The Royal Dance

Under Tony's direction a two-week tour had been arranged for Ushi and me. Ushi wanted two weeks in the dessert to heal the soul. Granting her wish was Fred's note of thanks to her for her help. My role was secondary. I was 'allowed' to accompany her as her security escort. Of course, knowing Tony, I wasn't surprised that the entire Air Force contingent in the area knew of our arrival. Ushi's fame, based on her efforts in Venice, preceded her. In comparison, I was just a diplomat, someone doing his duty.

Perhaps it had been under Tony's 'orders' that nobody spoke about politics. Getting away from the political world had been the purpose of her holiday. In respecting her wishes, politics appeared to be a forbidden subject. We were treated like newlyweds instead, discretely, but affectionately. Maybe that's what Tony had told them that we were.

We stayed in remote hotels at first in various parts of the dessert of the Southwest. We even camped once. At mid-week a newlywed Air Force couple joined us. They came with a four-seat helicopter at their disposal. With that we could go wherever we wanted, and the couple knew all the best places. Ushi and I became a part of the family so to speak, and apparently a part of the Air Force family as well. We were treated to life as it unfolded at the grassroots level where the games are easy, unlike at the diplomatic level, and full of fun and wide open for anything.

At one of the parties that we were invited to, Cathleen, our newlywed bride, wanted to act out a fantasy. She confided to Ushi that the fantasy had come to her like a dark urge during her wedding party.

"Why don't you act it out now, right here?" Ushi asked.

Ushi might have imagined what this dark-urge fantasy had been. With a grin on her face she encouraged Cath. It seemed safe enough to do something daring. Everyone at the party had called her simply, Cathy, or Cath for short. Her full name, Cathleen, had never been used by anyone. She appeared to be 'family' to them all, or someone closer.

With a great smile on her face, when the music tape had come to an end, Ushi stood up and said that she wanted to tell a story. She asked for help to clear a space in the middle of the room. A table had to be moved and chairs rearranged. She brought one of the children's high chairs from the kitchen and placed herself in the middle of the open space and told her story.

Ushi told the story of a king. It was a king with a good heart who had received visitors from a far away land. The visitors were not royalty, or philosophers, or priests. One was a poet, another a composer and performer of music, another was a man of science, and so forth. They were traveling together to explore the beauty that can be found in being human. Rumors had it that wherever they went people became uplifted by their wisdom.

So it was that they came before the king. The king was pleased with their performances, their stories, and their wisdom. A few days later, during the royal banquet, on the night before their departure to new destinations, the poet of the group asked the king if he was happy being isolated from his people by his wealth. The king answered that he wasn't at all happy about it, but that he was also unable to do anything to change that. He explained that if he gave away all of his possessions in order to be closer to his people, it wouldn't help many and he would end up as poor as the rest of them, so that in the end nobody would be bettered.

The poet agreed that this wasn't a workable solution. The musician however had an idea of how the problem might be solved. Both the poet and the man of science agreed that the composer's idea could work.

The composer had been told during his travels that there lives a man in the king's realm that has an exceptional ear for music. He was also told that the man was poor and his musical instrument was of a poor quality. The composer suggested to the king that he should purchase a violin for that man. He described the violin as an instrument that sings the melodies of the heart. He told the king that such an instrument could be obtained in a foreign country at a price far above the means of a poor man. He also assured the kind that the poor man could perform wonders with it, while the king could afford it easily and should bestow it as a gift of love to him.

The king protested. He protested, because if he did this, so he said, the lineup of beggars at his door would be endless. He was sure of it.

The composer waved him off. He told the king that he should never present such a gift as a royal handout. If he did that, indeed, those problems would occur, but more than this, his gift would thereby become tarnished. A gift becomes tarnished if it is perceived as a means to bring the bearer of the gift calculated advantages, such as fame and honor. The composer suggested that the king should present the gift while being disguised as a traveler, as an ordinary man, and that he should bestow the gift in such a manner as would be necessary to assure the recipient that it is a gift of love and nothing else. The composer said to the king that the gift would then not be tarnished. A gift is not tarnished if it can be accepted as a gift of love. "Then it will shine."

Ushi said that the king didn't like the idea at first, but as the days passed it seemed more and more right to him that he should do what his wise visitors had recommended. So he set out one day in disguise to visit the poor man. Indeed, everything that he had been told about the man was true. Consequently, a month later the king stood before the man again, in wayfarer's clothing, and bestowed on him his gift of love. It was by then a gift of love indeed, bestowed with all his heart and soul, as he had personally traveled to the far country that his visitors had spoken of, to obtain the precious instrument.

The king was pleased with himself. In fact, he was so pleased that he repeated the process in many other ways. He also found out that other people were emulating him once the violinist began to enrich the lives of the people of the kingdom with his own gift of love, his music. It wasn't long after that, that a group of people in the kingdom banded together to construct a much needed irrigation dam at the river that had been long desired. They constructed the dam as a gift of love to themselves. In this manner, as the king's pioneering venture caught on, the entire kingdom became enriched and uplifted.

Naturally, the king was more than pleased with this development. However, soon a new problem developed.

The problem was, that the king's daughter had been inspired by her father's success and had wanted to extend it still further. Only, she had no riches to share. Still she had seen that the people had become closer to one-another by extending gifts of love to each other, although not close enough to love each other fully as human beings. She felt that unless people began to really love one-another for their humanity, they would remain forever divided, and that she herself would thereby remain forever isolated in the king's castle as an outcast from society, an icon of a royalty for which society had little true affection. Thus she sneaked out of the castle one night, secretly in disguise, to the local inn where she began to dance. She danced night after night in the nude, sharing not the king's riches, but herself, her own riches as a human being.

When the king found out about his daughter's adventures, since the people were beginning to realize who she was, he was wroth with her.

The princess told her father that he was wrong to be angry. She told him that she had followed his own lead of removing what isolates people. She told him that if one takes away everything that is artificial, the whole of humanity would recognize itself as being one. She told her father that this outcome is inevitable, because it is based on the truth, and that the inevitable can be realized at any time if one is willing to do what is necessary to acknowledge the truth. She told her father that she had seen an image in her mind of many people embracing one-another in a dance powered by a great joy that was rooted in themselves. She told him that they had found their unity in their beauty as human beings and in their love for themselves that was blossoming into an out-flowing love for one-another.

The king was not impressed by his daughter's logic. Nevertheless, his daughter convinced him over the space of the following months that she was right. The king became confronted with certain facts that he couldn't ignore, because the people themselves continued the practice that the princess had started. It gradually brought a greater sense of family to his kingdom. People began to respect each other more, and began to see each other more and more as human beings. They supported each other more. Soon, crime lessened and the whole atmosphere in the kingdom became enriched. But most of all, the princess became regarded by the people as one of them. This breakthrough, the king could understand and appreciate.

With the king's consent, therefore, the princess continued her dancing on occasions of her own choosing, arriving unannounced as she had done before. At the end of the year however, at the occasion of her own birthday celebration, the princess dared once more to take the process one big step further into the open. During the entertainment portion of her birthday celebration she danced before the king herself, unembellished as she was born, and before the king's ministers, before her guests, before the maids and the butlers, and even before the boys that looked after the king's horses. Her dance became known, affectionately throughout the land, as the Royal Dance. It was said that her dancing didn't degrade the image of royalty, that it bestowed instead onto the people who saw her dancing, a certain 'royalty' of their own.

Within seconds after Ushi had finished telling the story, Cath got off her chair with a smile on her face, loaded a new tape into the music blaster and started to dance the Royal Dance for her friends. She danced slowly at first, and as she did, she began to take all of her clothes off to everyone's surprise. The surprise was justified, because the music wasn't designed for erotic dancing. She was dancing to the music of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake ballet that made the scene magical as well as beautiful and exiting.

Cathleen's daring had made the party sparkle that day. Long before her chosen music had ended some of her friends had joined the dance. Her husband gave her a curious look at first and didn't seem pleased, but then as the others joined in he changed his mind and joined the royal dancing himself. I overheard Cath saying to him while they were both dancing, "Why shouldn't we dance like this for one-another and our friends while we're still young, pretty, and exiting to look at? Why shouldn't we dance, naked as we were born?" Her husband just smiled and nodded.

Ushi asked Cathy a while later, "Cath, I am curious, why had you wanted to do this at your wedding? What was your reason? Why did this idea come up as a fantasy?"

She smiled at her and shrugged her shoulders, "I really don't know. You tell me if you can solve the puzzle. I suppose I simply wanted to do this, because I was in love with myself. Does that sound so crazy to be unbelievable?"

"That's what I thought you might say," said Ushi and embraced her. "That's the best state that one can possibly be in, being in love with oneself as a human being." She added an kiss to her answer. "I can say this honestly out of my own experience," said Ushi. "And don't ever let this being in love with yourself die in your heart, Cathy."

Long after the Royal Dance story had been told, Cath's daring feat had been repeated by nearly all of her friends. It was all done in good fun of course, and later even with the 'correct' music. Eventually all the men got into the act too, not to be outdone by the ladies.

With the chopper at our disposal we had no need for hotels anymore. We camped in the most beautiful spots, miles from anywhere, surrounded at times by the great organ pipe cactuses of the dessert, or by Joshua trees. Naturally, as we would awaken to greet the morning sun in the now 'royal' fashion that Cath had established, naked as we were born, becoming enveloped by the still cool dessert wind.

Her husband, who was named Peter like myself, loved the idea. In fact he became quite exited about "reverting back to something natural" as he had put it.

Ushi told him that Cath's dance at the party had been in many ways like her own wedding dance. All of her closest friends had been present that day. She said that in her case the story was told by somebody else, a dear friend named Helen who had hosted the wedding party and had danced the opening round of the Royal Dance herself. Ushi told him that only the music had been different in her case. Helen had chosen to dance to the Nutcracker Suite. "The music had made the dancing natural and beautiful," said Ushi with a grin. "And there, too, long before the music had ended, most everyone had joined the dancing."

Ushi added a while later added that the idea of the royalty of an individual has a beautiful and valid meaning when it is applied universally to humanity in honor of those profound, natural, human qualities that we all share.

Cath's husband, Peter, wasn't surprised therefore against this background, when Cath extended the trend that she had started, one more time in her own pioneering spirit.

We had stopped at a pub one evening on the way back to our camp. The pub had a reputation of being a lively place. It was a small place, but alive with laughter and music, a gathering place of friendly people. Once every hour, erotic dancers added to the atmosphere. They drew out the smiles with their festive kind of entertainment. They made people's eyes sparkle. That's when Cathy got her 'extended' idea. The bartender agreed to inquire. Moments later Cathy was introduced on the stage as "the beautiful, the exotic, the out of this world, the star of the morning, our very own Cathleen, from our very own crowd . Give her a warm welcome," the announcer concluded.

And Cath danced beautifully. But more than that, she set a trend into motion. Right after Cath had danced, Ushi stood up and told the story behind the Royal Dance, and then she danced it herself. As soon as she was done a beautiful man followed her lead, and after him a heavyset woman. Even I made a contribution. It appeared that some of the men who had been there had called in their girlfriends. A few of the newcomers, too, dared the dance when an opportunity opened up for them to do so. The rest who didn't, simply joined the crowd.

I got the impression that quite a few people fell more in love with themselves that day, and with one-another than they might have thought possible. Ushi was later called upon to repeat the presentation of her story after a lot of new people had arrived and the place had become crowded.

"Do you realize what is happening here?" I asked Ushi at one point. "I think the tectonic plates are moving, the sea change that Steve has been talking about has begun. The Royal Dance story is really the story of the sea change from Greed-Based Fascism to Love-Based Economics."

"It's an expression of the Principle of Universal Love," said Ushi. "It's an expression of the natural unfolding of Helen's lateral lattice of hearts. It's universal unfolding has been delayed for much too long. When Helen was moved by a sense of great urgency to help her friend in hospital who was undergoing a major operation, she had brought together all that she knew about human existence. I think she told you about it, didn't she? She saw a visual construct unfolding in her mind in response to her sensing a great crisis in the making. In response she saw before her a visual construct of a vast lattice of human hearts, all arrayed laterally side by side, of which her friend's heart was one. In this visual construct she beheld the Principle of Universal Love in operation. She observed, like a spectator might, that the lattice was held together by countless stands of love that appeared like channels of light through which each of the hearts in the lattice contributed a bit of its strength to the heart in need. Helen beheld this process in action at three different times throughout the timeframe of the surgery. In the end a great peace come over her. And as you know, the biggest surprise awaited her later that afternoon when she visited her friend in hospital. She found him sitting up in bed with a radiant smile, a smile powered by a great joy as if a profound victory had been won. What she saw totally defied what one would expect to see from a person having come out of surgery just hours earlier that took all morning to be performed. I can see similar expressions of joy erupting here, tonight," said Ushi.

"I had no idea that the principle of the lateral lattice could unfold so simply and in an everyday-type context, and so beautifully," I commented with a smile of my own.

"And so powerfully," added Ushi with a nod.

"But is it really a human power that is at work here," I said quietly, "or is it not something greater? A discovery of the great Apostle John comes to mind here who said the God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. If this is so, then the strands of light that Helen saw pervading the lateral lattice are strands of love, but they are also divine strands, a force from the spiritual background of our world that we simply tap into, which comes to light in our life as love. The fact is, Ushi: we don't create love, we simply live it. It's a part of us. The evidence for this is that something greater is found wherever love does come to light. It adds something profound, something that sparkles with joy as we see it right here. The Apostle John even suggests that by not having love in our life, we have no evidence of God."

"Some scholars suggest that the discovery that God is Love was made by the same person named John who wrote the book of Revelation," said Ushi. "He describes in Revelation a woman clothed with the sun, representing humanity. Helen had mentioned this metaphor many times to me, of the woman clothed with the sun. She thinks that her perception of the lateral lattice might be rooted in that image of mankind being arrayed with the sun, with universal love. Helen also thinks that from this root unfolded her idea of the Royal Dance, the dance that we have unfolding right here, which truly is a dance of love, the love in which God comes to light." Ushi grinned from ear to ear as she said this and added something about this pub being a rare temple of love, and thus a greater edifice to the name of God than any church she knew.

"I wish that Perfidious Albion could see this," I said to her with a big grin too, a wicked kind of grin. "Perfidious Albion, who lives in perpetual darkness would be blinded by this light, but might find a new life in it."

"No, he would get a heart attack and die," Ushi replied and continued grinning. "What is happening here has not been done on such a platform and on such a scale since time began. Perfidious Albion would have a hart attack indeed, out of fear that the age of love is dawning."

I shook my head. "I think this isn't possible, I mean for him to have a heart attack. Perfidious Albion has no heart. Still, I think that just seeing all this would certainly scare him to death."

"Maybe that's the solution," Ushi replied and grinned again.

"Perfidious who?" Cath's husband, Peter, interjected.

"Albion," I replied. "That's an ancient name for the English islands that happen to be alo the operational center of the largest private empire ever created on the face of the Earth. This private empire is presently at war with humanity."

I turned to Cath. "You, Cath, may have just invented a trend that can save us and our entire human civilization from the inhuman monsters of the fondi's empire."

Peter started to laugh out loud. "Our Cath, you say?"

I nodded to him. "Yes my friend, and I am serious about that. Be proud of her. She has unearthed something that is deeply human."

Peter raised his glass to Cath. She was talking to somebody else at the time. "Did you hear that, Cath?" he said in a loud tone, "your dancing might have the potential to save the world."

Cathy became quite famous that night. She was appropriately introduced the next time she danced, as "the Queen of the Nile who holds in her soul the doom of empires and the light of humanity and civilization." Everyone cheered for her.

Ultimately though, it was probably Ushi that made the event most memorable for everyone there. Ushi came onto the stage one last time. This time she came dressed in dirty rags and quickly shed them. Moments later she stopped the dancing and signaled the music to stop. She sat on a chair that she had brought up onto the stage and began to tell another story, a double story. She said that the double story was both sad and profound, a story about our civilization.

She began with the story of Prometheus Bound from an ancient Greek drama. Prometheus was a god in love with mankind who was being persecuted for this love by the imperial gods of Olympus. Since Prometheus couldn't be killed, being a god, he could be subjected to eternal torture by the Olympians, and so he was punished. They ganged up on him and bound him.

In the endless pain of being tortured Prometheus was given a chance that he might be set free. Of course this would involve his betraying his love. Prometheus wasn't prepared to make this huge sacrifice. Thus, instead of pleading with the Olympians and begging them for mercy, he laughed at them. He told them all that whatever pain they could dish out, he could bear forever, because the pain was small in comparison with his love. He also told them that that they thereby proved that they had no power over him at all, which also proved that they had no claim to be called gods. Thus, he won his freedom without a sacrifice.

"I guess the playwright wanted society to ask itself if it had the same kind of love for one-another that supercedes everything," said Ushi. Then she told her second story, which she said was from the same 'neck of the woods,' but from a slightly later time. She said that the writer of the second story was a writer of prophesy. He had a vision, and in this vision he beheld a woman. The woman that he beheld was naked, but being naked she appeared him as clothed with the sun. She stood upon the moon with her head held high that was crowned with a crown of twelve stars, the stars of rejoicing.

"Both of these stories are stories about love," said Ushi. "The Royal Dance story was modeled after both of these two stories, because my friend Helen found those two stories reflected in her life. She found herself many times in the position of Prometheus when she was challenged to denounce her love of mankind by the demands of small-minded thinking. She always stood her ground just as Prometheus did. She stood her ground for her higher vision of mankind that few shared and that most of the modern 'gods of Olympus' denied. She proved them likewise to have no power, really, and no legitimacy, because she saw herself and all others as arrayed with the sun and as having the universe under her feet and on her head a crown of rejoicing that no one could take away. Thus, her life became the Royal Dance. It became a light for many."

Ushi paused and smiled. "Helen always had a profound answer ready for the gods of Olympus when they raised their ugly head. Helen's answer always was, to whatever problem came her way, 'what has the problem got to do with anything, does it change the principle involved?' The principle that she referred to is the Principle of Universal Love, the principle of the woman clothed with the sun, the Prometheus's principle, and Helen's principle, which I have also made my own," said Ushi. "The Principle of Universal Love is also the principle of the Royal Dance."

Ushi received a standing ovation that night. The whole crowd was instantly on its feet. At that moment she signaled the music man and when the music started again she continued to dance while everyone remained standing and clapped in the rhythm of the music of her dancing.

Peter and Cath took us to Vegas the next day for the sparkling lights, the swimming pools, the fine restaurants and cabarets. Ushi loved the service at the hotel, the doormen opening the doors for her, the bouquet of flowers in the room, the bowel of fruits and nuts that she found set up there to welcome us. Still, Vegas appeared somewhat dull in comparison with what we had left behind. The lights of Vegas didn't measure up to the warmth and the excitement of our own shows. The sparkling lights of Vegas were no match for the sparkle in the people's eyes in the dessert.

After Vegas, Peter and Cath took us to Tampa. That's where the helicopter had been borrowed. In Tampa we joined hands for another day and two nights of extravaganzas of the most extraordinary rides: the Scream Machine, giant carrousels, the Cork Screw, Satan's Tracks, Tumble Weed, Jungle Drop parachute rides, and the world's biggest water slides in the biggest water park in existence. Then, when the end when the time came, time to say good bye, one more giant surprise awaited us. This time even Peter and Cath were surprised. "We've got a four day extension," said Peter after he had checked in with his home base.

"And the reason for the extension is?" I asked.

"We have been offered a ride to Athens and back," said Peter. "It's all free. Arranged by some general from on high that I never heard of. We'll be flying with the 908th Airlift Wing from Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama. We are going to be 'guests' on the C-141, all four of us."

"Athens sounds exciting," said Ushi.

"I can hardly believe it, we are really going to Athens?" said Ushi as we climbed up the steep crew ramp to a fully loaded C-141. The plane stood in the morning fog, ready to roll onto the runway at Maxwell Base. The sun was barely breaking through. Fog filled the entire airbase.

"Welcome to the C-141 Star Lifter," said the captain as we came aboard. "This airplane is the last in a long line of heavy transport aircraft and the finest ever built. We have unlimited global reach as the only heavy transport in the world that is built with in-flight refueling capability. This aircraft is a part of our country's proud tradition of absolute air-superiority, a tradition that makes the United States Air Force unchallenged in the world."

"I always wanted to stand on the Acropolis," said Ushi as if she hadn't heard a word.

"You will find the modern world of Athens more exciting than this dusty site of ancient relics," said the captain who had evidently expected a different response.

"The Athens of the Parthenon is the Athens of Pericles, the Athens of empire, the Athens of the Peloponnesian War," said I to the loadmaster in support of the captain. The loadmaster was taking his seat behind us, getting ready for takeoff.

"That's precisely why I brought the Acropolis us," said Ushi to the loadmaster, then turned her head to the captain. "I brought the Acropolis up, my friend, because you speak exactly like Pericles did. Pericles had built the Parthenon and other great works on the Acropolis, but he also launched the Peloponnesian War. To Pericles Athena was superior to anything in the world. This imperial dream of superiority over everything became the root for the eventual defeat of Athens. His arrogance became its downfall. So, my friend, why do you strive for air-superiority? Why do you strife for superiority at all. Pericles never saw the total defeat of Athens. He died in the war that he created. Be careful therefore my friend about wanting to be superior. Are we not all human beings right across the world? Why should any of us strife for superiority over another?"

"Don't worry, we will search for the real Athenians," I interjected since the captain didn't care to answer. "We'll look for the Athens of Solon, Socrates and Plato, and of Aeschylus the Athenian tragic dramatist, the author of Prometheus Bound," I said to the captain.

"Helen would love that," said Ushi. "Do they still perform Aeschylus and the Prometheus-Bound tragedy?"

"Maybe they do in back-alley theatres for the tourists," said the captain. "What interests me more, is the puzzle that you guys are? I can't understand what is happening here. Which one of you knows General Tony?"

"General Tony?" I repeated and began to laugh. "Did General Tony arrange our passage to Athens?"

"He ordered it, apparently on recommendation of General Dag," said the captain. "And who on earth is General Dag?"

"You don't know who they are?" I said as if this was a joke. "