2010-2015

Whales are everywhere, here: they literally punctuate the ocean with their movements. In the space of a few minutes, looking out over the horizon or around the sea our boat is gliding through, we see pairs and trios and pods of whales breaching, spy-hopping, tail slapping and diving. This is an annual pilgrimage site, for breeding and birthing. These prisms of gem-blue waters serve as a safe place for the whales to create new life and tend to their young before they begin their own journeys back to Antartica. This is big ocean. Tonga is in the middle of the South Pacific, and there is a lot of water. I am one of those unfortunate people who saw Jaws when it first came out, and am terrified of the deep. Having grown up near the ocean, and once been comfortable swimming long distances in it; I began to fear being …

There are still places in this world where the sky is awash with stars. Tasmania is one of them. In this Australian island, just off this most ancient land, the night sky is aglow with the light that emanates from the space that still illuminates the death of these once bright cosmic bodies. To lie on the ground and look into the stars is to look into the mirror. There are numerous citations re: the relationship between humans, and stars. It’s carbon, apparently, that connect us; I am not a scientist but I have read numerous references to the relationship between us, and the stars. In essence, that we are stardust. After guiding a Continuum Movement Depths Retreat, “At the Crossroads: The Serpents Dream”, outside Sydney; my husband and I traveled to Tasmania to visit a dear friend and to spend a week in the many places alive with raw …

January 12, 2015 Today marks the five-year anniversary of the Haiti earthquake. I am acknowledging it today with my fellow Continuum Movement teachers. This is our first meeting since our founder and the creator of Continuum, Emilie Conrad, died. And this is the first time I have not been in Haiti for the anniversary of the earthquake. Emilie Conrad was, and is, one of the most recognized and celebrated pioneers of somatics and movement arts. After a devastating childhood of alienation, illness and abuse, she found dance, and dance became her refuge and her sanctuary. In 1955, after years of dancing with Katherine Dunham, she moved to Haiti. It was there, in this land that is both enchanted and shadow, enlightened and troubled, she began to innovate an exploration into movement as healing, as artistry, and as life practice. This movement practice is called Continuum Movement. Amber Gray, TRI’s Director, …

I am sitting in my hotel room in a lovely suburb of Beirut; for the past 24 hours I have heard sirens almost non-stop. Three bombings in 6 days; one in eastern Lebanon on Friday and then two, in Beirut, in 36 hours. A car bomb went off two blocks from the office I work in late Monday night/Tuesday morning and they arrested a dozen ISIS members in Hamra, one of my favorite neighborhoods in Beirut. It is breaking my heart to see Lebanon crippled under the weight of over a million Syrian refugees, bracing for floods of Iraqi refugees and waves of this insurgent violence that seems to be mushrooming here. It’s growing tense here. I will be leaving tonight with a heavy heart, a sense of personal relief, and deep concern for the violence that seems to be spreading so quickly in the Middle East. Earlier today, as …

I’m finishing a two week, door to door, trip to Australia. I taught two classes here, and after a year long run with quarterly trips to my favorite country on earth, I am somewhat numb to the reality that, trauma workshop series complete, I won’t be back for a year, give or take. Australia is under my skin. Every time I leave, I feel sad if I don’t know when I am returning. This is the saddest I’ve been, because changes in my professional life mean it will be quite some time, and a little harder, to spend the extended time I am accustomed to being here, 3-4 times a year. I am not going to write about the work this time, I am going to write about Australians. Every time I visit I meet a few remarkable people, and I am reminded why I wish I could just move …