Turtle Dance 2020

1/2/20

Dear friends,

It’s a quiet overcast snowy morning in Taos. The world is ready for a restorative slumber before the buds of spring burst fourth. I’m feeling blessedly peaceful. Yesterday I went to Taos Pueblo for the Turtle Dance, the first dance of the New Year, a dance I have gone to for as long as I remember. I love the first round of pre-dawn dances. A time of frigid cold. I’d get all bundled up and meet the hardy friends who also wanted to welcome the New Year in this way. My moment of epiphany came when the first rays of sunlight rose over the mountains and lit up the half-naked bodies of the dancers who looked like adobe creatures who came from the walls of their pueblo where they have lived for generations. As I stood facing them all bundled up in thermal underwear, sweaters, jackets, hat, gloves and anything to keep me warm, I could see waves of heat escaping from their bodies. How could they tolerate such cold? It’s the mystery of the kiva, their faith and their training. The dancers sing and shake bean-filled gourd rattles. Bells jingle around their ankles. A steady drum beat keeps everyone together. An elder dances up and down the line to monitor that everyone is in synch, that headdresses remain upright and pointing heavenward. Attention is paid to the tiniest details. Parrot feathers, the centerpiece of the headdress, are surrounded by a flock of smaller feathers and sprigs of evergreens.

New pueblo regulations ask that outsiders not arrive until after 10 so I came later in the day. But the dance was just as sacred and moving. I watched the line of dancers leave the kiva and cross the bridge over the Rio Pueblo and walk slowly towards the north pueblo for another round. I said healing prayers for my friend Donna who was unable to be there. I carry her in my heart. It’s hard to say why this is my favorite dance of the year, but it is. My winter celebration in Taos is bound by a pre-dawn Japanese tea ceremony on winter solstice and the Turtle Dance on New Years.

I feel fortified, nourished, and ready to carry on in 2020, a year of perfecting our collective vision of peace with justice.

Warmly, Iris