Today I Danced
by Gloria KrasnoToday I danced.
The drums played and my body joined in, swirling and swaying and shaking out the past.
This has been happening as far back as I can recall. If the radio was tuned in to music during dinnertime in Mom and Daddy's kitchen, little Gloriann left her food untouched on the plate, and danced.
Today I danced in the aisles at Temple, along with radiant teenagers and trim health-club mothers, drawing in yesterday's silver-haired ladies to take their turn. Today I danced, after attending the Memorial Service in the chapel of the hospital where I work as a chaplain, a service honoring those lost during the past months. It included the name of my beloved Myron, treasured husband for fifty-four years.
This dancing spirit has carried me through so many adventures in my seventy-four years, culminating in a recent U.S. Postal Service award, entitled, Women Putting Their Stamp on Metro Milwaukee. No, it was not for dancing! The award in the category of "Religion" honored my work in Chaplaincy and in the Caring for the Soul program of the Mental Health Association. I think of it as orchestrating education and services, to blend the lives and skills of persons with mental illness into the fabric of their faith communities.
My dance is by no means a solo act. Let me tell you some of its elements. "Ahead of my time" is a phrase I've been hearing a lot lately. In my time, students followed a given course; yoga was an unknowable Eastern folly; women were not chaplains; spirituality had not yet made the best seller book lists. And so, when Caren, child number four, was hospitalized at 6 months with a raging fever called encephalitis, and given up for death's call, I asked my grandma Chaia for help to save her greatgranddaughter, her namesake. That saving event created a new dance, onethat has become a legacy for my family and community.
Caren needed help in recovery. I learned to do massage. I danced and chanted away the times she fell with seizures. Yoga breathing and postures became my dance with Caren, with family, and then with the community. Classes drew me to study and teach yoga. My husband and six children learned to love vegetables and even tofu (though often disguised). Weekly meditation sessions at our home were free-flowing with ideas from every culture and always included massage. The dance continued, whether to Indian tablas or Native American drums.
What a dance! I danced right into Reb Zalman's teachings and Spiritual Eldering, growing older if not wiser.
I will leave dancing - maybe not ballroom, that needs a partner. Maybe not belly dancing, or at least not publicly, but no matter what the task or where the spirit leads, I want to dance it and I want to invite people to dance it with me.
This is my favorite theme - I chant it for classes, for patients, for my soul: Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Just walk beside me and be my companion. Your hand in my hand is what I need.
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 Gloria Krasno is Chaplain and Director of Caring for the Soul of the Mental Health Association in Milwaukee County, Minnesota (a program that provides links for faith communities to consumers of mental health services and their providers). She is a mother of six, a grandmother, mentor, midwife to soul-seekers, Kabbalist scholar, guide, and lecturer. She enjoys dancing, drumming, yoga, writing poetry, playing the piano and meditating. |
