Dance of Life

Your body is composed of the elements of nature -- earth, wind, fire, and water -- the ancients said. Your mind and spirit are beyond calculating. You are part of all you see and more. Embrace the universe as part of you. Receive the sun, the moon, the caverns, and the creatures who creep, crawl and fly as part of your body and mind, and you will come to understand the uniqueness of man. You will experience harmony as you have never understood or felt it before.

If you experience harmony, if you know it within yourself, you will easily sense any threat to that harmony. By their very nature, peace, love, and harmony are gifts which must be shared to be enjoyed. The stronger you grow in your love for peace and harmony, the greater will be your power to defend it. You will come to see that it is your duty to preserve the peace of the living universe, and that the living universe is none other than you.

There is order and symmetry in the universe. As you meditate on this knowledge, you will come to see how you can keep this order. The tone of your voice and the movements of your body are all part of the dance of life. A word can disturb the peace, a smile can restore. The warrior will not use a sword when a flower can disarm the opponent more effectively. The highest warrior is one who seeks to preserve life, not to take it. When a warrior must physically move to protect himself, he must do so as a dance, performed without fear or anxiety. This dance is possible when we make the Warrior Mind part of our daily life, nothing special.

-- Vernon Kitabu Turner, an African American martial artist, poet, cop ... (more)