Ann Louise Edison was on the stage at the Whistlepunk Café with her hula hoop. Nobody had thought to limit open mic participants to those reading, reciting, singing, playing, or in some fashion making noise. 

I suppose it could be argued that Ann Louise was making noise. The rhythm of the shoop shoop of the BBs inside the hoop creates a beat when she abruptly changes direction.  Her hips circumnavigating the globe of her aura.  Ann Louise was an ecstatic performer if mostly silent. If nothing else, it was a dance.

Ann Marie gyrated and tossed her hair, those hips going round and round, first in one direction and then the other.  Periodically, she would shimmy the hoop from her hips to her ankles, stopping for a moment to concentrate on her knees.  Round and round the hoop went.  Halfway through her performance, someone offstage threw her another hula hoop.  Soon it was circumnavigating the world of her arms, her neck.  Ann Marie was blissed out, entranced, in union with the divine.  The rhythm of the BBs, the beat of the directional changes, the journey from her waist to her feet, her wrists to her shoulders, her shoulder to her neck.  Ann Marie was in motion while standing mostly still. She redoubled her effort and found strength in the kundalini of her spine.

Can one be mostly still or is that a little bit like being a little bit pregnant?  You are or you aren’t.  Ann Louise enjoyed riding the liminal space between two realities.  It was where she thrived and where she never felt like she had to sage the premises when she was done. 

Her partner threw a third hula hoop, and she deftly caught it with her left hand.  She had one spinning from her waist to her knees to her ankles and back up over and over again.  Another spinning around her neck.  And the third?  The third was wrapping around her wrist like the universal timepiece of the great ommmmmm. 

Dearly beloved we are gathered together today in the presence of the Divine to witness gravity and human will in a dance, both determined to win the prize.  The human will fail and gravity will win, but the human will have succeeded nonetheless in keeping time with the Mysteries.  Gravity is a constant, her endurance is not.  She wants the want and she has the will, but the body cannot outlast the universe though the spirit can.

Dance, Ann Louise, dance — we are spellbound waiting for the inevitable fall of the hoops.  The fall of mankind.  The fall of womankind.  The perseverance of the universe. Dance, Ann Louise, Dance.  You carry hope in your hoops.