Dancing with the Stars

The desert is a vortex where all forms of our selves converge and
meet, unable to hide in the vast openness of the valley, where even
the stars are exposed to all in their full glory. (Or is it just
remote enough and hot enough for friends to gather at private pools
for a bit of daytime skinny-dipping and nude sun bathing?) This
weekend the new LA Lychee ran into the Lychee from hippie college
days and Lychee from New York clubbing days: from places where people
dance under the stars without pretension in their dreads, the men
topless in pajama style pants, the women in halters and mismatched
cotton skirts that flutter in the wind like wings, where body odor is
a sign of one's carefree oneness with nature (though I am ok with the
fact that I never really got this one and grew to find wonderful
organic deodorants and lotions); from places where the funky grooves
vibrated through the air dictating the movement of bodies until they
are all one moving in various directions in harmony, like an amoeba
that does not where to go so pulsates in its stillness; from places
where Latin rhythms sing the universal languages of love and unity
that move deeply through the energy rising in each body-- swaying
hips, opening hearts -- rediscovering the beauty of surrender as we
allow ourselves to be puppets to the music.