Chapters

Dancing into the Light is a heartwarming memoir that captures one woman’s transformative journey of self-discovery by making peace with a family at once extremely dysfunctional, yet oddly endearing. As a child, her troubling interaction with her depressed mother coexisted with the affection she held for her happy-go-lucky father. With little guidance from either parent, Arlyn was left to fend for herself.

A series of fateful events, from taking off in the family car at age twelve to exotic dancing in a carnival, uprooted Arlyn from this childhood world and into a progressive boarding school. Later she traveled to Israel in the aftermath of the Six Day War. There she fell in love with a Swedish man and moved to his native land. A meeting with a college professor, and their subsequent marriage, set Arlyn down the path of Buddhist practice. Making a pilgrimage to India, they received teachings from Tibetan Buddhist masters and Arlyn undertook the rigorous study of Indian classical dance. The Buddhist teachings, along with her ongoing love of dance sustained her as she experienced heart-rending challenges along the way.

Throughout this engaging and courageous tale, Arlyn never wavers from looking inward, facing her demons, and using adversity as a path to develop greater wisdom and compassion. It is a redemptive tale of love and loss that will leave no
reader unmoved.