The Dance

The dance of the Trinity: the outpouring of love from Father to Son, from Son to Spirit, from Spirit back to Father (kenosis). The Trinity is an icon of self-emptying love. The three persons go round and round like buckets on a watermill, constantly overspilling into one another. As they do, the mill turns and the energy of love becomes expressed and reachable. The Cappadocians called this circulation of love perichoresis which means the dance around. God reveals his inner nature through a continuous dance of kenosis.

This reminds me of Henri Matisse’s painting the Dance. Was the intention of Matisse to represent this process? Was he depicting our relationality and oneness? Is the disconnect between the two emulating our yearning for unity? The five figures are holding hands in a circle, but on the left, we can notice that the two individuals’ hands are parted; they only slightly brush instead of holding. The rupture’s point being closest to the viewer’s position, it can be interpreted as an invitation to join in the dance. The circle comes to find those that “are outside,” and thus unify individuals. This is clearly God’s overture!

As Raimon Panikkar eloquently expresses, “I am one with the source insofar as I act as a source by making everything I have received flow again- just like Jesus.”