The Dance of Life

The world moves all around us. Physicists describe much of this motion with the mathematics of wave propagation. But could it be described as dance?

My dad—a professor of wave mechanics—taught me that waves move all around us. Growing up near the Pacific Ocean, I knew they break upon shores. But my dad also told me they propagate through air as music and speech. They speed through rock during earthquakes.

Because of my dad's influence, when I took physics in high school and college, I paid special attention whenever coursework covered waves. High school physics taught me how waves ring outward concentrically when a pebble is tossed in a pond, how the rings of two pebble tosses interact, and how the strings of a violin vibrate in harmonics. In college I learned one month how Isaac Newton showed that light spreads in distributed waves. A month later I learned how Einstein showed that light travels as particles. The paradox hinges on experimental design: according to how you probe it, light may appear spread out in waves or bound in particles. Either way, the wave properties of light remain important, and I soon learned that matter has similar properties. Electrons, protons, and neutrons exhibit measurable wavelengths and display typical wave behaviors.

So what is a wave? It is an energy pulse that propagates with rhythm.

A tsunami carries huge amounts of energy across hundreds of miles after ocean water is agitated by an earthquake. The force of vibrating rock, imparted to water, drives a train of pulses that is barely detectable in mid-ocean but can devastate a distant shore. And it is only the energy that travels forward, not the water (which simply moves up and down as waves pass).

In air, patterns of compression race from one place to another when something vibrates. The skin of a drum pushes rhythmically on the atmosphere, establishing acoustical waves we hear as sound.

Light is an unusual case, in that there is no medium of propagation, just alternating electric and magnetic fields that zip through space.

Waves are all around us, and they share a common motif: motion with rhythm.

Our lives depend on rhythmic motion, on oscillation from birth to death. Hearts beat and lungs breath. Our intestines transport food with peristaltic rhythms. Our senses detect waves in air (sound), space (light), and matter (vibration). Indeed, since all matter has wavelike properties, our bodies are actually constructed of waves. Waves are ubiquitous in biology, so they deserve mention in a site about Mindful Biology.

But the text you’re reading came from a different source. I grew up understanding wave action as a material, inanimate phenomenon. When my dad introduced me to the physical theory of waves—using a water table at the university’s museum—I was barely four-years-old. He outlined concepts like frequency, amplitude, reflection, refraction, and diffraction. Mostly befuddled by his explanations, I was at least able to understand that he viewed all that jostling in the thin layer of water as simple physical motion. To me, however, it looked alive: the water seemed to be dancing! That memory, which takes me back to a time when I knew the world as dance, is what set me the piece before you. 

At that same young age, I enjoyed dancing. There’s a photo of me doing it, wearing a cowboy hat and a necktie. I look goofy in that picture, but I was having fun. But dance soon dropped out of my life. When grownups laughed as I danced, I felt hurt, even though they may simply have been amused. Later, in high school I tried playing the guitar—a kind of dance of the hands—but gave up because I couldn’t sustain a rhythm. I seldom attended high school parties, because I had no idea how to move in unison with girls. In college I took dance classes but always dropped out, because I couldn’t keep up with the instruction. It seemed natural to conclude: “I can’t dance.”

Dances grew threatening because of their sensual undertones, and even more because they involved close contact with other people—both of which, as a child of multiple forms of abuse, I found unsettling. Dance seemed a long ways from the mechanical, impersonal physics of waves, which felt comforting.

Then I learned something new about rhythm, dance, and myself. Some weeks ago a friend invited me to a freeform dance program. The class began with gentle warmup exercises that helped loosen our bodies and soften our inhibitions. As the pace increased, and we moved into active practice, I felt my body responded with enthusiasm. For the first time in my life, my legs, arms, and torso swayed in harmony with the music and the group. I found myself flowing easily with other people, often quite near them, in unplanned choreographies that lasted a few moments and then dissolved. More or less in time with the music, I would drift in and out of these dynamic ensembles, mirroring the unique qualities of each impromptu group and each dancer. Sometimes the movements buzzed with vigor and speed, other times they thrummed with slow and subtle grace. That my body could dance in such different styles startled me. So did the energetic resonance that seemed to connect me with my fellow humans swaying nearby. As I did as a toddler, I could dance!

As a result, I feel renewed confidence and joy, and a deeper sense of embodiment. Having once settled for a world of impersonal waves, I began enjoying the more intimate one of dance.

What’s the difference between a wave and a dance? According to physics, a wave is an unconscious mechanical process. A dance is a relationship. A bond develops between dancers, between dancers and music, between dancers and space.

In the context of Mindful Biology,  dance may be a better word than wave for all that oscillating activity inside the human animal. We can think of molecules dancing in cells; cells dancing in organs; organs dancing in bodies. What’s more, bodies dance with their environments as they grow, mate, and die. The organic dance winds through time, weaving the webs of Life.

Biology is not mechanical growing and reproducing; it’s spirited dancing. And as I begin to dance more consciously within this dancing biosphere, I feel more connected with my body, other people, and Life itself.