Dancing my way into Life

HERSTORY: MY STORY OF SICKNESS, HEALING AND THE DANCE

Photo by Thomas Kelley on Unsplash

It was one of those things I’d ignored for too long. I had a near death experience and one day in my hospital bed woke with the words “you have been initiated into a deep and ancient wisdom” on my mind. At the same time the words of a tune ran through my head — it was “Rhythm of Life” and somehow at some deep level I felt I understood the drumming, the beat of rhythm permeating ancient cultures. And the dance. Somehow I knew it. And it was some time after that I discovered movement was my medicine.

Shifts in my life had been huge. With a young family, my marriage was clearly over. With two young children I had a teaching career and a shipwreck of a marriage. And now a diagnosis of cervical cancer had called “stop” to all my plans.  Surgery and histology showed lymphatic involvement. Treatments were agreed and the news from my fantastic medical team was that if I was still alive in 5, 10 years time, then it would be possible to say I was cured. Crucially, though, my wonderful surgeon said it was critical to find some way of managing stress in my life — it affected (and suppressed) the immune system. He was also happy for me to explore ‘alternative’ and complementary therapies. As a single parent this was a tough call, but although geographically distant, I had a supportive and loving family.

Radical surgery, chemotherapy and finally radiotherapy followed over over the following year, but along with these assaults on my body I was nourished and cushioned by love from family and friends.

That transformative ‘near death experience’ just days after surgery offered a massive series of revelations. Questions, insights — and answers. As my ‘essence’ and life force returned to my body I felt like one huge smile, with a strong sense that life would never again be the same. With my head on the pillow I clearly heard a voice saying “and the answer is love.”  Those words became the guiding point of my life; my credo, governing every aspect of my life — my family life and my working life.

Realising that movement was my medicine, though, wasn’t immediate. One time I danced in a workshop at the Barbican in London as part of a performance of Twyla Tharp’s 100’s, and the atmosphere of participation and enjoyment experienced as dancers, students and others joined the throng rehearsing there for the day seemed to infect me like some virus. I knew I had to dance again.

Conscious dance is sometimes called movement meditation. I found out about it when I was trying to meditate. Working with a Feldenkreis teacher, I spoke about my difficulties with a sitting meditation. “That’s because you need a moving meditation,” he said. “You are such a dynamic person, you need a moving meditation.” He was right. Soon afterwards I tried 5 Rhythms (although I’d heard about it some time before), and began to dance regularly. In fact there was no stopping me; dopamine discovery had been made! I love to dance. You could say I live to dance.

In the years since then I have travelled across continents to dance, and ultimately to train as an Open Floor teacher.

Before that I had a working life that began with an interest in the environment and architecture, and so I began my working life as a town planning trainee. Exploring Spain led to working in Switzerland and the travel industry, and then returning to the UK where shortly afterwards I trained as a teacher. I was always fascinated by people and how they learn - and how they live. I have been driven by a questioning sense of curiosity.

It followed then, that a cancer diagnosis led to exploring more about cancer. One of my friends spoke about this recently. “I remember," she said, “being outside your room, and the consultant said to a nurse, ‘what you don’t realise is that there are four of them and only one will survive.’ You were determined you were going to live; you read all you could, you found out everything possible, you were going to live for your children.”

In time I returned to teaching, and following a research degree went on to research in health and social care, and then, very significantly became very curious about ‘the cultural construction of health and healing’. Studying and qualifying in psychodynamic counselling and group work helped shape how I approached research. A Research Fellowship in health improvement introduced unexpectedly opened old doors, including those around different types of healing. How was it that the Malibri, for instance, could heal bones through bone blowing? There were questions underlying this that led me to study for an MPhil at Cambridge in Social Anthropology - exploring different approaches to health and healing. I was fascinated by medical anthropology.

And all the time I danced! And travelled to explore some of these practices.