WALKING IN THE CLOUDS



















“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that counts…
It’s the life in your years.”

-          Abraham Lincoln


 I love the names of Tai Chi exercises we do. One of them is ‘Walking in the Clouds’… I have chosen this name for today’s Post…




Some days ago, a dear friend of mine sent to me a video about an amazing woman by the name Anna Halprin. I hadn’t heard about this woman till my friend shared the video with me. I was so fascinated by the energy and charm of this graceful woman, that I was curious to know more about her.


Anna Halprin is still ‘alive’, and, she is only 98! When I say she is ‘still alive’, I know what I am saying: there is still life in her years, at 98!


Anna’s life revolves around dance... all forms of dance. She is surrounded by people – little children, young men and women and elderly. They either come to learn dance from her, or to watch her perform, or to get healed through her dance therapy.


Anna was introduced to dance by her Jewish mother at a tender age of 4... Ever since then, she has remained passionate about dance and experimented in its innumerable forms.


When Anna was 52, she was diagnosed with rectal cancer. It’s during this harrowing period of her life; she became conscious of the self-healing capacity the body possessed. The dance was the medium... and, she explored it through her Sufi-kind of moves. In her time of distress, fear and anxiety, she decided not only to rise above it but also to use her gift of dance for a bigger cause... She went about helping people who were down with terminal diseases, including cancer and AIDS... She taught them to beat their fears through dance... express their anger, guilt, shame... all through dance... She taught them to embrace ‘what is’...  and just surrender... just let go and let God in!


Anna has re-discovered the simple truth: when we fail to live with ‘ease’, we end up living with ‘disease’. So, Anna’s dance therapy helps one to go back to the basics... Feel the nature... the rain and the clouds, the leaves and the waves... feel the fear and the faith, the anger and the compassion... feel the healing touch of God who lives inside and outside both...


Anna’s husband, Late Lawrence Halprin, a landscape-architect, has created for her a magnificent dance-floor right in the lap of the mountains, which looks like a dream! She calls him her ‘amazing teacher’. Her young poet-grandson, Jahan Khalighi, joins her as her co-performer... Together, they create magic, leave us gasping for more!


Here are some videos. Hope you enjoy watching them...










Now, dance may not be the gift God has endowed many of us with. But, has He not endowed us with our own? Can’t we bring back the ease in what we do? Can’t we use our gifts to serve a bigger cause? I think, Anna’s life leaves us with this legacy... If we commit to use our God-given gifts for a bigger cause than for our own narrow gain, the wrinkles on our bodies will look so beautiful... yes, even at 98! And, yes, as Abraham Lincoln said, “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count... It’s the life in your years!”



GERALD D’CUNHA

Pic.: Planetary Philosophy

Videos: YouTube/ Tamalpa Institute/ Legacy of Wisdom



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