“And now when I lay me down to sleep,
I will be dancing in my dreams,
Seeing the way it all should be.
I will be dancing, dancing in my dreams.”

Tina Turner, Dancing in My Dreams

There is something sacred about dancing. A Catholic ex-boyfriend once described to me how wonderful he felt while in church. As regular readers of my column know, I loathe organized religion, but I listened with sincere respect as he described to me the connection to a Higher Power he felt while praying, singing a hymn, or taking communion. With a peaceful gleam in his eyes, he detailed the serenity, the joy, the transcendence, the connection with others and with his Higher Power he felt at church. I’ve never experienced such catharsis while in a place of worship, but there is one place where I have experienced it-on the dance floor.

As a firm believer in creative self-expression and artistic endeavors, I cannot think of a better time than cutting a rug. Dancing is a great form of exercise (as my friend Destiny, who dropped over 60 pounds dancing five nights per week, can confirm), and shaking your booty is used as a mating ritual by many species, including humans. (The playful peacock and the gyrating gay man have much more in common than you might think. Perform a 10-minute scientific observation on your local dance floor at about midnight, and you’ll reach the same conclusion.) But for many people, dancing is more than a way to shed those pesky pounds or secure a date for next Saturday night.

For many of us, dancing is a religious experience. For this reason, I usually prefer to go it solo. Even when I try dancing with friends in one of those annoying rings that appears mysteriously at wedding receptions and bar mitzvahs, descending on the dance floor like mystifying crop circles in an English wheat field, I end up feeling restricted and I unconsciously drift away to an empty spot in the corner. God may be wherever two or more gather in His name, but so is human judgment and peer pressure and a fear of embarrassment. I guess that’s why people close their eyes when they pray. They don’t want the distraction of wondering what other people are thinking about how they’re praying. I usually close my eyes when I dance, too.

For the above-mentioned reasons, some people are petrified to dance in public. Dancing is a tradition as old as humanity, and many people don’t want to risk hearing the laughter of the tribe at their expense. My first dance was a miserable and humiliating experience. I hung out mostly with females in high school (go figure), and one night, they finally convinced me to kick up my heels at the monthly high school jamboree. I probably couldn’t have chosen a worse song to launch my foray onto the dance floor, but I joined the circle and began earnestly “doin’ da butt.” Judging by the finger-pointing and hysterical laughter (we all know what subtle critics teenagers are), my butt must not have been doin’ it right, but my Scorpio determination kicked in and I was bathed in applause and not ridicule by night’s end. Before long, the black girls had taught me many secrets of “getting religious” on the dance floor.

Close your eyes. Let your hips lead you. Feel it in your gut. Don’t be afraid to throw your arms to the sky. Don’t give a shit what anyone else thinks. Dance for yourself and no one else.

Recently, at the Renegade, a tall, gangly young man tried his first dance with two of my friends and me. Abandoning the safety of the bar for the adventure of the swishing strobe lights and checkered dance floor, he accepted his heart’s challenge, and he wasn’t half-bad. Granted, Ginger Rogers wouldn’t have asked him to tango, but he was giving it his all. It reminded me of the first time I timidly took the dance floor, so on the way out, my friends and I made it a point to congratulate him on his courage (and to offer a few pointers). The happy smile that spread across his face told me that he would probably never felt that good while kneeling before a holy icon.

I don’t doubt that religion often brings people together, but it seems to me there’s often an ulterior motive-to support a daunting doctrine, to push a political perspective, to say “we’re here and we’re going to heaven and you’re not.” But the dance floor is open to everyone, the only doctrine is “express yourself and apologize if you elbow your neighbor,” and politics are left at the door. I’ve seen more smiles on a dance floor than in a church, and I think God has a much better time watching people shuffle their feet, flail their arms, and greet friends, than prop their eyes open with toothpicks on an early Sunday morning.

I love to read just about as much as I love to dance, and when the two passions merged in an essay in Robert Fulghum’s All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, I was awestruck. PopPop Fulghum, as I pretend to know him, spent much of his life as a minister. His specialty was delivering the eulogy at funerals, regularly exposing him to the sad fact that we all have to go sometime. While describing the scene at a cheap Southern juke joint, he depicts dancing as a celebration of Life and a defiance of eventual Death (which is ironic for me, considering I’ve always said that when I have to go, I hope I just keel over on a dance floor).

He writes: “The band and the crowd went off like a bomb. People were dancing all through the tables to the back of the room and behind the bar. People were dancing in the restrooms and around the pool table. Dancing for themselves…for God… Dancing in the face of hospital rooms, mortuaries, funeral services and cemeteries. And for a while, nobody died… Let’s dance.”

Now that’s my kind of heaven.