Dance Quotes

“We only have moments, but moments bring us to timelessness.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“Sometimes, people say they are very spiritual, but one only has to take a cursory look at their life to see if that is true or not. Are they lazy about their health, blatantly ignoring their bodies calling out for attention? Do they try to calm and reorient out-of-control emotions such as blame and self-pity? Are they treated with respect by intelligent people? Do they hold grudges that they refuse to acknowledge? Do they radiate unpleasantness and selfishness to those around them while proclaiming their great spiritual interest? The state of our body, mind, and heart speaks volumes about where our true interests lie. Let those interests be kind, intelligent, and dedicated to the Good.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“The common approach to getting confidence is flawed. Mostly, what people really mean is that they are better than other people; generally, people known to them. Human nature constantly compares itself to others to work out how it is doing. The problem is obvious. There will always be people better than us in any area of life, so it is a never-ending path with only momentary success here and there. Further, what we give out returns to us in like. There will be smiling assassins everywhere. Fortunately, we don’t need to be better than anyone else to be happy. We do, however, need to fulfil our own specific potential.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“Dancing is an innately spiritual affair. Its height is Divinity and its depth is humanity. It is the ever-moving balance between independence and intimacy.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“Ceaselessly praying does not mean to endlessly recite prayers to oneself. It means that the consciousness of the spiritual student is moulded in such a way that the context of the Divine is never lost from awareness. Everything that is said or thought comes from that basis, even in sleep. It is living the still point as a constant, ongoing reality.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“Both the ethereal higher chakras and the earthy lower ones are needed to be a balanced person, a balanced spiritual seeker, and a balanced dancer.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“Dance can transcend logical, time-bound, and place-specific limitations.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“The easiest and quickest way to reach the still point is in nature. There is a tremendous amount of stillness in the busyness of nature. If we can find the still point in nature, we can find it in our bodies. Our body is nature. The still point in nature is also the still point in us.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“We are generally not learning the thing we think we are, and even less the thing we want. We should be grateful for what makes us grow, even though it may be a love-hate relationship with the things responsible for that growth.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“Our body is important. It’s the first gift God gives us. We are meant to take care of it for the entire time we have it. We are meant to be grateful for it, use it, enjoy it, and learn from it. At the same time, we are not meant to obsess over it, be vain, be a hypochondriac, or be a pleasure seeker at other people’s expense.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“We are no one else. We are ourselves. We must be that, with no regrets, if we wish to be happy. If we keep going forward, following our own natural, intuitive, and sincere path then all things will have a tendency to align with what is a good intention.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“Everything beautiful and powerful is high risk. Along the way, we gain patience and perseverance by accepting life's ebb and flow, ups and downs.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“We are drawn to people who change us. Not change us into less of ourselves but into something we cannot be in our own solitary worlds.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“If we want our men to dance, we have to inspire them. Not with blatant sexuality. That is too common, too little. But with something more, something bigger, something that will give them a reason to want to dance.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“The act of continued physical proximity combined with emotional connection is highly binding. If both links are present, the bond between two people will be cemented in their consciousness and the very structure of their bodies.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“Touch is a conveyor belt of energy. It has a binding nature and can be as deep and impactful in simple, noninvasive physical interactions as it is in sexual interactions.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“We are masters at not seeing the obvious. So, our body takes on the connection for us. Once we relieve it of this responsibility, it usually jumps for joy and jumps right out of whatever physical predicament it had to acquire on our behalf. The karmic dumping ground of our body is the storehouse of many memories. Bodies have their own highly effective way of doing the talking.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“Unresolved mental problems get stuck in our bodies and try to talk to us through pain if the subtler ways have failed to reach us.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“The one thing that inspires fearless devotion in followers is devotion from their leader.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“Teaching is sharing. To be a good teacher, you have to be generous.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“What is dancing other than the desire for a moment of freely-given joint creation? It takes time, but even more than time, it takes trust. Trust, not so much in another—humans are so damn changeable—but trust in the part of another that does not change. The part that is whole and happy.
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― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“In amongst the momentary glory and inevitable change is the unrelenting, ferocious desire to express the soul through the mechanics of a limited body in the hope that it can bring some peace to a painful inner and outer world.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“Dance allows people to connect, learn about each other, and learn about themselves without the rather orchestrated context of modern dating apps. It’s the old-fashioned dating app. It is a natural, healthy, balanced context for people (young and old) to throw themselves into all sorts of relationships.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“Who cares about judges when you have each other and you are creating something together? Winning only matters when you don’t have what dancing really is.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“Dance has the power to create happy moments—timeless moments when all is forgotten except the dance. The endless complaints and struggles are erased by being present in the calmness and unity. It is a spiritual experience because it is unifying, healing, happifying, and uplifting.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“Ceaselessly praying does not mean endlessly reciting prayers to oneself. It means that the consciousness of the spiritual student is moulded in such a way that the context of the Divine is never lost from awareness.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“Anything that requires absolute attention becomes a meditation.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“Young bodies are beautiful, strong, flexible, and resilient. They have the fire of hope in their hearts. However, the fire can be a bit feral, like a young alley cat. It can go everywhere, in all directions, willy-nilly. It can turn all claws and spit or get nervous and run away. It pretends things that aren’t true and is afraid of showing what is true. The older cat bides their time. They have patience. They pull the fire inside and let it smoulder. They don’t waste energy on fights not worth the battle or where the casualties would be greater than the goal. They own their failures like scars, saying it would be wise to take them seriously. They are not ashamed of their loves. They value their spirit and let it grow. It’s in the eyes. The body may move less, but it has presence and power of a different sort. It is authentic.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“This is the beauty and power of it—the wonderful, exhilarating, funny, humbling, painful, surprising, enlightening beauty and power of our lives together.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair

“Mostly, what people really mean by confidence is that they are better than other people; generally, people known to them. Fortunately, we don’t need to be better than anyone else to be happy. We do, however, need to fulfil our own specific potential.”
― Donna Goddard, Dance: A Spiritual Affair