The word inspiration suggests the idea of being captured by a spirit within. “Let the spirit move you” is something people sometimes say in a variety of different contexts. In many religions the spirit is the Holy Spirit, a divine entity that is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-perfect, all-wise – the source of all creation and life. In German philosophy there are the concepts of weltgeist (the spirit of the people) or zeitgeist (the spirit of the age). People refer to a horse being “spirited” or a person having “spirit” when they want to say the horse or person is active, sprightly and energetic. Inspiration also refers to the creative origin of something. People who are creative are often asked what “inspires” them to do or to make something.
In this blog post, I want to discuss what it means to be inspired in the sense of feeling a quiet, peaceful, at-homeness in the world. I think of this as finding an optimal, harmonious balance within a self that is part of a context that allows for or that encourages this feeling to take place. This feeling lies neither entirely within nor without. It is not entirely within because we are not disembodied entities that exist alone outside of the rest of the world. It is not entirely caused from without because we can experience conditions where we ought to feel inspired (while watching a sunset, say), but where we can still be left cold, either because of illness, or preoccupation of mind, or due to other kinds of dis-ease.
I have been inspired in the sense described above while dancing or watching dance. While dancing I have often felt sublime attunement and connection – to the music, to the dance, to the dancers who share the dance with me, and sometimes to the audience if there is one. There is a sense of rightness, fitness – that one is exactly and perfectly where one ought to be. I have felt as if I were in the center of an emanating warmth and glow full of light and hope. I have also in these moments felt an overwhelming relief or gratitude to be free from worry and pain.
One of my experiences of inspiration while watching others dance occurred for me in Istanbul, Turkey several years ago. I was watching Mevlevi whirling dervishes as part of a Sufi ceremony that was reproduced for tourists several nights per week. I feared that the “for tourists” aspect of this dance would ruin any chance to witness true inspiration. I worried that there would be pandering to the perceived tastes of a paying audience. These worries were justified a bit in the framing of the performance – for an additional fee they offered a light show you could see on the walls outside of the dance space, for example – but once the dance started, any commercial tackiness, and the separation between dancers and audience, fell away.
The whirling dervish dancers moved in a gliding and ecstatic way, in a long succession of men in long white robes who moved along set and traditional patterns within a square space. The dancers did not make eye contact with or address the audience surrounding them in any way – they succumbed to the rhythm of the live music, highlighted by a reed flute and drums, the “whirling” of their long, white robes propelling them forward in progressive spirals. They lifted their faces, they half-closed their eyes, they lifted their arms as the skirts of their robes rose with the motion and they seemed to be in deepening, dynamic meditation or prayer. I have seen this dance described as “trancelike” but if they were in a trance, it was not the trance of brainless zombies. There was no surrendering of intentionality or agency but the ease of expert, long-practiced control. The contentment, peace, and quiet love that I am associating with inspiration flowed, filling the dancers and filling the entire witnessing space.
Did all the audience members of the dervish dance feel inspired? I do not know. The conditions for inspiration were there for uptake. What does it require to let the inspiration in? For me it requires closing one door and opening another. It requires turning my attention away from my typical, worried, analyzing and ruminating habits and turning towards a sense of opening that feels like it’s coming directly from the center of my chest and sternum. It requires a setting aside of burdens and opening up receptivity to love. It is not defensive or self-protective, although it is not gullible or naïve either. It involves an attitude of openness, of willingness to listen and to learn.
Can we feel this sort of inspiration without dance? Of course we can. All of my posts on this site are about dance since dance has been the core grounding of my life. But dance is far from the only thing that can create inspiration. For any readers who have not felt inspired while dancing or watching dance, I will provide a non-dance analogy. Imagine, for instance, that you are walking in a forest on a beautiful day. All of a sudden you are aware of your legs moving, beams of sunlight through the trees coming through here and there, a buzzing of insects, a shimmering at your sightline and the rustle of leaves and crackling of twigs under your feet. You stop and you feel it. Whatever the “it” is that I’ve been referring to. Something like a deep contentment. Something right. Something peaceful. The way that we want to feel at the moment of our deaths.
Copyright © Aili Whalen 2025. All rights reserved.
Leave a Reply