As a child I was really shaped by the idea that I had to be “special” in order to “be” someone, to be worth something. That is the hardest story for me to shed. My mom groomed my sister and me to be dancers, to be mini me’s of herself. Both of us excelled at ballet, modern dance and jazz and I ended up dancing in the Paul Sanasardo Dance Company. I was able to let Spirit dance through me. When you do that you are no longer a body dancing. The energy transforms you and dazzles and electrifies the movement. One night while I was dancing at the ANTA Theatre on Broadway in 1972, after the show, Robert Joffrey walked up to me and told me he liked my dancing. He was the director of the highly acclaimed Joffrey Ballet Company. I didn’t know who he was at the time but my sister standing next to me knew him as she took classes there on 6th Avenue from his studios. After he left, she said to me: ” Do you know who that was? That was Robert Joffrey. He never tells dancers that.” Her mouth dropped open and stayed like that for awhile. I was still in a coma from a grueling night of transforming into an “energy werewolf” and tearing up the stage.

Later, I said to myself, “Oh my, I’m really in my element as a dancer.” I did find my Spirit Core as a dancer. Long story short, I was only 17 and 18 when I danced professionally and didn’t get a lot of support from the other dancers. One day, on summer tour, a fellow dancer and director of the company raked me over the coals for being late to help her teach a class. It was a brutal experience probably because most of my young life was brutal due to child abuse fueled by alcoholism. I went home, gained a hundred pounds and never returned to the professional stage.

The Story that still is so hard for me to shed is that of being “Special”. My wounded self tells me to this day that I am no-one if I do not make myself special in some way. This story is hideously heavy.

I don’t want this story anymore. My mind tells me that all people are special in their own way. The wisdom of higher mind tells me we are all equal. But my wounded child comes to me with blood for tears telling me she is a zero. I hold her in my heart and she finally relaxes. (The weeks in the hospital when she was only 6, blind from an eye operation with no family, in Switzerland where nurses spoke French above the bandages speaks volumes.)

As a child I knew the freedom of flying through the air over the earth, up in the clouds when I dreamt. I want that when I’m awake.

Can you live without stories?

After I left the professional dance world, I wrote a poem called, “The Light Filled”. I then tore it up and don’t remember the contents.

But I know this. I want to fill with light and I want to see that in the World. I want to see the Light fill everyone.

Can we do that without making stories out of experience?

Just all of us living life without a story line. No winners, no losers, no heroines, no villains. Or maybe we can just ride above the story line, not making anyone wrong or right, good or bad. I have to laugh. I think that’s because stories here on Earth bounce you off the good, the bad and the ugly for a reason. When we suffer our hearts open with a higher form of feeling called Compassion for self and therefore for others. We are no longer just a lone wolf. We are a pack, a tribe, a We-ness. A We-Ness, not a lonely zero within the vastness of existence. We are the We-ness within the Oneness. One for All and All for One. Here we can begin to prefer a level of detachment from the drama, to respond with love and light rather than the knee jerk reactions of emotional responses we have been implanted with since birth. Can we begin to treat each other the way we wish to be treated? Can we see past the pain of a traumatized humanity to relinquish those thoughts, beliefs and fears that lead to a deep unkindness?

If we can detach from the ingrained programming of control from governments, institutions and religions hell-bent on subjugating the human life force we can begin to evolve into a safer and happier world.

I’m beginning to feel a cool breeze on my face as my legs disappear into the flying bullet of my body, a streak of light, a bursting of joy as I fly through loving thoughts posing as clouds.