As far back as I can remember I loved to dance. My parents and much older siblings would spend many evenings being entertained by my dancing before I could even barely walk. I have worked on letting go of conditioning and breaking through many inhibitions and fears in this lifetime, but for some reason I always felt comfortable under my skin while dancing! This is how I most readily felt joy and freedom!
Growing up in Canada and wanting to be independent, I became a Chartered Accountant and proceeded to work for large multinational corporations for the first part of my life. I traveled extensively and enjoyed the freedom that money and status can provide. Being bi-lingual allowed me the opportunity to move to Athens, Greece, where I ended up living for 12 years, and where I came into contact with the Indian mystic Osho. I loved living in Greece, not only for the beauty of the place but also the Zorba the Greek energy… which was re-kindled in me! I fell in love with life, with love, with dance and celebration once again. My heart, in my early 30’s, yearned to spend a year at Osho’s meditation center in Pune India. At this meditation center a dancing meditation was held twice daily.. and this is where I had my first experience of freedom beyond my physical form. After joyously dancing for a while, I suddenly felt no body, no boundary, I was enveloped in pure joy and energy and transported beyond time and space. I did not think too much of the experience and soon forgot all about it until many years later. I subsequently met my spouse-to-be at the Osho meditation center and moved to San Francisco where I continued to work for large multinationals.
Upon finding out that my mother suffered a serious stroke, I returned to Greece with my husband to take care of her along with my sister. At the same time I completed Anusara Yoga Teacher training and fell in love with practicing and teaching yoga in Greece. A few years later we decided to have a child and while I was pregnant, we felt guided to return to the States, and so we moved to Knoxville TN, where my spouse’s family lives. Shortly after moving there, I started the Knoxville Movement Collective, a not-for-profit dance collective, which is still dancing today!
When our son turned five, we were guided to move back to the West Coast (Encinitas, CA,) where I found myself unsure of where to focus on next. My husband and I went to a retreat with our teacher Eliza Mada Dalian (an awakened former student of the mystic Osho) in the spring of 2013 which was life changing. Along with all else, to my surprise, I was guided to start facilitating various forms of dance again. I pray that I can be of service in this direction in sharing my love and joy of conscious dance with others!
With my teacher Eliza Mada Dalian in 2013
“I celebrate myself, and I hope soon the day will come you will be celebrating yourself. And when thousands and thousands of people around the earth are celebrating, singing, dancing, ecstatic, drunk with the divine, there is no possibility of any global suicide. With such festivity and with such laughter, with such sanity and health, with such naturalness and spontaneity, how can there be a war?” ~Osho