I’ve been blessed with many great teachers. This week I’ll be doing a Continuum “dive” in honor of movement pioneer Emilie Conrad, who passed several years ago. My Energy Signature includes the Priest - we are notorious for being reluctant inhabitants of a physical body! In my first workshop with her I found joy and freedom in the modality she created. It was a revelation and a way to work with my spinal curvature (a left-right imbalance also relating to the Priest pattern.)
She was at the cutting edge of many disciplines, enlisting collaborators in the arts and healing. I studied with her off and on for over 15 years, and include Continuum movement in all my healing classes. It’s so valuable in understanding and working with energy. Fluids move in the same way as energy – as spirals, waves and in stillness. Changing density and taking on a multitude of forms, water is a shape-shifter just like energy.
Emilie explored consciousness through the human form. She challenged our thinking and awareness of what’s possible, and how we limit our experience. Setting up a vibration in the body through toning, then allowing yourself to be spontaneously moved by the sound waves, takes you into areas of your physiology you were unaware of. Our daily range of motion is actually very restricted, defined by the same few repetitive movements.
She died of lung cancer that metastasized to her brain. As a young professional dancer, she smoked cigarettes (like many ballerinas did in those days to keep their weight down.) She declined traditional medical care and outlived her prognosis by months, allowing for time to spend with her co-teachers and students in a last series of classes. Even with co-teachers she was still front and center, taking the lead and amazingly coherent and present. Being in the Continuum field was the best medicine for her.
As she passed, in Soul Dialog I saw her with an armful of flowers, a big cruise ship behind her, throwing kisses as everyone said “bon voyage.” A strong and forceful personality, she loved her students and was much beloved in return. Her classes were intimate, the work an opening – of the body, feelings, and to the cosmic intelligence available to us all. We release thoughts and move with the pure experience of being connected to everything through our shared energy field. In Continuum we are dissolving form and creating something new and unexpected moment to moment.
At the age of 80 Emilie was so vibrant I thought I had many more years with her. Her death reminded me to spend as much time with my teachers as I can, now. Once someone has left the earth plane they are still available, but it’s a different kind of relationship. For many years she came to my classes in spirit form for Continuum – still a class junkie, even from the other side!
Her many collaborators will continue to expand on her work relative to their various fields, but no one will replace Emilie. She was constantly pushing the envelope of consciousness, developing revolutionary theories of how we are shaped by culture, society, thought and movement. Her contribution was enormous, and I will miss her, always!
Peace, love and healing -
Bear
For more information about Continuum Movement, visit continuummovement.com
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