Earth Rhythm Sacred Dance
Music has also been prevalent in my many environments. So many genres and styles and tempos and flavors. The people that I’ve encountered over the years have also influenced my musical taste, which is, like my decorating style, broadly eclectic. If I hear it or see it, I can feel it in my body. If it feels good, it stays and helps decorate my soul.
My life so far has been blessed with many teachers, most don’t even realize their luminous effect on the mosaic that is me. I believe that every person, every animal, every tree has something to teach. I believe we all learn from each other and that we are all valuable and worthy of sharing parts of ourselves. My gratitude is endless to the beautiful souls who have flowed into and out of my life for those experiences have brought me to where I am today.
Right now I am a woman who loves passionately, cries easily, laughs quickly, and randomly breaks out in song lyrics or movie quotes. I am also a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a JourneyDance™ facilitator, a sacred dance facilitator, a certified crystal healer, a scrapbooking devotee, a doer and lover of all things creative, and a lover of our Mama Earth. My passion for learning has connected me to some wonderfully gifted teachers of dance, yoga, reflexology, Reiki, Angelic Healing, the Divine Feminine, art therapy, aromatherapy, and herbology, crystal therapy, and shamanism. I’m eternally grateful that they willingly shared their knowledge. In turn, I share with others what I've learned. It’s what feeds my soul and makes me happy to be of service and to engage in the rhythm of paying it forward.
My love of exploration began after my mom and I moved to the US Virgin Islands in 1973. The land was much different than what I was used to in Massachusetts. The plants and trees, the critters that roamed as freely as I did, the smell & feel of the salty moist air, the bright colors everywhere; it all felt so alive! My six-year-old self loved and appreciated all of it and made it a habit to explore my environment whenever I could, which was often.
As years passed by, new environments were available to me to explore. There were always things to notice that Nature offered. No matter what part of the continent I lived, I tended to give some attention to the flora and fauna around me. Even now, living in Pennsylvania, I have even greater admiration. See, here, there are four seasons which means Earth’s cycle of birth to death to renewal is so much more evident, so much more in your face. You cannot help but see it. It’s an amazing rhythm.
About Kelly Thomke
I am a dancer, a lover of creative and expressive arts, and a tree hugger from way back. My yoga practice led me to JourneyDance™ where things started to make sense. As I floated through the room during my first dance led by Toni Bergins, JourneyDance™ creator, my body remembered, “I’m a dancer! I love to dance!” And so, at the age of forty-four with a husband and three children, my journey began.
For me, JourneyDance™ has been a spark to re-ignite my inner flame that, over the years, had dimmed. My JourneyDance™ practice has enhanced my creativity, it has revitalized my body, and it has given me an avenue to dance through my emotions and really connect with myself, with the people around me, and with our magnificent Earth.
I love how we can lose ourselves in the music, completely surrendering to its rhythms. To move and be moved, without fear and with whatever uneasiness lives within, being held and seen, this is the dance. And when the music stops, we want more. Yeah, it’s that delicious.
My passion is to hold safe and supportive spaces where people of all ages come together to dance and realize their own inner spark and cultivate it so that it grows to a fierce fire of love and compassion to be shared with the world.
