I have been deliberately elusive about my research, because it is a wonderful multi-sided diamond with a soft flowing center of love, and those gems are difficult to articulate. This is the third system to capture my attention, and capture it enough to hold it for the rest of my life; the first being modern dance and the second polarity therapy. I am at the juncture of artist-healer-scholar, and it is a common juncture in all actuality.
Several role models come to mind whom held the same nexus of being in their life's work...without hesitation the core of early modern dance pioneers: Ruth St. Dennis, Isadora Duncan, Hanya Holm, Pearl Primus, Katherine Dunham, and many others. They were part of the great opening in the 1920's running parallel to the growth of body-mind practices including Alexander Technique and Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement. Also at this time great interest in healing flowered and included works by thinkers such as Jethro Kloss, Dr. Sutherland, and Dr. Randolph Stone. Running holistic sanitariums and eclectic schools for drugless healing, these men were at the forefront of the current east-west melding in medicine (which in my opinion will explode into ripeness in the next 30 years).
A more recent role model is the lovely lady Sharon Rose. I highly recommend her book Path of the Priestess. She is really the only contemporary I have found who is spot on. Vincent Mantsoe is another modern dancer currently bridging shamanistic "trance" and the stage through is mother's healing lineage.
The whole point is, the whirling Mevlevi group I am working with in London is part of a larger system connecting movement, the body, breath, thought, and social interaction. They are an eclectic group of artists, healers, and dancers, among other things, and I have fallen in love with their ways. I know that I am in England just so, just so I can be here with them and birth my own life's work in relationship.
Not once have I doubted the still quiet voice inside of me, and it is that same still voice which guided all those pioneers before me. It is good to be in good company.
2 comments:
Remember that we need to follow our hearts and passions in this academic world, whether they are valued by some scholars or not! I find your interdisciplinary approach fascinating, and not only do I have the utmost respect for it, I fully support you as your friend and colleague! I hope you know that! How's the dissertation coming along? x x x
Thanks Penny! The dissertation is slowly emerging, steady and quiet. I am transformed by each new day, taking out half of what I write the day before! Eventually I should have a least a poem left :) And yes for passions, yes for hearts, yes for writers, yes for women in the academic world who are committed to their true largest selves! xx right back
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