Spinning in Circles

I've been taking a class lately on staff-spinning. I hear that it's vaugely Polynesian. It's related to poi-spinning but with a staff. In other words, the staff dancer lights both ends of a large staff and, to the throbbing beat of trance techno music, spins intricate and beautiful patterns in the dark.

I've just started so I'm not lightning anything on fire just yet. Strangely, I have an affinity for the staff, having gotten one as a teenager and spun away for hours and hours on end in the backyard. More recently, I've studied "bong sparring", which has nothing to do with cannabis. Something about using the staff really feels right to me, feels very comfortable and natural.

So I decided to take this class, to explore it a little deeper and learn some new moves. But that's not all that's happening. This is rocking my world.

When the music starts and the staff spins effortlessly in my hands, circling in front of me, behind me, all around me at blistering speeds, I've started to feel transported. The music pulses through me. The staff begins to spin itself, with me gently guiding the energy like a flowing stream of water. It moves around me. My body flows with it. We become a rapturous dance, stepping aside from time and space and simply existing in The Moment.

How is it that something so simple as spinning a staff can produce such heightened blissful states of consciousness? A lot of people take drugs to feel this way. Something I used to do in the backyard for fun has turned into this ecstatic dance. And I've only begun dipping my toe in the pool.

There exists a level of consciousness that transcends this "reality". Perhaps it's just a step to the left, floating just outside the corner of our vision. Many cultures, many paths, have explored this state throughout the history of humanity. Processes have become codified into religion. Then religion becomes the end unto itself, losing sight of the original goal - a transcendent state of being.

It's hard to describe, but those who've experienced it (and there are millions in the world) know exactly what I'm talking about. It's a special place, a rabbit hole. You can find it through prayer, through meditation, or, as most people in America, simply engaging in a Passion. Ask any athlete about The Zone. Ask any painter or dancer who creates from the deepest part of their soul. They know what it's about.

This is a place that can be reached by anyone, through anything. I've experienced it while singing onstage, while dancing at a nightclub, while sparring in the dojang. And lately, I've experienced it by simply spinning a staff. Feeling the music. Allowing my body to be swept up in the flow.

What takes YOU to that place?