Now and then, I feel this immense gratitude for having met Susannah, Ya'Acov, and Movement Medicine. Truly, one of the great highlights of my life.
Lately, these moments of gratitude have been arriving more frequently—flashes of remembering all I learnt and experienced through The Medicine.
Then one morning last week, I woke up at 3am. Wide awake. Fresh. Ready for the day. Out of nowhere came this crystal-clear knowing: It's time. Time to join the Hub for the first time, and time to resume my Movement Medicine practice.
So I signed up. The night was still and dark, and soon I was dancing, breathing, and grounding again in the Temple of Yang. I spent that early morning bathing in Movement Medicine, and since then, I've been returning each day. I flippin' love it!
A deep, long breath. It feels so good to be back—home. Back in the body of this work that blew me away the first time I met it: its depth, width, and brilliance. Back into myself, my spine, my roots, my heart.
It was love at first taste: Salzburg, 2014, with Susannah.
I wasn't looking for teachers. I was simply open, ready for growth, healing, learning. And then Movement Medicine waltzed into my life. I knew, instantly and with total clarity: that's it. This is what I want to practice.
That knowing has remained in my bones ever since. And it came alive again, this week, in the Temple of Yang.
I love what you've woven and keep creating as the Movement Medicine landscape. It's still my favourite teacher. So well done. So brilliantly stitched together. So deeply embodied, rooted, and delivered with such love and power. You two rock!
Opening that Study Hub welcome video with you both felt like the three of us were in my lounge together. And oh, the sound of that drum intro and outro—OMG. It pierced me, somewhere between a call and a confirmation: Yes, this is the place. I replayed it over and over, drinking in that sound-signature of Movement Medicine.
Food tastes especially good after a fast. It seems the same is true for me with MM. That first taste after time away—so rich, so nourishing.
Sitting with Death
There's more. Movement Medicine has also been my companion in moments of deep encounter with death.
I often remember the burial experience with Ya'Acov, and the great gift it gave me: knowing how to sit down and have a cuppa with death.
Recently, with people close to me dying suddenly and unexpectedly, death has been very present. A true wake-up call. And what I learnt through that burial piece has been so, so valuable.
One June day, Death and I sat together again. We talked sincerely. We laughed.
"Hanna," Death asked, with piercing curiosity,
"what's the most important to you?
What do you want to be, do, express before you leave?"
I knew in an instant.
And so I created a solo performance: humanimal – a love song to the earth. A weaving of my arts—viola, song, dance, words, poetry, even the art of lovemaking with life itself. An offering of the deepest love and devotion I know: my love for the earth and for creation.
It was fun. It took all my courage. And it was incredible on so many levels.
To die without sharing this piece would have felt wrong, incomplete. Now, having shared it, I feel a deep peace inside me about death.
I love death.
I love life.
So much.
And I am profoundly grateful for all I have learnt from you, Ya'Acov and Susannah.
✨Hanna's story is a testament to the depth and power of Movement Medicine: the dance of life, the embrace of death, and the unshakeable love that connects us to the earth and to ourselves.
