“A Magical Moonight Dance II”

“She, of course, was destined for a night like this one. Lithe and gracile, she skimmed over rather than trod upon the ground. Not a trained dancer, she nevertheless possessed such comfort with her body and felt so integrated with nature that she stepped, jumped, and spun as if extensively rehearsed. Ilona bent forward at the waist and, with both arms moving inward from the sides, appeared to gather up the magic light through which they moved. Then she pirouetted and, with out-flung arms, released the breast-held light up into the tree limbs. Sometimes she circled at ever-increasing speeds, round and round her own axis as well as that of a central stone that was the focal point of their dance. Her arms floated high, lifted by some buoyant force, then gradually descended until they came to rest at her sides. Twice she stopped in place and sprang into the mystic air, hands aloft, cutting through the moonlight like a diver completing a smooth entrance into the water. At first, Skylar was at a loss what to do. Nothing in his experience even remotely prepared him for this moment. He had lived an outward life of supreme rationality and was now being asked to become a primitive. His days had been routinized like an inmate’s, and he was now being offered the chance to simply be— in pure spontaneity. He had survived only by knowing what was acceptable and expected and adapting himself to those norms, and he was now being handed the freedom to dance wild and naked under the moon, like a Neolithic shaman.”