there are a lot of phrases and imagery from the poem that have crept into my dance; somewhat unintentionally.

When I think about the process of making work with LEIMAY, I especially think of the phrase "A lifetime burning in every moment." 

There are no breaks in LEIMAY pieces, there is no going off into the wings, no intermissions.  You have to be completely in the work for the entire duration.  If you perform the work at a certain level of commitment and intensity, it feels as though it happens in an instant and an instant feels as though it could happen for eternity.  I often catch myself dancing in a memory that was not my own, but I recognize it somehow, as if it happened to me in dream or another life.  The memory of my ancestors.  Holding hands with the dead, as Hijikata put it.  It is, perhaps, that "still point" Eliot speaks of.

But a lifetime burning at every moment

And not the lifetime of one man only

But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.

Eliot's poem speaks about time and man's relationship with time.  Brief instances of experiencing eternity or encounters with the Eternal, the divine, perhaps.  The soul's journey.  The borders of reality or perceived reality. The timeless present.  no before or after, "neither from nor towards, at the still point, there the dance, is."

St. Augustine wrote, "who shall lay hold upon the mind of man, that it may stand and see that time with its past and future must be determined by eternity, which stands and does not pass, which has in itself no past or future."

One of the epigraphs is a quote from Heraclitus that states, "the way upward and the way downward are one in the same."

Zan-shin (残心) characters for "remaining" and "heart" or leaving behind the heart.  after the execution of jo-ha-kyo.  awareness continues.  there is no end, no release, just the next cycle.