Amplification: The Dance


Jung says that feet have a fertility significance, as does the activity of treading on the earth (Jung 5, para. 480). He speaks of the libido put into the earth by 'magic touch', by jumping, by rolling on the ground, by dancing (Jung 6, para. 86). In these ways we demonstrate the oldest and most primitive connection that we know as human beings, that of ourselves to the earth upon which we live. In ancient China a new-born infant was laid and left on the ground for three days in order to know if Earth had accepted its birth. The Greek men in the fields, the Ethiopians, the Pueblo Indians, and my patient too in the third dream, have all known a sacred communication with the earth. Whether it was conscious or not, all have dances in Tarahumare way.
 
However, every archetype is expressed in polarities, in seeming contradictions and is neither bad nor good, nor beautiful nor ugly, but simply so complex that it manifests itself simultaneously in many different forms. There is an aspect of dance related to frenzy and fury and possession, and perhaps the ahs something to do with its disappearance as a sacred form in western Europe. The frenzy and fury can manifest either in orgiastic forms or in blindly destructive murderous rages. Pan is often associated with the notion of orgiastic excess. There is a hint of this aspect of dance possession in the figure of the woman with goat legs and hooves.

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