Garba dancing requires practice and co-ordination and children start learning the dance at an early age. The garba begins slowly with a few people leading, other 'players' join in behind and gradually a circle is formed, with steps going forward and then turning back on themselves, the movement allowing the circular garba skirt to radiate outwards, in a shower of sparkles. It's a religious dance celebrating 'shakti' or Divine Energy, common to everyone. The circularity of the skirt and the dance itself, symbolise the cyclical rhythm of time from birth, through life, death and re-birth, ever subject to change. Only the Goddess, Dirga, at the centre, is constant and unchanging.
It reminded me of the nature of Rose Windows in 13th century Gothic Cathedrals, in Europe. The Wheel Windows, early predecessors of the Rose, would show struggling humanity, being dragged around the outside rim of the wheel, subject to time, change and decay, whilst Christ at the centre of the wheel, represented a still and constant point, outside of time, omnipotent, omnipresent and infinite.
The cycle of life, 'from the good to the good', is also the underlying philosophy of much of Neo Platonist thought, eloquently expressed in the work of the Renaissance artist, Sandro Botticelli (1445 - 1510), especially in his painting, 'Primavera' (c1480), which also features the rhythm of a dance.
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