THE JOURNEY
I believe …
in the power of posture the beauty of gesture
and the majesty of the human spirit~
in “I am… you …you are me ~
We are…. all!
I work with the body & the mind through movement
and the arts and new sciences …
therapeutic massage, craniosacral therapy & individual counseling…
THE JOURNEY
The Journey … a lifetime
Our pathways in time … brief encounters , an indelible moments in time-
These are my musings about a life… the times in my life that contribute to becoming me and sharing ~
Behind, within, beneath each of us - there is a life story…
I offer this to you. Read what you like… of course it is a bit long….
Now in New Hampshire ~ I look to share… as a teacher, choreographer, mentor, journeyman the surrounding areas, US and internationally ~
I would love to work with you - Please contact me if I can teach with you… create with you… share! (949)254-0020
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Here are some thoughts - about my journey ~
As a young child, I felt gifted with wonder and curiosity to search and re-search. My life is filled with wonders, joy, pain and many sorrows. My cradle was one of abuse, abandonment, pain, fear and life- unknown. I found my safe havens through dance, the arts and sciences, philosophies and people who have challenged me to pull on wisps and threads and follow them … to see from the new gateways/perspectives– to move from uncertainty to certainty to infinite possibilities…. To search and discover, make mistakes and learn – again. I found pathways not only of hope but undescribable light
The dance world was my sanctuary; my solace. Full of imagination I began in Stuttgart Ballet Schule then studied through the ranks at Ballet Theater School in New York with jaunts into the percolating magic of dance. I spent time with the pioneers and masters. Valentina Pereyaslavec helped secure an audition to the Royal Ballet with Ninette deValois giving me class and Margot Fonteyn at my barre. In my time - I watched the budding journey of Rudolph Nureyev with Margot Fonteyn and the creation of Marguerite & Armand…. and so much more. Truly - the Royal Ballet gave me a sense of my being. In dance – I trained through the finest traditions – Stuttgart Ballet; American Ballet Theater, The Royal Ballet. I had the privilege of training and being in the company of some of the finest artists in the world of dance including Ninette de Valois, Margot Fonteyn, Rudolph Nureyev, Sir Kenneth MacMillan, Valentina Pereyaslavec, Bill Griffith, then later in music, visual arts, medicine, the sciences.
Yes - life moves in strange ways…. Dance had become my life and my life-line… and then suffered a serious injury in the 1960’s. I severed all the lateral tendons in my right foot – they said I would never walk; never mind dance again. It seemed like my life & career finished….
Time… new path.
I started a new journey ….just to walk through Life.
AS much as the Royal Ballet had schooled me in ‘true feelings’ - my emotions had been buried in fear of rebuke from my childhood. Funny that my new path was to peek out of my safe shell, discover, embrace and love people who gave me new light in the tunnel of despair. I found love -in so many new ways. My greatest gifts in life are my sons -Jonathan taught me to love & accept, to let go, to hope & make wishes, to breathe, and carry on. Christopher died but it was through him that I wanted to know about life in this body because I kept asking ‘why?’
They truly are the cornerstone of my life’s work - Jonathan taught me so much about being with people from infants to old age… Christopher asked me to ask how we live and die in these bodies.
It is a wild and wonder filled ride beginning with the body…. What does it mean to be in body. How is it made? What does it do – childish or childlike in the beginning- fascinating. I was always curious.
From all the threads, I created … a place to be, a studio named ‘Hypaxis’ that means “I am” – with no negation and connected. All my work spaces - area safe place to be - to open up to more. For the children, I built a curriculum from “magic dance - filled with curiosities and playfulness; working with a from gross & fine motor skills and our innate senses to very efficient, detailed near-motor control of exquisite movement in dance and movement forms.
I found that in learning the body, it continually brings me to our emotions and our minds- to our souls… and back again.
The overarching name for my work is ‘BRIAH’ – that means “life-breath” and I share it through materials and a pedagogy for classes, workshops called ‘Embodied Awareness’ . The work has taken on an ever-evolving consciousness of more… and more. Perhaps it should be called Embodied Awareness – a Journey Toward Consciousness?
I worked and studied Eastern and Western medicine, philosophies, biology, physics, psychology finishing traditional degrees: BA in Asian Studies; MA in Psychology and Dance/Dance in Education and began an MD/PhD from Harvard.
As I worked to understand the body, it took me into anatomy, physiology, psychology to discovering body/mind, systems connections, mind and psyche, soul/spirit interrelationships to time, space, separateness and wholeness…. Into Eastern and Western approaches to medicine, philosophies. I became excited about the Universe and how each body reflects time and space - - sculpted and sculpting with wavelengths – connecting through postures, gestures, energy and resonance. I was drawn to physics – Quantum, String and Chaos theories, Infinite potential in being human with new senses about ‘life’ and the inter-connectiveness of all. In dance and movement, I found healing.
As a dancer and physical therapist, caretaker and teacher; I wanted to understand anatomy for movement; how to move. I became a seeker about what the observer ‘see’s and ‘how the mover feels’. What is universal posture and gesture? How do and can we move? What is a life’s journey in movement?
What is the connection to and of music, voice, color, texture, dynamics to movement? Wavelengths? So, the searching began and only increased with each new adventure ~ the journey is never ending.
I did pull the threads from a basic understanding of the body to exploring the mind to mind/body, psyche, and soul always in constant movement in life - the dynamics and resonance of being!
From wanderings of my mind to the curiosities I can instill in another’s world, I share my searches in what I call EMBODIED AWARENESS; a multi-layered understanding being human. It is the basis for EA Conditioning - E.A.S.E – BRIAH Movement that I apply in teaching dance techniques, movement systems. And creating movement in choreography. I use the information in therapeutic touch through multiple modalities as well as in counselling and somato-emotional release.
What is the work about? It is about beauty… wonder. It is about discoveries, mysteries and exploration of being; being in human form - a consciousness of inner and outer and the whole. It is a continual researching of body/mind/spirit offering ease in movement, function, health and a sense of well-being, connection, and amplified awareness.
Embodied Awareness asks for wonder and investigation; for all of us to stay open to more discovery and wonder through each and every pathway!
It is NOT about knowledge and information – it IS about imagination, inspiration and intuition based in research and the sciences, the arts and living, questioning and rediscovering… and each of us discovering our own individual pathways in the journey of understanding. It is a profound journey - it is a difficult one and often we simply need to stop- take a break, have a look and wow! what wonders we see!
I hope that it opens people to be inspired to imagine and put pieces of information together in many, many new ways – trusting intuition, loving all that we know, and encouraging people to investigate and discover… again and again.
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Life is movement – some … gentle internal movement that we do not even feel; some large moving our skeleton or resonating outward in energy!! We have movement from within… and movement responsive to without…
Let’s discover how we are BIG! …. discover – I am BIG! I am like the Universe!
I love drawing the human body as the Universe; following the flow of muscles draping bones in wavelengths and healing with tone and color- moving the body, mind and spirit toward balance. I love my work.
Energetically and physically – we are connected and connect to all the world around as it connects to us!
Embodied Awareness is a collection of learning, challenges, a continual evolution of understanding with information from some of the great minds and pioneers in physics, biology and medicine, psychology, the arts and movement. It is a journey toward consciousness that I share through the arts and therapeutics. I am working to open others and I bring the work together in choreography… I craniosacral therapy – I simply hold space in time for the person I am working with to become consciously aware. I wait; I write, muse and dream. … and wait.
There is so much to say – to ask – to open ~ the searches and researches into the human body, arts and sciences are never ending.
These are some of my continual questions ~
What is the human body? A house for the soul... for a time, in this place…? I want to know because through my body, through my art – I connected.
What if this muscle correlated to this organ that was a part of this system in the human body and this muscle and system housed specific memories, emotions; possible reactions and response to events, situations based on DNA, cultural coding, memories due to heritage. What if your DNA contained elements of 7-9 generations and a particle from one generation diverted to another DNA strand – the possibilities are unlimited.
I have looked at conformation of structure in bones; muscle and system flow to see wavelengths and patterns that reflect tones and colors and better understand the use of sound and light therapies; music and its resonance to the human form; to movement and the blending in the arts.
I loved the conversation between David Bohm and David Peat in Science, Order and Creativity. I feel I teach and ask for ‘focal awareness and latent awareness’ – awareness and attention.
I feel I have read, challenged, breathed and embodied so much of F. David Peat’s writings – such as Synchronicity- The Bridge Between Matter and Mind’ or Lighting the 7th Flame and Pathways of Chance and sat with the essences of the work of David Bohm.
The journey has taken me from the magic and beauty of dance and the arts into studies of pioneers and new voices pushing the edges of psychology, physiology, philosophy such as Yoram Kaufman and Erwin Laszlo, Michael Conforti, Valerie Hunt; Tibetan healers, new age doctors and Craniosacral therapy - Comparing, challenging thoughts and theories. I have reflected on how we can be Stardust only to discover that each of us are the elemental table… billions of cells and the living matrix that house our quintessential elements. I have listened to the use of Naming vs. Calling and watched the power of a simple gesture. I have found myself in a journey with Carl Jung’s Coniunctio Mysterium
Over the years, I worked and applied my discoveries as a teacher and trainer in movement: therapist, choreographer and created a system based in my continual search through anatomy and biology; physics and dynamics; movement and music, wavelengths color and textures in visual and performing arts and its resonance in the human body. I have studied resonance and non-local resonance; healing; restoration and destruction; look again and again at the Universe, this planet, time, space and form and creations through connections and an expansion of consciousness.
The body is full of wisdom that can support us throughout our lives if we can only hear it speak to us. Becoming fully embodied is not a process of becoming increasingly touchy or hyper-sensitive, rather it is an ongoing experience of coming into touch with our own being, our well-being as well with sensing connections and coming into touch with our feelings, remembrances – both good and bad; our personal histories, heredities and cultures. We can ‘think’ in a whole new way…
By gently practicing being quiet and allowing ourselves to have a felt-sense of our body, we can start to understand what is held in our body and what resonates or vibrates outward. We can renew in sensing our connections.
Our contemporary culture is strongly oriented around mental activity. A lot of emphasis is placed on using our minds to think our way through and around problems, going at such a pace that sensing doesn’t get a look in. When we pause - we connect… inward and into vastness beyond.
Once I moved and led the scientists gathered at the Pari Center in Tai Chi – knowing that in each moment of the slow and gentle glides there was an opening to more…. When our time was over, they returned to their computers and formulas. I still wonder about those times.
From all the threads ~ I have learned to be ‘still’.
In this ‘stillness’ in and out of time… in and out of space and place… in and beyond body, I have seen indescribable miracles… awakenings… for others and for myself…. Some little; some vast and beyond description.
In Craniosacral therapy, Dr. John Upledger describes it as ‘still point’ when the spinal-cerebral fluid pauses- simply stands still- when cells talk; time collides; awakenings occur… it is a stillness beyond connections or understanding. There are no definitions.
I find it to be a pure state of being – an unshakeable moment; a TRUTH and Oneness.
Thank you all for your invitation to continually discover … I will. And I will keep sharing. If you would like to know more, share with me - let’s connect! We are on a great journey~
