sac­red dance beco­mes what you do and your for­mer sur­vi­val dance is no lon­ger need. Now you have only one dance as the world sup­ports you to do what is most ful­fi­lling for you. How do you get there? The first step is crea­ting a foun­da­tion of self-reliance: a sur­vi­val dance of inte­grity that allows you to be in the world in a good way — a way that is psycho­lo­gi­cally sus­tai­ning, eco­no­mi­cally ade­quate, socially res­pon­si­ble, and envi­ron­men­tally sound. Cul­ti­va­ting right live­lihood, as the Buddhist call it, is essen­tial trai­ning and foun­da­tion for your soul work; it’s not a step that can be skipped.

[Bonus Link:] “The Sex & Cash Theory”, gaping­void, 2004.

4 Responses to “the survival dance and the sacred dance”

1. Sarah says:

   April 11, 2009 at 8:47 AM

   Great excerpt. I hear you.
   Got my sur­vi­val dance hap­pe­ning first — teaching. The world never stops nee­ding teachers right?
   Then deci­ded to move to part-time teaching so I could study my pas­sion as well.
   Father’s res­ponse — ‘how will that course help you with your teaching?’. My res­ponse — ‘Well, that’s not why I’m doing it…‘
   And now get­ting paid to do stuff clo­ser to the pas­sion. But still wor­king on the soul dance. Still tra­ding part­ners as I swing bet­ween the two beats.
   Get­ting there. Having fun. And still mana­ging to eat (even though it’s often mac n cheese…)
2. Alice Bachini-Smith says:

   April 13, 2009 at 10:42 AM

   Wow, this is great, I may have to buy the book. Exce­llent expla­na­tion of the rela­tionship bet­ween survival-work and spiritual/passionate/vocational work. Thanks for pos­ting it.
3. Karen MacKenzie says:

   April 18, 2009 at 9:56 PM

   Thank you, Hugh, for pos­ting this. Recently, an acce­le­ra­ting energy is taking me from com­pla­cency with a job that I do well, get paid well for, and even enjoy — to a new direc­tion where I’m follo­wing a deep-rooted pas­sion. Rea­ding this excerpt, I was touched really deeply. I wrote a post on my own blog this past week ( http://foodandyoga.ca/inner-peace-teach ) which mused over the change from sur­vi­val to sac­red. I’m ama­zed at the beau­ti­ful coin­ci­dence of rea­ding Swift Deer’s words. Ah! Just one of life’s sweet moments.
4. The Monster In Your Head » The Gift of the Survival Dance says:

   April 14, 2010 at 7:25 AM

   […] been a Post-It note stuck to my moni­tor for weeks. I was in Miami when a client asked again about the Sur­vi­val Dance and the Sac­red Dance. She was caught, she said, bet­ween choo­sing what felt like the job she nee­ded to take ver­sus the job […]