I had the opportunity to lead another mini-workshop on how to cypher at the skating rink recently. Which was an opportunity to think more about what a cypher is and how to explain that to a newcomer. I’m getting pretty good at describing the basics — that a cypher is a tradition practiced in many dance communities where the dancers form a ring, and people take turns going in the middle and freestyling to the music.
But from a deeper perspective, I realize that a cypher is something more. The best analogy I can come up with is that the cypher is about the person in the middle sharing their light with others. And each person surrounding the person are reflecting that light back at the them, amplifying and boosting that person up. Sometimes the eyes are called the “windows to the soul,” but in this case I think of them as mirrors, reflecting light back at the source.
In this sense, the cypher is like a Quaker Meeting for Worship, and each person in the middle is sharing a message. Just a little bit louder, and with more expletives!
IMAGE CREDIT: AI-generated image using ChatGPT / Dall-E on October 27, 2024.