Portraits In Faith: Anna Halprin

portraitsinfaith.org/anna-hal...
Dancing with God
"I had cancer. This gave me a ray of hope. It gave me a way to, I wouldn't say exactly 'fight my cancer,' but confront it-which is a little different than fighting it. I was put to a test to really confront the issues of life and death because I didn't know whether I would live or die. And confronting the issues of life and death, for me, was articulating or becoming clear about what my purpose would be if I were to live. What would the purpose of my life be? Why would it make any difference whether I lived or died-to me or to anyone else? I found a spiritual dimension which came in the form of an animal. It came in the form of a black bird that came to me. I was under so much stress and drugs and ether, and I was in such a state of near death. I was so weak. I was just totally emptied and I was totally weak. And this black bird came, and I don't know to this day whether it was one of the crows around here. It came in and sat on my bed. I don't know to this day whether it really was real.
It was a raven, not a crow. And we had a little dialogue. And in the language...of the raven...he did a little circle and sort of flapped its wings and I interpreted his dance as asking me, ‘Well, if you were to live, what is it that you would want to live for?’ And at that moment I experienced a sensation of love. It just kind of swept over me like an ocean; a warm ocean wave. And I said, ‘Oh. Then if I'm going to continue to dance, and go around with dirty feet all the time, and sweat, and struggle to keep creating material that's useful, I really want to know why I'm doing that.’ And the whole sensation was that, ‘I must do this for love.’ I don't think I've ever really experienced love; whatever that was.
It just was a feeling, and it brought me back to my grandfather. It brought me back to, ‘Oh, that's that same feeling.’ Whatever it was...it was that same feeling I had when I was a little girl. And that has pretty much defined my work. It has pretty much defined the choices I make where I'm going to place my energies, and what kind of dances I'm going to do, and who I'm going to do them for, and why I'm doing them, and, why I'm even teaching. And it has been a definition for me in my life in terms of making choices and giving me a direction and a path to follow. And I don't know if this is faith, but it's something different than my ordinary life; something that has a slightly different consciousness to it. But I always come back to it. I always come back to it."

[@jadicarboni3006]

Thank you Ana for your courage, grace and inspiration!

[@onovoser]

I call it Grace :) and you walk, talk, live and dance aligned with Her. Gratitude