Dancing on the Ceiling

I went on a run last night, and "Dancing on the Ceiling" by Lionel Richie came on my Spotify playlist.  For whatever reason, the song just hit right, and it has been playing in my head ever since.  This morning when I woke up, it was still there playing along.

When Richie sings the opening line:

What is happening here?
Something's going on that's not quite clear

I was like "Yeah, that pretty much sums it up!"

On my first listen through, I was sort of thinking that to 'dance on the ceiling' was symbolic of perhaps this gathering in the sky that I keep writing about, and people having a big party on the ceiling - like, above us, or something.

When Richie sings the line "looks like everybody is having a ball", I thought this fit in nicely.  The Celestial Kingdom, where I imagine this big party happening, is where everyone will be given a stone, or a ball perhaps, so literally everyone would have a ball.  At least that is where my mind was going with things.

The cover art that was on Spotify reinforced a theme that has seemed to tie to this concept, also.  Lionel Richie, who is black, is wearing a white suite, so you had this imagery of Black and White.  And, of course, there is his name.  Lion-el.  The actual name itself means "Young Lion", so we have Lion showing up (as in the Camel-Lion - the Good Chameleon).  Heck, if we want to mix up the name, we can have El mean Star, and we have the Lion Star - one of the 12 stars?

Richie is a nickname for Richard, which means "Strong Ruler".  So, the Lion Ruler.  Seems consistent with Peter-Marsh as Ingwe, perhaps the true Lion of the Lord, vs Brigham, his usurper, who Leo nicely coined in his own word play as the Lyin' of the Lord in a comment on an earlier post.

Richie can also simply mean Rich - like as in Wealthy or Rich... like Richie Rich, or something like that.  I just wrote yesterday in my post about those Chocolate Easter Eggs and that they were "Rich" eggs, and that these Eggs could potentially be associated with the Apostles, with Peter as one of them.

And of course, to beat a dead horse with the name thing, Dick is a nickname for Richard or Richie, and that has definitely come up before, with I think us landing on the fact that Dicks need to have Stones in order for them to be good.

I just thought of something right now while typing as well.  Lionel Richie is currently a Judge on the show American Idol.  That is funny.  Obviously fits with another element of Peter-Marsh we have covered on this blog, in that he has been and will be a Judge in God's "church", as he was, for example, as Alma (the Elder).

OK, so that all is great.  However, later last night, I thought I would pull up the music video and see what that was like, since sometimes I've had some success in seeing some symbols there, or at last having a thought or two jogged in the process.

Richie took the video a little different direction than I had imagined, but was probably more consistent with others' expectations.  Whereas I had envisioned people dancing in the sky, or maybe even on a rooftop or something, he literally had people dancing upside down on the ceiling.  I am not sure why the whole concept of things going upside down and people dancing that way on a ceiling completely eluded me prior to the video, but it did.  So, it was pretty interesting for me to see this take.

In the video, Richie arrives at a condo, and there is a party already going on.  It looks like a pretty cool party already, but everyone is just obeying the normal laws of gravity at this point and dancing on the floor.

Richie heads over the wall and proceeds to walk straight up it, and then continue on to dance upside down on the ceiling.  At this point, everyone is still dancing on the floor but looking up at him as he is dancing on the ceiling:

Richie proceeds to dance down the other side of the wall and return to the floor.  He then does something pretty cool and on point for the Peter-Marsh character and his role:  he invites people to come join him dancing on the ceiling.  He goes over to the wall with a few dancers, and shows them how to start walking up the wall, and then continues to guide and direct them as they make a complete circuit onto the ceiling, back down the other wall, and returning to the florr.

At this point, the imagery of Jesus teaching Peter how to walk on water (at least in the traditional telling of the New Testament) came to mind.  In the New Testament account, Peter is initially successful, but then sinks and needs to be rescued.  I am not sure what the whole truth of that account is, but I do think that the walking on water episode is probably misunderstood and was meant to refer to a different 'water', not just a simple lake or even ocean, perhaps.  

Specifically, I have hypothesized that when various groups have crossed 'water', whether the Lehites or Jaredites, they have actually been crossing space, and journeying to other worlds.  So, to learn to walk on water, would be to learn to space walk, as it were, or at least 'walk' in some fashion to another world.  This is something Peter would have had to do, perhaps, in reaching our own world from Tirion.  I don't know.  In any case, a space walk, whatever that actually means, is consistent with the imagery of Lionel Richie's party, where the laws of gravity no longer apply, and perhaps even applying to other worlds where rules are different, maybe.

I am not sure how literal I mean that analogy, by the way, of walking in space, but it just came to my mind, and there could be something there.

In any case, the important point is that in the video Richie first dances on the walls and ceiling and demonstrates to everyone else that it can be done, and then he invites everyone else to come join him.  That seems like a fairly consistent story element to what I have explored earlier.

After this, we soon have everybody up on the ceiling, dancing upside down from our point of view:

As they all dance, ceiling lights will start turning on, shining down on the floor where they came from, almost as if the Family of Light is now gathered up in the sky and shining (as I imagined it).

At this point, when I saw everyone dancing upside down, a phrase from a verse from Isaiah, but also found in 2 Nephi 27 came very clearly to my mind.  This chapter has come up before on this blog, in discussing the 'sealed book' as likely the Sawtooth Stone and the words that came from it, along with my very speculative guesses regarding some events around it in my post "The Learned":  Brigham Young as the Man to whom words are delivered.

In Nephi's prophecy, we find words from "Isaiah", which mention things being turned "upside down".  That is the phrase that came to my mind:  "turning of things upside down".  Here is the full verse:

And wo unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord! And their works are in the dark; and they say: Who seeth us, and who knoweth us? And they also say: Surely, your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter’s clay. But behold, I will show unto them, saith the Lord of Hosts, that I know all their works. For shall the work say of him that made it, he made me not? Or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, he had no understanding?

It seems that some things will in fact be turned "upside down", and that this will be a good thing for God's children, but not such a good thing for those whose works are in the dark.  This is all in the context of God's "marvelous work and a wonder", which Nephi mentions in the verse that immediately precedes the one I just quoted:

Therefore, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, yea, a marvelous work and a wonder, for the wisdom of their wise and learned shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent shall be hid.

Well, walking on the ceiling will definitely be a wonder.

One other Easter Egg I noticed in the video.  After Richie enters the room, there is a scene where they all do a dance move while seeming to welcome him to the room where they swing their right arm in a giant circle while holding their left arm out extended to the side, like someone would do in playing a guitar (it is hard to get a good shot the way they panned the camera in close, so maybe best to view it yourself at about the 1:00 mark of the video, which I will post at the end):

Strangely, I recognized this dance move!  It is demonstrated in a movie that has come up before on this blog:  Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.  Bill and Ted accidentally end up in the future in what looks to be a some kind of council.  The individual who looks to be the leader says "It's you", to which Ted replies "Yeah, it's us!  Who are we?".  The 3 Beings greeting them then proceeds to do a guitar strum sign.  People appear all around Bill and Ted and also perform the sign that I am referring to as a greeting:

There is a rock ballad playing during that scene, which I had to hunt down because it really stuck out to me just now.  It is called "In Time", by Robbie Robb.   So, I just listened to it for the first time right now, and now consider it to be one of the more relevant songs/ lyrics I have posted on this blog.  Seriously.  It also ties nicely into Lionel Richie's song, as the chorus' message is that "in time we'll be dancing in the streets all night".

So, I am going to wrap this up and post both the "Dancing on the Ceiling" video below, as well as the song "In Time".  And actually I will do a hat trick and throw in the Ben and Jerry, I mean, Bill and Ted scene where the guitar sign is given.  I actually think their dialogue in the scene is relevant also, go figure.  It will be a history report, and not a future report, after all.

"Dancing on the Ceiling":

Here is the Bill and Ted clip:

And then for those interested, here is the full "In Time" song that you could hear during that scene:

Quick Update:

Kind of funny.... after posting this, I went directly to my email and the email sitting right at the top of my inbox had a title that simply said "Time to elevate".

It turned out to be an advertisement from the Minnesota Wild hockey team for their game against the Colorado Avalanche tonight.

Quick Update #2:

After closing out my email, I went to check out the "In Time" song again, and YouTube led with an advertisement for... Oreo Cookies.  And not just any Oreos - Oreo Thins.