This art featured in my memoir, Incandescence: Rising Above Darkness is included as a moment of serenity between chapters and does not necessarily have any literal connection to the story.
Incandescence: Rising Above Darkness Excerpt Chapter #44 Cranes On The Cliffs Of Moher In County Clare
Art is my way to find the good in everything. Creativity is how I process pain. While drawing, writing, designing, dancing, gliding, spinning, I feel free—flying without wings. Instinctively, I knew that creativity could carry me through challenges. Expression of emotion stimulates the immunological system.
When I discovered dance therapy was a profession, I felt it was a way I could be of service to the world. Catharsis, through creative movement, carried me through much adversity. The prospect of guiding others to this gift felt right.
I fasted in solitude in the woods for three days without distractions to write my degree plan so I could find my most authentic curiosity to commit to studying. I called my degree plan, “The Study of Movement.” It was all about expressing feelings through creativity for its intrinsic healing qualities.
When I shared my degree plan with my advisors, they said they did not understand it, but they trusted it. I asked them, “How can you trust it if you do not understand it?”
They said, “You understand it, and we trust you!”
While walking to the next class through downtown San Francisco, I passed by many struggling people who were homeless, addicted, mentally unstable, emotionally wounded, confused, and lost. With each one I passed, a weight increased on my chest. By the time I got to class, it was difficult to breathe or move. I was glad it was my turn to lay on the floor. I heard the teacher talking, but his words were without meaning to me. I couldn’t think of anything but all the suffering people I passed on the way to the class. I felt immense sadness. Without making any sound, I said, “Help me not turn away from the pain of others but not be crushed by it.” I didn’t know what or who I prayed to. I never have had certainty about this, but it does not matter. I trust the mysterious magnificence of the universe, and that is enough.
After silently asking the ineffable for help, tears rolled down my cheeks. I felt a sudden powerful shift. In the moment, I felt my cells separate, allowing more space between every molecule of my being. I could feel the music move the hair on my arms and then pass through my body. I became aware I was not solid. My body did not have a distinct edge but combined with everything surrounding it—the entire universe. I understood I was connected to and part of everything. The sounds in the room were gone, and I looked down without opening my eyes and saw I was dancing barefoot on sharp rocks. As soon as I felt the sensation of pain on the bottom of my feet, I looked down again, and I had bird feet. Weightless on the rocks, I felt no pain. As I moved closer to the edge of the cliff, a warm wind lifted me effortlessly as I opened my large wings. Soaring along the stone edge, I did not flap; the thermals carried me. Tilting my body slightly, I flowed toward or away from the cliff’s edge that dropped straight down to the ocean. Waves lapped against the stone cliff with a constant powerful rhythm.
Clare Cooley
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