Reflections On The Dance
Michael Joseph Jackson Remembered
1958-2009
A celebration of love, spirit, truth & faith. Celebrating his life, his legacy, and his humanity
His Mission...
Michael's message was all about love, and his mission here on earth was one of spreading love, to all people, around the world.  To helping heal people and families, through love, and helping to heal our world through being more conscientious in how we care for our world, our earth, and all that is in it, and caring for our fellow neighbor.

Love was at the very heart of Michael's message, and that branched out to include peace, hope and healing.  He accomplished that end through using his gift of entertainment, as well as through his humanitarian and philanthropic efforts.

Michael did this through his charity, Heal the World, through his love and care of thousands and thousands of children throughout the world, through his support of many other charities and charitable causes, through his visits to hospitals and orphanages, through his messages of peace, and through his music and the talent that he acknowledged, came from God.
Michael's speech about Freedom, Love, Peace and Hope.  An important message to take note of:
Thoughts from Michael on his mission

"I really believe that God chooses people to do certain things, the way Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci or Mozart or Muhammad Ali or Martin Luther King is chosen. And that is their mission to do that thing. And I think that I haven't scratched the surface yet of what my real purpose is for being here.

I'm committed to my art. I believe that all art has as its ultimate goal the union between the material and the spiritual, the human and the divine. And I believe that that is the very reason for the existence of art and what I do. And I feel fortunate in being that instrument through which music flows .... Deep inside I feel that this world we live in is really a big, huge, monumental symphonic orchestra. I believe that in its primordial form all of creation is sound and that it's not just random sound, that its music. You've heard the expression, music of the spheres? Well, thats a very literal phrase. In the Gospels, we read, "And the Lord God made man from the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul." That breath of life to me is the music of life and it permeates every fiber of creation.

In one of the pieces of the Dangerous album, I say:  "Life songs of ages, throbbing in my blood, have danced the rhythm of the tide and flood." This is a very literal statement, because the same new miracle intervals and biological rhythms that sound out the architecture of my DNA also governs the movement of the stars. The same music governs the rhythm of the seasons, the pulse of our heartbeats, the migration of birds, the ebb and flow of ocean tides, the cycles of growth, evolution and dissolution. It's music, its rhythm. And my goal in life is to give to the world what I was lucky to receive: the ecstasy of divine union through my music and my dance. Its like, my purpose, its what I'm here for."

Ebony/Jet 2002 interview


"What can I do but bring forth the talent that God gave me?  That's all I wanted to do.  To share the love and gift of entertainment.  That's all I want to do.  I don't want to hurt anybody."

Michael Jackson
2002 Radio interview with Steve Harvey


Helping Children and initiating a Children's Day:

"I would love to see a children’s festival, to hear children’s choirs, pretty much present when I come to different countries, singing some of their favorite songs of mine. We should forge and create a children’s day, a celebration internationally, where children are honored. Where parents can take their children to the movies or to the toy store or to the park. And, that, alone, will create a bonding. Because the family bond has been broken. They don’t eat with their children or speak to their children much anymore, or mother their children.... We have Mother’s day, Father’s Day – no Children’s Day. And I would love.... to see them sing songs, or a parade or something. I would love that.....I’ve always done that, yes..... I’ve done it all my career: "Heal The World", "We Are The World"; "Will You Be There", "Man In The Mirror", about the planet, earth songs..... because that’s where my heart is. I care. My biggest dream is to have a Children’s Day, where children can bond with their parents."


On his life’s purpose:

"I think…to give. In the best way I can, through song and through dance and through music. I mean, I am committed to my art. I believe that all art has as it's ultimate goal the union between the material and the spiritual, the human and the divine. I believe that to be the reason for the very existence of art. And I feel I was chosen as an instrument to just give music and love and harmony to the world. To children of all ages, and adults and teenagers.... I love people of all races from my heart, with true affection."

1993 TV Interview with Oprah

"I'm trying to imitate Jesus in the fact that he said to be like children, to love children, to be as pure as children and to make yourself as innocent and to see the world through eyes of wonderment and the whole magical quality of it all."

Oprah Winfrey interview 1993.


Why Helping Children is so important to him:

"I didn’t have a childhood. But, when you don’t have a childhood like people like myself and other child stars, you try to compensate for the loss, for, later on, you try to catch up. That’s why you see, like you may see a theme park or amusement rides, that type of environment at my home. But what I like to do is help other children who are less fortunate than I am. You know, kids who are terminally ill, kids who have diseases, poor children from the inner cities, the ghettos, to let them see the mountains, or to let see or go on the rides, or to watch a movie or to have some ice cream or something."

2005 Keep Hope Alive radio interview with Jesse Jackson


On his charity work:

"What I usually do on my off days…I do as many hospitals as I do concerts. I do as many orphanages as I do concerts. But, because it’s good news, the press don’t cover it. They want bad news. But I do it from the heart. I don’t do it to wave a flag and say, look at me! We bring bags of toys and posters and albums, and you should see how it transforms these kids. They jump up and down and they’re so happy."

2003 Private Home Videos TV Special


Disadvantaged children and his benefit missions towards them:

"I get frighetened and hurt easily and the news frightens me very much, even if I’m not involved in somebody else’s problem. At Big Bear Lake I heard on the news that this little boy had his Christmas a month ahead of time, and Santa Claus was at his house, because he only had a week to live. Sure enough, in that week, he died – and that just got me so bad."

"I meet children like that all the time when we visit the hospitals. The doctors and nurse ask them, "You can go anywhere you want or do or see anything – what do you want?" And these kids request to meet the Jacksons. They say "You’ve got to meet this girl, she’s going to die tomorrow and ever since she’s been out of surgery she’s been calling your name." And, God, I just feel so wonderful to be a part of somebody’s ultimate dream. All my lifetime of work is rewarded."

"I tell the kids "I’ll see you next year", and sometimes the thought that I’ll be back next year makes them hang on. That’s happened several times. People told me this girl was about to die, but I kept running into her three years in a row – and the fourth year she died. The doctors couldn’t do anything, and for me to come in and help give her the gift of life really makes me feel good."

"Some people are chosen to do these things. These children will be drowsy, but Danny Kaye [a late American award-winning actor, singer and comedian] will come in and tell stories and make faces, and these kids will become so cheerful. Bill Cosby [an American comedian, actor and activist] is known for his ways with children, too. Nurses and doctors are totally amazed at the power of these people."

"I get a taste of poverty, too. When I go to a country – like in the Phillippines and in Trinidad and in Africa – I really get out and go to the poor sections and talk to the people. I sit in their little huts, their cardboard houses, and I make myself at home. I think it’s important to know how different people feel, especially in my field of endeavor."

"The head of the section will call all the poor people out and tell them who’s here to see them, and it feels good to know that they know who you are. I don’t think I’m better than other people, I think I’m different from other people, because I do different things. I shake all their hands, and they follow me wherever I go. Then they see my camera around my neck and they’ll start touching it and begging me to take their picture. When we first went to Africa, we took the kind of camera that has instant pictures, and they’d never seen anything like that. They were jumping up and down and screaming."

1980 Melody Maker music newspaper


The Tabloids Going After Him and the Mission He Feels God Gave Him To Help Children:

"I'll tell you.  Because with the pain, and the arrows that people have shot at me nobody else would have been able to take it.  They would have probably committed suicide by now....they would have become a drunk.  Because they have been very cruel and rude to me.  And if they don't think I hear it and see it, I do.  I do.  It's been the children.  I am holding on for them or else I wouldn't have made it.  I really wouldn't have made it.....God gave me a mission, I feel to do something for them and they have given me the support and the belief and the love to hold on, hold on.  When I look in the mirror I feel healed all over again.  It's like being baptized.  It's like God saying, "Michael, everything will be okay," when I look in the eyes of a child.


The Conditions Some Children Endure and Michael's Mission To Save Them:

"....They would tie the babies to the bed or chain the children down.  We'd go unchain....we'd go free all these babies.  I hated that....Countries like Romania and Prague, Czechoslovakia and all that, Russia.  You should see what they do to the children in those....you'd be shocked.  They chain them to the wall like they're animals and they're naked and they slept in their tinkle and their feces too.  It's just so sad, it made me sick.  So we brought clothes and toys and just love and love.  I love them and I went back every day visiting them, hugging them, wanting to take each one of them to Neverland."

Excerpted from The Michael Jackson Tapes


On the Environment and his concern for our Earthly Home:

"I’m very concerned about the plight of the international global warming phenomenon. I knew it was coming, but I wish they would have gotten people’s interest sooner. But it’s never too late. It’s been described as a runaway train; if we don’t stop it, we’ll never get it back. So we have to fix it now. That’s what I was trying to do with "Earth Song", "Heal The World", "We Are The World", writing those songs to open up people’s consciousness. I wish people would listen to every word."

"I just wish they (including the authorities) would do more for the babies and children, help them more. That would be great, wouldn’t it?"

2007 Ebony Magazine


Healing The World:

However, today when I create my music, I feel like an instrument of nature.  I wonder what delight nature must feel when we open our hearts and express our God-given talents.  The sound of approval rolls across the universe and the whole world abounds in magic.  Wonder fills our hearts, for we have glimpsed, for an instant, the playfulness of life and that's why I love children and learn so much from being around them.  I realize that many of our world's problems today from the inner city crime to large scale wars and terrorism and our overcrowded prisons are a result of the fact that children have had their childhoods stolen from them.

The magic, the wonder, the mystery and the innocence of a child's heart are the seeds of creativity that will heal the world.  I really believe that.

What we need to learn from children isn't childish.  Being with them connects us to the deeper wisdom of life, which is everpresent and only asks to be lived.  They know the way to solutions that lie waiting to be recognized within our own hearts.

Today, I would like to thank all of the children of the world, including the sick and deprived.  I am so sensitive to your pain."

Grammy Legend Award speech, 35th Annual Grammy Awards, 1993


Michael's Children's Universal Bill of Rights from his Oxford University Speech:

1.  The right to be loved without having to earn it.
2.  The right to be protected, without having to deserve it.
3.  The right to feel valuable, even if you came into the world with nothing.
4.  The right to be listened to without having to be interesting.
5.  The right to be read a bedtime story, without having to compete with the evening news (or East Enders)
6.  The right to an education without having to dodge bullets at school.
7.  The right to be thought of as adorable, even if you have a face that only a mother could love.

Friends, the foundation of all human knowledge, the beginning of human consciousness, must be that each and every one of us is an object of love.  Before you know if you have red hair or brown, before you know if you are black or white, before you know what religion you are a part of , you have to know that you are loved.

If you enter this world knowing you are loved, and leave this world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can be dealt with.

A professor may degrade you, but you will not feel degraded.  A boss may crush you, but you will not be crushed.  A corporate gladiator may vanquish you, but you will still triumph.  How could any of them pull you down?  For you know you are an object worthy of love.  The rest is just packaging."



His reasons for inviting inner-city children to Neverland and winning God's smile of approval:

"I’ve traveled the world over 8 times. I do as many hospitals and orphanages as I do concerts. But, of course, it’s not covered (by the press). That’s not why I do it, for coverage. I do it because it’s from my heart. And there are so many children in the city who haven’t seen the mountains, who haven’t been on a carousel, who haven’t pet a horse or a llama, never seen them, so if I can open my gates and see that bliss, an explosion of screaming laughter from the children and they run on the rides, I say "Thank you, God." I feel I’ve won God’s smile of approval, because I’m doing something that brings joy and happiness to other people."

2005 At Large with Geraldo Rivera TV Interview


Man in the Mirror:

"It is my philosophy, too: "If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself, and then make a change". People don’t look at themselves honestly. They don’t look at themselves and point the finger, it’s always the other guy’s fault. You should change yourself. Look at yourself, make better of yourself....I’m never totally satisfied, I always wish the world could be a better place. No, not at all!...Hopefully, that’s what I do with my music, and bring happiness to people...and to bring joy and some peace in their lives."

1987 Ebony/JET TV interview


How he would like to be remembered:

"As a person who came and brought light to the world, some escapism. Also, as the voice for the voiceless children, because I love them. I'm living for the children. If it weren't for the kids, I would throw in the towel. A baby, a child – now, that's amazing. They're little geniuses, you know, little geniuses. They really are."







"With just a little love and a little caring, I have seen kids totally turn around.  Where you can't find any cancer at all anymore in their body.  I've done it a lot of times.  I'm not trying to say I'm Jesus Christ.  We should just give a little more attention to the power of love and caring and faith and prayer."

Michael Jackson in the Martin Bashir outtakes
"Earth Song" and "Heal the World" videos courtesy of Mellye1973 on YouTube
"I'm prejudiced against ignorance.  That's what I'm mainly prejudiced against.  It's only ignorance, and it's taught, because it's not genetic at all.  The little children in those countries....Venezuela, Trinidad, aren't prejudiced.  I would like for you to put this in quotes, too.  I'm really not a prejudiced person at all.  I believe that people should think about God more, and creation.  Look at the many wonders inside the human body.  The different colors of organs, colors of blood, and all of these colors do a different thing in the human body.  It's the most incedible system in the world.  It makes an incredible building, the human body.  And if this can happen with the human body, why can't we do it as a people? And that's how I feel.    And that's why I wish the world could do more.  That's the only thing I hate.  I really do.

I try to write, put it in song.  Put it in dance.  Put it in my art to teach the world.  If politicians can't do it, I want to do it.  We have to do it.  Artists put it in paintings, poets put it in poems, novels.  That's what we have to do.  I think it's so important to save the world.

Michael Jackson
Ebony Magazine, December 1984