Verena Baldinger, Büdingen, Germany

Verena, you work as an executive coach. How did you get into dance meditation?

My sister Gitti is a belly dancer, and I spent a weekend belly dancing with her. One evening, when our hips were on fire, she danced with us to “Can I Come As I Am?” by Nanni Kloke. Gitti was part of Friedel’s first training group in Germany. That dance was the moment I was hooked. But it took another eight years before I finally managed to free up the time in my professional life to dance with Friedel—and that was only because someone told me Friedel wanted to stop. Deeply afraid of missing out on her, I signed up immediately, without any prior experience, directly for the training program.

How has dancing inspired you? 

Even if it sounds corny, it saved me. My job as a coach and workshop leader in the business world was so tightly scheduled that even I had become stuck in a staccato rhythm, constantly checking off to-do lists. Meditation through dance restored my sense of softness, of letting go, of flowing.

Has dance meditation changed anything in your life or had an impact on your professional work?

In any case, a great deal. The meditation of dance carried me through when my daughter became seriously ill and when my marriage fell apart. Despite such blows of fate, I became much more balanced and confident. You couldn’t possibly write down as much gratitude as I feel inside. Before, I tried to handle everything on my own; through the meditation of dance, I learned how well I can dance along without needing to know much, carried by the energy of the other dancers and feeling safe within a group. This made my work easier and more spontaneous; I trusted myself and my instincts much more, following the motto: if you don’t have everything under control, you have your hands free for what truly matters.

Is there a dance or choreography that is particularly important to you?

Over the course of 20 years of meditation with the Sufis, I was introduced to the Dances of Universal Peace and was completely captivated by their profound symbolism. Yet I also found myself somewhat bored by the mundane steps. I felt that something was missing—the dance itself. All the dances of the MdT are much more interesting from a dance perspective, and many are truly artistic, creating images and mandalas with the body.

If I had to choose a favorite dance—and I have to, because there are so many beautiful ones—then it would be “The Path” by Saskia, with its winding path and loops, or any of Friedel’s dances that celebrate that one moment of elevation. So if I can only name one, I’ll choose Friedel’s “The Rose.” The dance ends with that moment of elevation, and honestly, I’d like to stay on my tiptoes forever. But physically, I can’t, and besides, the dance is over ?.

Dancing teaches me so much about the earthly, about letting go, and about transience. “In the midst of life, we are surrounded by death,” says Wolfgang Schmidbauer, and it was only through dance that I truly understood this sentence. And also how wonderful life becomes through this realization, which at first sounds so terrible.

You meet a lot of people. What is important to you in this context that you’d like to share with us—for example, a vision, an idea, an image, a song, or a text?

What matters most to me is the connection of the heart that we humans are capable of. Sometimes I feel like a Trojan horse in the business world; no matter what the seminar is titled—leadership, teamwork, change, or whatever—the point is to reconnect people with their hearts, so that they themselves know what they want to do and what is right.

I’d like to end this with a poem by Hilde Domin that really touches me. Hilde Domin was a friend of my mother’s—and, incidentally, the bane of my childhood. Today, I deeply admire her poems and her as well.

For me, it means “soaked to the core.” MdT encompasses every part of this poem and grounds me in my heart.

We are immersed
and washed by the waters of the Flood
We are drenched
right down to the pericardium

The longing for the landscape
on this side of the border of tears
is of no use
the longing to hold on to the spring blossoms
the longing to be spared
is of no use

The prayer is fitting:
that at sunrise the dove
may bring the branch from the olive tree
that the fruit may be as colorful as the flower
that even the rose petals on the ground
may form a radiant crown

and that we are delivered from the flood
that we are delivered from the lions’ den and the fiery furnace
ever more wounded and ever more healed
time and again
to ourselves
we are set free.

Hilde Domin

Verena, thank you so much for sharing your experiences with us.