what if the hokey pokey IS what it's all about?

There are different versions of this children's song. I have vivid memories as a very young child, trying to do the actions of this song with my friends at school. I never understood at that time what a hokey or a pokey was but I thought it was great fun to jump in and out of the circle and shake around. Lately, I have been thinking about the song - that time of my life as a child and the deeper meaning that I have come to understand about both.

Sometimes, it takes awhile to get involved in life - to fully grasp what it is that you want/ need to do in life. To be perfectly honest, I have never been to the point where I could say, ah! - this is it. It is all I need, and that is for a few reasons. One reason is, that I am fickle and easily distracted. I have moved from one thing to another, relatively easily distracted, exploring, experiencing and generally allowing myself to get more and more lost in the sheer volume of things to do. The other reason is, I have never quite been at peace or comfortable with myself. This is splinters off into other reasons, explanations, none of which I can write about here (because I don't choose to, and doesn't have a direct impact on what the point is of this) - but the bottom line is that I have never been comfortable with who I am, not deep down. This isn't a good or bad thing, it is just how it goes, as I have been getting to know myself better, understand where I am coming from as a person etc. It is the root cause of my moving from one thing to another like a drunken butterfly, erratically flying from flower to flower in an endless field. Of course, the other big reason for not having sorted out what it was - is that this process is fluid and I am discovering that more and more, there is no true end or beginning to these things that I am jumping into or out of... it is constantly moving, turning and dancing around like the children in this song, and that is a really beautiful thing. Whether or not I manage to put only a hand in something, or my head, or my foot, in the end, my whole self goes into each project and I get shaken about. The shaking is the best part, because I start to thinking in ways that I didn't before, act in ways I didn't before, and learn in ways I didn't before.  

I think the hokey pokey might just be what it is all about....

~

la

You put your left foot in,

You take your left foot out

Your put your left foot in

And you shake it all about

You do the hokey pokey

And turn yourself around

That's what it's all about.

You put your right foot in

You take your right foot out

You put your right foot in

And you shake it all about

You do the hokey pokey

And you turn yourself around

That's what it's all about

You put your left hand in

You take your left hand out

You put your left hand in

And you shake it all about

You do the hokey pokey

And turn yourself around

That's what it's all about.

You put your right hand in

You take your right hand out

You put your right hand in

And you shake it all about

You do the hokey pokey

And you turn yourself around

That's what it's all about

You put your head in

You take your head out

Your put your head in

And you shake it all about

You do the hokey pokey

And you turn yourself around

That's what it's all about

You put your whole self in

You take your whole self out

You put your whole self in

And you shake it all about

You do the hokey pokey

And you turn yourself around

That's what it's all about

~