Day 1 Sans Coffee- Taking a Stance

Early this morning I came home from a very intense conversation. As I was leaving I took a gift which had been given to me, one I loved very much, one that meant a lot to me, one I had wrapped up a whole lot of meaning and hopes in. I ran down the street, trying desperately to let go of all this black, sticky, energy which was oozing between my ribs making breathing painful, making a matching pair with the pain in my heart. The two pains threatened to converge and suffocate me, suffocate my dreams, the life I had envisioned. The gift, a heart shaped bottle filled with honey, slipped and smashed into a pile as sticky as the ooze dripping through me and a million shards of razor glass. My heart was broken. This is when the tears began, they didn’t stop until I finally fell asleep in the camper.

There were 9 eleven year old girls in my house when I arrived home. Kelly, Chris and Rosy had the master bedroom, there was no room for me, which is just as well, it is far easier to feel dejected when the circumstances play along. To add to the misery the cover had been taken out of the camper, I slept under nothing but a tiny baby blanket and the shawl I was wearing instead of a coat. I couldn’t move at all in the night otherwise tiny air passages would be created letting the cold night air flood in. I awoke often, thirsty and cold. I was really living the sorrow thing, really embodying it. I received this comic strip the first week of school at Tamalpa.



Our first year at Tamalpa was spent enduring our own personal therapy through the art/life process created by the Halprin family. In order to become a Movement Based Expressive Arts Therapist I had to first do my own work by using my body to embody the metaphors, movements, stances, shapes and forms associated with feelings, ideas and patterns which were motivating my behaviours and actions. In short, if you are feeling depressed, as Charlie Brown points out, “the worst thing you can do is straighten up and hold you head high”. Last night I did no such thing! I curled up in the tightest ball I could and embodied my deep sorrow in a way which would make Anna Halprin proud!

Sadness and depression, I got down. Joy and elation, no problem. Then there is anger, anger is harder. To really embody anger means spitting, cursing, yelling, stomping, punching, clenching and usually saying things that are nasty. Yuck. I bet just reading that line makes you feel yucky, I know writing it did. Yet without an outlet, how does it get expressed? Ya I know all about whiffle bats, inflatable clowns and running through the forest, expending angry energy in a “positive” manner. “Healthy expressions of anger”....I don’t really know if I believe in this anymore, I wonder if it is actually just stifling it, making us all feel better that we have tamed the dragon.

Anger scares the shit out of me, both my own anger and the anger of others. When I come face to face with anothers anger I seem to either get afraid, or want to match the anger. I would like to tell you I remain calm, have all the answers, know just how to facilitate the person I am “holding” in having the experience, finding a way through, and emerging lesson in hand, and sometimes I do. Right now though...I seem to be constantly missing the mark. I am told often that I am admired because of my loyalty and commitment, I want you to know that it isn’t because I don’t think of running, it just means I don’t end up doing so. I want desperately to run from this. Luckily I have Charlie Brown to reminds me that if I want others to be able to hold my anger when it emerges, which it used to a lot and now has been replaced by tears and sadness, I have to be able to do the same for others. I need to do as Sally Brown does here, stand and witness, hear with an empathetic ear and keep my trembling and tears from emerging. I wish I felt more confident in my ability to get through this.

“What is courage?” is the question in 12 days journal #167

I almost never answer the question of the day in the actual entry. Today I need to, in order to summon my courage. First off the answer:

Courage is not an absence of fear, but acting in spite of it.

Then this, a picture of the corner of my computer, what I look at every day as I type these entries. My 6 year old taped it on for me, it helps me to type the things I do, helps me to act in spite of fear.

Day 11 Karma Yoga- Dancing for Peace

Today is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. It was also the day of the annual Planetary Dance, an event which has been inspired and enacted by Anna Halprin, for the last 29 years. The ritual started as a way of reclaiming a mountain. A community sat helplessly enraged by the theft of this mountain. The mountain was stolen by fear. Over a 2 year period 7 womyn were murdered on the trails. Eventually the risk was deemed too great and the park surrounding the mountain was closed. Mt Tamalpais, a mountain said to be a princess who vowed to lie down and turn herself to rock, earth and vegetation until peace reigned, stood silent. Anna and Lawrence Halprin decided it was time to reclaim the land for the people, for peace. They asked permission to enter the park and perform ritual. This ritual was enacted over several days, and included walks along the very trails where the womyn's lives were taken. Family members were present to plant trees, read poems, perform ritual, all to help heal the wounds of violence, disempowerment, and deep loss. Within a week the man who had chosen to murder these 7 womyn was captured.

Anna was quick to dispel the idea that the ritual had created this magical net. She instead spoke to the power of prayer, that when we join voices and hearts, and stand atop a mountain asking for peace, God provides. It may not always be in the way we ask for it, but she provides all the same. This ritual was continued on the advice of a Shaman. At first it was to be for 5 years. Eventually it grew from a ritual of peace for the mountain, to a ritual of peace for the world and has run for 29 years. People have come from Europe, Australia, Asia, and Africa to participate, helping the dance to become truly a Planetary Dance.


The dance is done in three parts. In the first we were to speak aloud before entering the circle, calling out the name of someone in need of support in their healing journey, what they suffer from and wish for all those who suffer from the same to find healing. I called out My Beloved husbands name, and asked that all that are recovering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, brain injuries and depression be healed. I entered the circle and ran as hard as I could, round and round and round the circle. Feeling the pain, his mine, the worlds. And ended up behind a man whose shirt read;

“Beauty can never be denied. For it will always always recognizes itself“

This allowed me to slow down, became my mantra for the rest of this part of the ritual. How profound, how simple...how very very beautiful.

For the second round, we entered the circle after making a promise to create change. It is 3 days from the new moon, summer solstice, and I was standing on a powerful mountain, involved in a ritual which has been enacted for 29 years by thousands of people. I stood and committed;

”I promise to fully accept my sexuality as the divine gift it is and to help others do the same“

As I stood to run, I nearly lost consciousness. I saw a light flash behind my eyes and a burning release in my throat. I felt as though I was suspended in the air and that it was carrying me round the circle. Something happened, I don’t know what was, but it was not in any way ordinary. This time I slowed down quickly and walked very very slowly. There were singers in the middle of the circle,they began to croon;

”This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine“

My mantra for the second part of the ritual.

The third part of the ritual was for the children. We ran round the circle playing, acting like animals. We sang we danced, we were all children.

Today my Karma yoga was dancing for peace. Peace for myself, for this neighbour nation, for the world.

When I left Planetary Dance I gave the journal to performance poet Jahan Khalighi, the grandson of Anna Halprin, the son of one of my teachers at the Tamalpa Institute Daria Halprin. He has been raised round ritual his whole life. He read a poem during the invocation. A poem I heard, yet strangely I could not tell you more than a spattering of the words, because more than heard it, I felt it. His voice and words dripped down my spine and brought my body alive, similar to the feeling of stepping into the ritual circle that second time. I saw him the moment I arrived at the dance, he was getting out of his car. I didn’t know who he was but I knew I would ask him to take today's journal. After I heard him speak I still didn’t know exactly why, but I had more of an idea. I secretly hope he writes his poem inside the journal. For his poetry to grace the pages of 12 days journal #68 would be such a great honour. The question he will be answering is ”What is the importance of ritual?“. I imagine him to be an expert on the topic.

I need to add, before I go, something for David Carpenter. I hope wherever you are now, that you too have found peace. A few of the steps I took today were for you David. Everyone one deserves peace, indeed the only way it can be truly found is by wishing it for ALL others.