C r a n e Da nc e
Scott Samuelson—Department of English
K
neeling on the April grass at Smith Park, I pound stakes into the
ground, laying out a nine-course labyrinth. Once I get the bright
construction ribbon strung between the pegs, my wife, grown children,
friends, and I will “walk the labyrinth.” The central cross and the
concentric maze grow out in a thousand-year-old pattern, a pattern found
in cultures around the earth.
“What are you doing?” asks a young father carrying a two-year-old
boy and a plastic basket full of bright plastic Easter eggs.
“Making a labyrinth. We’ll walk it as an Easter activity.” I know this
doesn’t make much sense, but I also know he probably doesn’t really
want the full story.
He doesn’t say “Huh?” but I figure that’s what he’s thinking. I change
the subject by gesturing toward his basket: “It looks like the egg hunt
is your ritual of choice.” We smile and give each other our best “rite of
spring” nod. Willing to give each other the benefit of doubt, and aware
that our Easter Saturday activities may seem a little strange to an outsider,
we resume our separate ways.
Indeed, what am I doing? Let’s call it resurrecting a celebration
ritual. I have been researching what in classical Greece became a dance
of rebirth and was transformed by medieval Christianity into a renewal
rite—both of which used the same labyrinth as a symbol of the road of
life with its twists and turns. My family, friends, and I will go to the
center of things and come back out of the circle of life triumphant. Or
that’s the plan.
I’ve explained just enough of this to those I’ve invited to get them
interested in coming. We all know it’s a little eccentric, but apparently
the idea of reviving an ancient tradition and enacting an archetype is not
a bad idea since it means getting outside after a long, inert winter. There
stirs deep in the blood—perhaps especially in the spring blood—the
desire for a new ritual, a longing in a slightly tribal way to welcome back
the sun and honor the lengthening of days. Spring has always meant
renewal in nature, and I think in relationships and in beliefs as well. For
example, I hear bird song, and I imagine birds—even cranes—flying
from the south to mark the turning of the year. Many migratory birds,
including the crane, mate for life. Why should not I, like them, reaffirm
my resolution to travel with my life-long companion, Shauna, in the
direction of fresh nourishment and prolonged light?
Before we enter the Rexburg Labyrinth, I tell my people something
of the roots of this ritual:
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I have been
researching what
in classical Greece
became a dance
of rebirth and
was transformed
by medieval
Christianity into a
renewal rite.
Spi r a l Pilgr im
dance into the maze; ever on & to the very heart.
be devoured until you turn & turn again and
find yourself
back home.
The Labyrinth is all terrestrial time, each leaping
crane, & every road of the earth.
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perspective—spring 2007
The Cretan cave quickly turns black. Young Theseus carries a sword and a ball of
spun flax. His shoulders rub against claustrophobic walls. But he steps on. He is the
son of a god, destined to be king, and he has faced peril and fear before. Still, the quiet
of the cavern is ominous because he knows there lurks in this tight darkness a beast so
powerful and sinister that none has survived a confrontation.
As his way twists round and round, his mind wanders to lesser things: It is irritating
that he must devote attention to the un-balling of the string. It diverts his concentration
on the sounds in the darkness. Sweat makes the sword unsure in his hand. It is definitely
getting hotter.
He pauses. Yet another turn, another doubling back. At what turn will the Minotaur
spring at him? He knows that without the string, his clew, he would be confused. He
imagines advice: “Don’t mind the turnings. Just keep on. When the bull-man makes
his first charge, stuff what’s left of the ball into his mouth. Then use your sword. Follow
the string out, and flee this cursed place.”
How long ago all of that seems now. Theseus remembers that he was surprised the
string did not break when he fed the ball into the Minotaur’s maw, or when he made
the many windings back to light. Thank the gods for a sharp sword. What a deadly foe
the monster was. When the prince stumbled into the light, the youths and maidens
erupted into cheers. The blood of the bull monster took long to wash off in the sea.
Then they took their quick flight to the neighboring island.
Resting now on the island of Delos, the prince feels the warmth of the sun on his
muscular back. Spring has come again. Winter and wind have migrated to the southern
hemisphere. Soon crops will be planted. Soon they will be home to build a nation. There
are sacrifices to be made. Birds sing. New-born lambs and calves frisk. The youths and
maidens are falling in love and will marry. Babies will be born.
The prince has come to a marsh to enjoy the spring and to forget the trauma of his
past. He sees there two tall birds strutting, jumping, flinging sticks into the air. The
crane and its mating dance are sacred here. He smiles and watches the birds cavort. They
should seem awkward with their long legs and necks, but they are not. How effortlessly
they rise and fall in the air. They spread their wings to each other. They stretch their
necks in tandem. They circle in their sacred crane dance.
And deep within himself, full of spring and victory, Prince Theseus knows this
profound urge: It is time for him to dance.
He makes his way to the worship place. People gather around the sacred altar. Some
have brought drums, lyres, and pipes. The prince says to the youths and maidens, “I
will teach you the steps that got me to the center of the labyrinth. We will retrace and
celebrate the victory of the maze. We will be light-footed cranes.” The music begins.
They join hands and move rhythmically to the music in a circle, back and forth with
many windings. Every few steps, they cannot restrain themselves—they jump like the
sacred birds. And when they reach the center, the prince pauses in remembrance of his
battle, then traces his steps back, the youths and maidens following, chanting, leaping,
singing. And when the dance is ended, there on the ground, trampled by merry feet,
lies a diagram of the labyrinth.
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The crane and its
mating dance are
sacred here.
And deep within himself,
full of Spring and victory,
Prince Theseus knows this profound urge:
It is time for him to dance.
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perspective—spring 2007
They sit in a grove of trees and drink libations to the gods. And the bard sings of
sacred Apollo once making an escape in bestial form, and the form he chooses is the
crane. He sings of the love Athena and Artemis have for the stately bird as well. He tells
how Hermes, seeing cranes fly high overhead in V-formation, a godly combination of
angles and graceful curves, invented the alphabet.
The bard sings that man learned to dance in part from the animals. Humans felt
an awe for creatures who could fly to heaven. And since mankind desired to encounter
the gods, men and women imitated the movements of the cranes who flew toward the
dwelling place of deity. And the poet tells a hundred stories of our fathers and mothers
seeking ways of connecting with the gods. He tells how they dance to express the human
hope for a relationship with the divine, worshipping to connect with paradise.
At various times in my life and for various reasons I too have felt
the urge to dance. But today I sense something new, exciting. Not that
I desire to be some neo-Theseus, hero of Smith Park. Or a quasi-crane.
Rather, my urge to dance today has become the impetus to take my wife
Shauna by the hand and enter the labyrinth—no cave, just lines on the
ground. Others join hands behind us in a long chain and follow. The
labyrinth is uni-cursal, meaning there is only one way to go. Unlike
the modern corn maze, for example, which is full of possible paths and
choices, this labyrinth requires not choice but endurance. The attraction
is not in being lost and then found but in persevering the twists and
turns, getting closer, getting farther away, by turns, from the center:
this walk symbolizes life’s problematic journey. We finally arrive in the
center and immediately double back. I’m glad I’ve made the tracks wide
enough that it is easy to pass those who are still coming in. As Shauna
and I finally emerge from the labyrinth, I am exhilarated! I applaud those
behind me as they complete their first labyrinth walk. Others, smiling,
applaud those behind them.
Of course, it’s not really a great accomplishment. But something
about it has changed us, if ever so slightly. “Why was that so fun? What
does it mean?”
At the moment I agree with Iris J. Stewart who says, “The labyrinth
does not engage our thinking minds. It invites our intuitive, patternseeking, symbolic mind to come forth” (Sacred Woman, Sacred Dance:
Awakening Spirituality Through Movement and Ritual, Inner Traditions
Publishing, 2000). To the group I try to paraphrase this idea and
what another commentator says: “the spiral pilgrim wanders the maze
sometimes progressing, sometimes retrograding, gradually devoured by
time, gradually moving back to the point of origin,” concluding that
the maze is “a symbol of terrestrial time, the sum of human experiences
on earth.”
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The attraction is
not in being lost
and then found
but in persevering
the twists and
turns: this walk
symbolizes life’s
problematic journey.
L a by r i n th
The path winds round to the core
the twists and turns of our test,
linkeness of our deepest quest:
maze, prison, and dancing floor.
Ordeal that leads to the fiend,
the stringent, dark wrestling place.
To be saved, just come this way.
Kill the monster, save the day.
This is the road to the heart,
diagram of dancing cranes,
eternal round, swirling womb.
Grab your partner. Time to start.
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That’s big. But such inclusive symbols, while perhaps elusive, do have
the power to appeal to us through their mystery and multitudinous
meanings. I do not have these quotes at my fingertips there in our circle
as the rain begins, so I conclude, “It’s an act of celebration.” Yes, finally, “It’s an act of
somehow, the smiling faces around me let me know that they too sense
celebration.”
that it is just plain fun.
I explain to my family and friends that I have also read that it takes
the gangly cranes nine running steps before they launch into the air, and
that the human crane dance sometimes reenacts the nine steps and leap.
We hold hands again and go once more into the labyrinth. This time I
count to nine and yell, “Leap!” and because I have one “wing” free—my
right hand holds onto Shauna’s—I flap my left arm each time I jump.
I flap and jump every nine steps all the way into and all the way out of
the maze, and all the following human cranes do likewise.
Is it the light spring rain that accounts in part for our sense of abandon
and connection with nature? Or is it because we have become, so soon,
friends of the maze? As we finish our crane dance, we find our way to
a picnic table under a large Douglas fir and share lunch and chat. The
rain eventually stops. People, heeding the demands of terrestrial time,
say good-bye and wander off.
I initiated this activity because I felt within me an urge to reenact
history. And the wacky idea of acting like the crane filled me with a
sense of play and child-like imagination. Because all of my children
are grown and none of my grandchildren live locally for a traditional
Saturday Easter egg hunt, I was a man in search of a ritual. I knew that
the next day, Easter Sunday, I would worship with song and with word.
I would read the sacred words, tell the timeless, joyous Christian story;
I would partake of the bread and the water and make sacred promises.
But on Saturday I wanted to move toward the Sabbath’s spiritual renewal
by way of a more physical experience. I wanted to approach deity with
people I love who are not in my ward, people with whom I will not be
worshipping tomorrow. I wanted to dance my dance before the Lord.
I once asked my brainy brother-in-law why he thought dance is not
more a part of contemporary Latter-day Saint worship. I pointed out
the restoration scripture which says, “If thou are merry, praise the Lord
with singing, with music, with dancing and with a prayer of praise
and thanksgiving” (Doctrine and Covenants 136:28). We heartily sing
and pray and praise. But dance as worship is rare in our culture. My
brother-in-law had been reading about Theseus and the crane dance and
suggested that I look into it. I started reading, and the more I learned
the more I became intrigued with the labyrinth. It was this search that
led me to want to create and reenact the crane dance, especially when I
read about the medieval Christian permutations of the labyrinth dance.
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The maze dance, nearly three thousand years
pagan, converted, took flight.
Theseus became Christ, and the Minotaur Death.
And the cranes rose with the Lord in a soaring
jubilee of new life.
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perspective—spring 2007
From my reading of various documents on the subject I imagine this
composite scene:
The young cleric assigned to sweep and mop the cathedral’s labyrinth is filled with
strange excitement. Tomorrow, Easter Sunday, he will walk with his brothers the magic
circle. They will chant and sing. They will throw the sacred leather ball.
The light through the rose window mixes with the torch light. The dust particles fly
like tiny birds through the sacred space. His mind starts humming and singing:
Tomorrow shall be my dancing day,
I would my true love did so chance
To see the legend of my play
To call my true love to the dance.
Sing, Oh my love, o my love, my love, my love
This have I done for my true love
His mind wanders to the stories he has heard: that on this very site—before God
sent His heavenly cathedral—was the center of the druids’ oracle space. And that space
was marked by white stones aligned to make a circle labyrinth. And that path had been
there a thousand years. And when the builders of the cathedral laid out the house of God,
they thought it no blasphemy to echo the place of oracle and labyrinth. And the youthful
ecclesiast thought of an even older story, the tale of an ancient warrior who penetrated
to the center of a cave labyrinth, and in the center killed a dreadful monster.
The young cleric knows for sure only of his own champion: Christ Jesus who
strode into Hell and there killed Death. And when he returned from that sojourn of
triumph, all the people shouted and sang, jumped and danced. Death had died. The
slayer had been slain.
And the Church fathers designed this day of jubilation. The celebration included
the dance of the clerics, following their Elder circling back and forth through the
labyrinth, chanting, singing, leaping, and tossing the ball, symbol of all eternity. And
in the center they flap their robes, and then follow their leader back out.
The people will crowd into this space on Easter morning to see the clerics spin and
they will think of the sun dancing and playing in the water and the angels who were
at the Resurrection playing backwards and forward before the sun. The master will act
the part of resurrected Adam, and the clerics will be the angels, and together they will
perform a ring dance with all those who hope to be raised up to heaven.
Worship is the
appeal of earth for
heavenly experience,
Our April Smith Park friends and family gone, Shauna and I, arm
in arm and quiet as young lovers, enter the labyrinth once more. In the
center we find no monster. We kiss. Holding each other still, we dance
without motion our new dance. Here the world renews itself.
Worship is the appeal of earth for heavenly experience, ritual the
enactment in time and space of some eternal pattern. I feel as a young
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ritual the
enactment in time
and space of some
eternal pattern.
crane might feel that has just learned to fly. Thirty-five years ago we stood
from the sacred altar and walked into the sunlight of our composite
being. It’s as though those many married years have been condensed into
a thirty-foot circle, and walking out from the center we have re-enacted
all our perils and joy. And now we are ready for our next rebirth.
I made the labyrinth because I wanted to enact an ancient ritual.
My conventional Christian worship stirs me deeply, but I thought it
no betrayal of that worship to fly to classical Greece, to leap back to
medieval Chartres and circle with the ancients the back-and-forth, spiral
symbol of the cosmic journey. Part of that pursuit is the desire to find
new angles from which to glace heavenward. Dancing to new rhythms
Unanimous and moves me beyond my conventional trudge. Unanimous and ageless,
ritual affirms its praise to deity, its contentedness with the gifts of the
ageless, ritual
earth, and the paradoxical yearning to honor those gifts by reaching
affirms its praise beyond them to heaven.
I pound my pegs, string my string, I grab the hands of those who will
to deity.
walk with me and, entering this symbolic diagram, we affirm who we are
at the same time we express our longing for a deeper, broader being.
As we emerge the last time from the labyrinth, Shauna says, “Just
as you drove the last peg, we heard the call of a Sandhill crane. It was
flying high above. I wish you had seen it.”
I too wish I had known and looked up to see the crane when it flew
over earlier. Nevertheless, I choose to see its presence today as heaven’s
smile upon our labyrinth walk. I say, “I wish it could have stayed
to dance.” •
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