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The Spirit of Dance: Regeneraiton After Boston

Dance instructor Adrianne Haslet-Davis lost her foot in the Boston marathon bombing, but she didn’t lose her faith in moving forward with grace and grit. The 32-year-old amputee told Anderson Cooper how she crawled on her elbows to find safety in a nearby bar after the explosions. Sitting in her hospital bed, she leaned back into the arms of her husband, Air Force Capt. Adam Davis, who was also wounded in the blasts.

Watching her talk about the horror, blood and shock right after the trauma, and hearing how she stayed clear-headed after seeing the severity of their injuries. With the help of another person, she and her husband used belts as tourniquets to try to stop the bleeding, while telling each other goodbye in case one or both of them died. Although she stayed conscious the entire time from the explosion to the hospital surgery, she only learned after coming out from under an anesthetic that she had lost her foot. Shortly after, she declared she would run next year’s Boston Marathon.

“But you’re not even a runner,” Anderson asked, incredulous.

No, she laughed, she’s not.

“I don’t want this to be the end. When something happens like this I try to find the good side of it. But I’m only 32. So whether it’s running or walking or crawling the marathon,” said the amputee. “I want to come out stronger.”

Together, Adrianne and her husband embodied the spirit of dance, the art of movement to the poise of gratitude and regeneration, the art of reinvention and moving with what life gives you in harmony, balance and beauty. My respect for their resiliency grew when she said she wasn’t giving up dancing.
Just because she was standing five feet from the bomb, she said, isn’t any reason to give up. “It’s my life. Dancing is the one thing I do that when I do it I don’t feel like I should be doing anything else — ever. I feel so free and so wonderful.” As she spoke, she swayed a little inside the powerful arms of her husband, who sat with his own injured leg in a cast next to hers. Luckily, he lost no limbs, but anyone could see he carried some of her pain inside him.

“I’m big on music,” she said. “I feel like all of us, when we hear music, we kind of move to the music.”
 “I don’t,” Anderson shot back. “I stay rock solid. I’m such a bad dancer.” 

“I’m going to teach you then,” she said.

“Okay. But I’m a bad student,” Anderson said.

She teased that she would hold him to it though and it was on camera. She had proof. You could tell from the optimism of this couple, they would make it through. They were masters of regeneration, of trusting the spirit of reinvention.

We live in a state of constant reinvention. At our cellular level, there is a cosmic dance occurring in the GI tract, which reinvents itself every 3-5 days; our skin regenerates itself around every 30 days; and the liver is totally regenerated every 57 weeks. None of which is orchestrated by our control or affirmations. It is only accepted as the way life creates us.

The deepest regeneration, of spirit if not of limb, comes from invisible movements that happen under the radar of most of our daily activities. Cells reinvent themselves beneath the conscious control of most people, but dancers are sensitive to, and extraordinarily faithful to, this cosmic dance.
Radical changes like Adrianne’s come from the dance of life itself, and while her grief must be unbearable, who knows what her regenerative capacity is. You could already see her healing under the loving gazes of both her husband and veteran “journatherapist” Anderson Cooper.

Tuning into the transformations of the body help us stabilize and reinvent the cells in positive ways, affecting what we feel, live, think and see, and thus how we express and the way we respond to events.
Let me ask that question again: Who knows what the limit of a dancer’s regenerative capacity is? Dance finesse comes from harmony with the limbs and fluid and muscle of the body, the biodance.

 “It’s such a freeing thing,” the Boston amputee dancer said of her commitment to continue dancing. “I feel so free and wonderful.” It’s a lot healthier than focusing on what we might have lost yesterday or might lose tomorrow.
 
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10% of all proceeds from the Yoga Dance Workshop this weekend go to the Adrianne Fund to help Adrianne and Adam.
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YOGA DANCE WORKSHOP – VITAL ENERGY FOR EVOLUTIONARIES
 
“Yoga Dance taps into our deepest wisdom,” says Marya Mann, PhD, who is leading a “Fun Flow Glow” workshop at the Banyan Tree Sanctuary in Kona on Saturday, April 27, 1 – 4 pm.

“Exercise and meditation are two of the primary ways to keep our bodies healthy and strong,” says Dr. Mann, Kealakekua Author and Wellness Consultant who is leading “Yoga Dance: Fun Flow Glow,” a workshop designed to awaken total health.

“Yoga centers your dance, and dance brings your yoga to greater life!” she explains. “Beyond the positive outcomes of stress relief and greater well-being, the flow state of Yoga Dance is enjoyable for its own sake. Bringing awareness to the present moment is a very large part of experiencing all that life has to offer, and Yoga Dance brings more presence, total energy balance and joy to everything we do.”

“People can put themselves through enormous stresses week after week,” she says. “Yoga practice relieves physical and mental stress by deconstructing unskillful patterns; dance movement meditations open up new pathways for our imagination to heal the soul as well as the body. These affirmative approaches help to reconstruct our natural wholeness.”

 A donation is requested and Conscious Commerce is practiced. (www.maryamann.com/what-is-conscious-commerce/) Please RSVP by calling Dr. Mann at 808-328-0171 for more details and to register for the “Yoga Dance: Fun Flow Glow” workshop, to be held at the beautiful Banyan Tree Sanctuary, 10 minutes from downtown Kailua.

 Please go to www.BanyanTreeSanctuary.com for directions.

 Tap into your inner life in this all-levels Yoga Dance workshop with Dr. Marya Mann as she shows you how to empower yourself for Total Energy Balance. Through movement meditations, creative processes, bodymind integration and take-home sequences that invigorate your wellness and deepen your creativity, you’ll awaken your total health. Affirmative alignment of all the dimensions that make up you also contributes to greater balance in our world.  @@@@@
 
MICHAEL BECKWITH PRAYER FOR BOSTON SURVIVORS AND FAMILIES:
 “As we are holding our brothers and sisters in prayer who were either maimed or killed in this latest act of violence, let us remember two things;
1- Let’s allow this event to be a catalyst for the activation of compassion in our hearts & souls & learn to live in the questions of ‘how can I serve?’ & ‘how can I help eliminate suffering?’
2- always remember that the All-good always wins and regardless of pin pricks of violence that are experienced by many on this planet the GOOD far exceeds the appearance of evil. Life always wins! Stay prayerful! Stay Grateful!” — Peace. Dr Rev Michael Bernard Beckwith

May Big Blessings Shower on All our Families!