The Cosmic Mass in Downtown Oakland and Beyond

The Cosmic Mass found an excellent home at Historic Sweets Ballroom in downtown Oakland.  The art-deco space, dating to the 1920’s, had seen many exciting events in its heyday including Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and more, but it was abandoned for twenty years when my non-profit took it over. 

We did our best to fix it up over the years and were able to save it from demolition.  Today it is active as part of a school of the Arts.  Its high ceilings and sprung wooden floor made it excellent for a Cosmic Mass that has dance as its primary element.

Among the themes we chose for the TCM were the Green Man; the Black Madonna—“time to honna the black Madonna”); the Return of the Divine Feminine; Trees (We created a tall ‘tree’ from a scaffolding and during the Mass Julia Butterfly, protesting logging of old-growth forests in northern California by living in a tree, called in by phone); Flowers; Black Diaspora; Celtic story; Angels among Us; Pink Triangle; and many more.

Attendees were multi-generational and multi-faith.  One night an eighty-four-year-old woman who was dancing her heart out said to me, “I’ve been waiting eighty-two years for someone to connect my love of prayer with my love of dance.  I took three buses to get here tonight and by the time I’m through praying the buses won’t be running so I will need a ride home.”

Not once was there an issue with a child or baby.  Children are not bored at our Masses for talking is kept to a minimum and children love to dance—those who tire ride on their parents’ shoulder.  No crying room is necessary either.

At one Mass, whose theme was animals, a woman brought a large white python draped about her neck.  It was beautiful in its fashion, but I did approach her and ask 1) whether it had been fed lately and 2) to please keep it away from any babies.

Another high point of the mass is the interest of young men in joining us.  The DJ vocation is heavily (not exclusively) male, as is rap.  It is rare to find young men in church or at retreat centers in our time, but they clearly are drawn to the sweaty adventure of dancing their prayers.

Since COVID-19 has struck, needless to say the Cosmic Masses have been shelved.  But we have been invited to do some on line and the results have been quite positive.  Obviously, it is less than ideal to do worship by zoom instead of in person, but hopefully our covid times will pass.  One advantage to doing a tcm on line is that the burdens of bearing equipment and setting up a space are lessened. 

The Cosmic Mass is very much what liturgy should be—the “work of the people.”  It takes a community to do the work before, during and after the celebration.  But it expands and inspires community–as all ritual is meant to do.

Adapted from Matthew Fox, Confessions: The Making of a Post-Denominational Priest, pp. 366-369.

Banner Image: An artist’s impression of the ecstatic dancing that is part of a Cosmic Mass.

Have you often danced your prayers?  And led others to do so?  What were the results?

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