Dirty Dancing [1]
You think watching this movie isn’t a spiritual experience? Just ask the members of the Patrick Swayze Fan Club. Ask the thousands of women who regularly visit Dirty Dancing web sites. Some of them say they’ve seen the movie a hundred times; like Rocky Horror fans, they can recite the liturgy … uh … the lines along with the characters. When you watch Johnny Castle and Baby Houseman’s midnight dance in Johnny’s “great room,” then, omigoddess, you’ll have a Majorly Spiritual Experience. (Some women say it’s orgasmic. The first time my friend Sandra, whose birthday is today, saw the movie, she gasped, “That’s foreplay.”)
Hey, we’re pagans. When the Goddess says, “All acts of love and pleasure are My rituals,” we believe her. If we’re pantheists, we find god or goddess in all things. If we’re panentheists, we believe that all is god or goddess. “All” can include movies, right? If we’re chiliasts—I’ve just learned this Gnostic term, which means we come into a new spiritual reality full of light (and what is a movie if not light?) after the end of the world—then maybe we can find a new reality at Kellerman’s.
We worship the ground we walk on. In the classical Greek theater where drama was invented, the dance floor (the orchestra, where the chorus danced) was holy ground. Maybe we should worship the ground we (dirty) dance on. Maybe we should worship the dancer and the dance, which are identical, and dance with the Lord of the Dance, who in the movie happens to be a kind-hearted young man from the wrong side of the tracks.
Dirty Dancing was released into theaters on August 25, 1987. Some people like movies with messages. Other people like film noir. Just let me take dancing lessons from Johnny Castle.
Barbara Ardinger, Ph.D. (www.barbaraardinger.com), is the author of Pagan Every Day: Finding the Extraordinary in Our Ordinary Lives (RedWheel/Weiser, 2006), a unique daybook of daily meditations, stories, and activities. Her earlier books are Finding New Goddesses, Quicksilver Moon, Goddess Meditations, and Practicing the Presence of the Goddess. Her day job is freelance editing for people who don't want to embarrass themselves in print. Barbara lives in southern California. To purchase a signed copy of Finding New Goddesses, just send Barbara an email at bawriting@earthlink.net.
[1]Dirty Dancing is from Pagan Every Day: Finding the Extraordinary in Our Ordinary Lives (Weiser Books, 2006). Used by permission of Barbara Ardinger, Ph.D.