Bernhard Wosien first came to Findhorn in 1976 when the awareness of cooperation with the Nature Spirits was well and truly alive. ROC, who had such an extraordinary gift of seeing and communicating with Nature Spirits, had died the year before. But there was no doubt in the community at that time regarding the reality of these beings.
As Bernhard stood in the circle, holding hands in an attunement, he thought ‘We could do this in movement’. He had been taught Dance as a means of expressing devotion and spoke of Dance as the Western tradition of Meditation. It was from this experience he developed his first meditation dance, known in Findhorn as ‘the Bach Sun Meditation’. I have been told it is also called the Breathing Circle in Holland. Bernhard explained to us that as we stood in the circle we gathered around the central Sun. We begin the dance with two steps backwards, follow this by swaying forwards and backwards, two steps forwards, ending with a sweeping step to the right and bringing the left to it for the full eight steps. Bernhard explained this as stepping backwards like the rays leaving the Sun, we move through life’s encounters returning to the Sun to move around the Sun and become a new ray.
While he was walking in Cluny Hill woods he choreographed the dance which is known today as ‘The King of the Fairies’. This was a dance he gave to Pan, as King of the Fairies – the name of the Irish tune to which it is danced. He explained it was a dance of the elements.
The first element is Earth as we step around the shores of a lake. In the second part of the dance, Water, we turn to face centre and ‘for the first time become aware that there are such things as swans in the world’. Watching the swans swimming in the centre our courage grows as in the third part of the dance we leave the shores of the lake and become a second expression of Water as waves getting higher while the wind gets stronger. In the fourth part the leader breaks the circle and guides the dancers around the inside of the circle and under the arch formed by the final pair. This is the element Air ‘as the swans fly away’. Finally drawing back into a circle we take 3 steps to the centre with a hop in the fourth step and out again, as the element Fire. This, Bernhard explained, was ‘the swans flying into the heart of the Sun’. This last part was later adapted by British dancers with two sets of steps to the centre and out again, followed by two sets to the side along the line of dance and back. When Bernhard was shown this he laughed and said, ‘Yes, it is a feather from the wing of the last Swan falling to the ground’.
Some dancers add the further modification to the dance with a clap of the hands to the front in the centre, and behind on the outside of the circle, explaining this is a traditional salute to fire. I don’t think Bernhard was ever shown this variant. For me it is a misunderstanding of which aspect of Fire Bernhard is demonstrating for us in the Dance. Fire has three aspects, Light, Heat and Destruction. It is destruction which is celebrated in clapping the hands, the expression of Fire on Earth, a sudden and violent action. For Bernhard this last element represented Light, and specifically the Sun, representing the final stage of the Soul’s return to its Source.
In this one dance Bernard has encapsulated the Soul’s return journey, from the human world, as we walk around the shores of the lake, through the first awakening of thoughts of something more than the mundane life, to finding the courage to follow one’s own path and destiny into reunion with the Source of All. At the same time he has shown us it is a dance in five parts with four elements, and it is here that he celebrates the elements and their elementals and Nature Spirits.
When I perform this dance and explain the symbolism to the group I always invite the elementals to join with us. It becomes a joyful celebration and they often stay for the rest of the session. Some dancers have interpreted this dance differently but that was due to a failure to understand the nature of the symbolism contained within the dance and the tale it unfolds. Anna Barton interpreted the second part of water as being trees putting down roots, since we plant our feet firmly in a series of grapevine steps. However this does not allow for a natural progression and returns our minds to the shore and not to the goal.