Joan entered hospice four months ago. Several Kairos dancers came to her bedside one evening. There was one dance that Joan loved–”Wade in the Water”.  It seemed a perfect dance for her transition into the next world.  Maria, Peter, Jesse, Georgiana and I created a tight circle around Joan’s bed, we pushed the CD player, and each of us with Joan so, so thin under her thick covers, looking heavenly– began to dance, together, synchronized, our arms moving lyrically, as water.  The room filled with presence.  We breathed, we cried and we danced.  What a perfect last dance.

We will miss you Joan.

Carla

Romeo has been coming to Dancing Heart sessions for three years and has exhibited a knack for sharing love with humans of all ages and abilities. Sometimes  Romeo would be just the right bribe needed to get a particularly stoic gentleman to join our dance circle. However, Romeo was unable to go to all of our sites because he was not a certified therapy dog. But that is no longer the case.

We’re happy to announce that Romeo has graduated and been certified as an official therapy dog. This will allow him to participate in Dancing Heart sessions at the V.A. Adult Day Program where I’m sure he will be very popular!

Upon graduation Romeo received a bright red kerchief  reading “Paws a while for Love” which he wears with pride.

Thanks to trainer Lynne Silvis at The Canine Coach.

Dancing Heart participants have been thinking over the words of Dr. Martin Luther King this week and offering some thoughts of their own. One man got a hitch in his voice singing “We Shall Overcome” after recounting how his own father, a banker, lost everything in 1929 and wasn’t able to earn a dime to support his family for three years. A woman recounted trying to make ends meet as a single mom with five kids in the early 60′s.

Words of wisdom poured out:  ”Love God, love one another, ACT that way”, “Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional”, “Do what you can with what you have.”

People from all walks of life shared movement, music, and emotion as we shared the widespread human experience of finding the stone of hope in a mountain of despair.

Yesterday, Kairos teaching artists, intergenerational dance company, staff, volunteers and our long-time supporter Nancy Rayfield joined our favored musical collaborators, Irv Williams (sax), Peter Schimke (piano) and Billy Peterson (bass guitar) to help VA Adult Day participants, family members, staff and volunteers celebrate the holidays with music, dance, presents and treats.

We have been bringing our Warrior Dancing Heart program to the Adult Day in Richfield, Minnesota since July, but this is the first time we got to be part of a holiday celebration. Irv and the guys began playing “Let it Snow” with folks sitting and listening. You know me; I can’t just sit there and listen to dance music so I started swaying and clapping my hands and then before you know it I asked Steve to dance. He gave me a smile and slowly raised himself out of the chair. We started dancing in the back and within a minute I looked around and the room was full of people dancing; Vets dancing with their wives, family members, staff, volunteers and Kairos performers. The room was hopping!  I had thought we would have the band play two numbers and then we would begin our short performance. Instead, I kept asking the band to play one more – I wanted this room full of smiling, laughing dancers of all ages and abilities to just keep dancing.

Afterward after more dancing, a performance by Kairos performers, which included Eva, 2 years, Jack, 6 years and Chloe, 9 years and our three new dancers who have emigrated from Russia and the Ukraine, Ludmilla, Irina and Ludmilla. After Jack and Chloe helped hand presents out, photos with Santa taken and many cookies eaten, I asked a staff member if a year ago they would have had a room full of dancing soldiers and their friends. She shook her head no. “No, the other year we had an orchestra and everyone just sat like this:” she pantomimed sitting with a slump. This was great. You guys are great.”

The feeling is mutual. I never guessed the impact that this program would have on me. You guys are great: thank-you for opening your hearts to us. Thank you, VA staff for welcoming us and joining in our dancing and storytelling. And thank you dear family members; you are the unsung heroines and heroes.

May this coming New Year also bring you joy. Please don’t forget to keep on dancing!

Merry Christmas!

- Maria

Kairos’ The Dancing Heart™ has been having some great intergenerational sessions involving Adam’s Elementary students and Sholom Home East adult day participants in St. Paul. Kairos Teaching Artist Parker Genné has been working with students who read the book “Trudy” about a middle school student whose father has Alzheimer’s and is considerably older than her fellow students’ fathers.

As with everything at Kairos, we begin with dance. Dance is  the gateway in working with both young and old so we thought the adults and students meeting would begin by dancing together. In order to do that, Parker began by leading the students in a Dancing Heart, warming up the body, grooving to music by Hank Balland and tackling swing dancing.

When we decided the students and elders would meet each other we had no idea how deeply they would connect nor how power the impact of this experience would have on all of our lives. Having grown up at a different time with different expectations for boys, I’m happy to report our culture seems to have grown stronger in the area of boys expressing themselves through dance!

In addition to dancing, the students asked a lot of questions about the elders’ life experiences.

• Arnold shared how he entertained himself as a boy in Romania by playing “table top soccer” with buttons.
• Harold explained the nuances of “mumblepeg”, a game played with a jack-knife.
• Marie talked about cutting out paper dolls and their dresses with scissors. Lots of hands both young and old went up when we asked who in the room had done the same.

I’m also happy to report that the stories shared among the participants are impacting their lives. Relationships have formed. Parker is now passing notes between the young boys and Arnold.

After the session a young girl insisted on giving Marie her necklace. Marie’s glow showed that innocent joy of receiving a precious gift is available at any age.

~Peter~

Many thanks to John Simpson for his sensitivity, artistry and vision in creating “This Is Kairos“.

We welcome your thoughts. . .

He is heading to a facility that can give him good 24 hour care. Today all of us at our Dancing Heart session at the VA honored him with an award from our “hearts.” We thanked him for bringing to us his love of music – from Ray Charles to Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley to Hank Ballard. He reminded us “that there is nothing more beautiful in the world then music.” We reminded him that he will always remain in our hearts – and that his love of music will continue to inspire us. We danced a “dance” that we had choreographed to a Hank Ballard tune – inspired by his musical musings. Our last song, “Thank you, Thank you for this Great Big Love” by Barbara McAfee was dedicated to him.  We will miss him and we know that his legacy of loving music will continue to nourish our dancing circles.

Maria

At each of our Dancing Heart™ sessions we have been asking the questions:

How do you make do with less?
How did you survive the Depression?

Below are a few of the “jewels” we received from our elder friends at the Struthers Parkinson’s Center:

Ken: Most of us kids had a paper route. We would deliver The Guardian; my brother delivered the Saturday Evening Post. Once we got all our change, we would joyously dump all the money on to the dining room table!

Bill: We were farmers. I would wake up at 5 am and three of my siblings and I would milk eighteen cows. Let me tell you there was a lot of squeezing! Then we went to school. After school there were the chores to do and that is where I would make a little money. My mother took in chickens; she then took the eggs and traded them for sugar or flour. My mother was always busy at night; she would mend clothes, braid rugs and quilt. She worked till she went to bed.

Julie: We have to remember that it wasn’t just in the 30’s that people were struggling. In the 1990’s as a single mother with five children I struggled. I received immense assistant from the community without that I don’t know what would have happened.

That morning I witnessed the power of storytelling in action. Each person needed to remember and retell these events. And as the listener we needed to receive their wisdom, their challenge.

One theme became apparent – As our world changes—we all need each other—we can’t do it alone.

Buddy, can you spare a dime. . .I invite you to share your thoughts on how you make do with less. How have you survived during economic difficulties…

Carla

At our Deer Crest Dancing Heart site in Red Wing, Minnesota we are blessed to have a “resident writer”. Phil has been writing stories and essays for many years. Tuesday he shared the following with the group.

Think About Words

The words we use are indispensable ingredients for our day-to-day living; essential tools for writers and speakers. We rely on them, but how often do we take time to consider them? Words carelessly selected are soon forgotten, but words carefully chosen may be long remembered and endowed with magical powers to transcend time and space. The choices are ours.

Words in a dictionary are inert, quick frozen as it were, for our inspection and selection. They thaw out and come to life when we string them together in sentences to communicate our ideas, express our emotions and describe the scenes we have seen. The life they receive from the author can live on long after the writer has left this worldly scene. Now and again, we should reflect on how others have used words in just the right order to transcend time and space.

Like other tools we use, words are inert until we use them for good or ill. If properly used, they can help build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. If maliciously or carelessly used, they can generate hatred and set up barriers to communication and understanding.

Words and still more words, standing for this, describing that or meaning the other—a growing array of words to serve our needs. Select and use them with care and, from time to time, take time to enjoy them and admire the color and magic they give to life.

After Phil read his essay I asked the group to share a word that they loved. Carol said she loved the word “patience”. One by one participants shared anecdotes of when they were patient and when they were impatient.

“Waiting for my family to come to my house for dinner—they were often late!”

“I played on a baseball team, I learned patience working my other teammates.”

I looked around the room at this wonderful circle of wise elders– imagining their lives full of patient and impatient tales. I thought of my morning so far and how many times I was impatient and wondering where I could be more patient.

As a group we all took a deep breath in and together we whispered the word—“patience”. Celebrating the power of the word in our life!

Carla

I have been working with Kairos doing Dancing Heart™ sessions for two years now. I have been blessed to have this opportunity to connect with human beings who are in the later stage of life. It has been a wonderful time for me, a time to see what seems to matter most to people who have lived many more decades than myself. What strikes me as a common denominator for most of these folks is their ability to grab hold of the present moment.

Gratitude pours out of their hearts through eye contact and expressions of thankfulness for our time spent together, dancing and telling stories. Most of them are just plain glad to be alive.

As expressed by one of our friends, who possesses a wonderful sense of humor, when asked what makes him feel good, he said, “I feel good when I read the obituary and I’m not in it!”

I have learned that there is truly always something to be grateful for. No matter where life takes us, we have the present moment, and if we really smile at that moment, it will always smile back…

Nancy