Poem for Aileen by Lucy Mahler

 I love Aileen's

Harpo smile that lights up her face, her eyes, and the atmosphere all around.

It's totally infectious.

Her Laughing playful nature

Her Attentive witness

The total love and focus and curiosity and play with which she can unwind and unearth any part of herself.

Her absolute belief in the creative outcome.

And most of all, how much fun love and superb surprise we share when together we go into our unloved, unwanted, unknown, unrealized and potentially powerful traumatized parts that yearn to Dance and be liberated through ART.

Sitting here waiting for my mamogram results I am with the strong memory of Aileen dancing with me through a year of breast cancer treatments, and I am smiling now as a result.

Aileen Crow for the AM Birthday Blog by Paula Gallagher

I first met Aileen Crow in 1983. I was a young dancer in NYC at the time and was beginning to branch out from the modern dance world into what was to become a life long passion, the art of Middle Eastern Belly Dance. I was also just discovering a variety of movement therapies that were gaining popularity and I was interested in training as a teacher of the Alexander technique.

One afternoon while walking on the Upper West Side with my boyfriend, we stopped in front of Aileen’s studio. “You should meet this woman,” he said to me “because she always wears purple.”

I scheduled my first session with Aileen and it was love, light and delight at first sight. We waved and undulated and danced together with such joy and enthusiasm. Aileen connected with the essence of who I am and encouraged and nurtured my growth and creative expression in ways that no one else ever has. Her Alexander teachers training program was one of the richest experiences of my life and that was only the beginning of my magical journey with Aileen Crow.

Aileen continues to “surprise and delight” me with her ever evolving creative spirit. She inspires me to be true to myself and live my life with curiosity, creativity and ecstasy.

I love you Aileen, Happy Happy Birthday!

Paula Gallagher

For Aileen’s 88th birthday by Eva Karczag

Aileen, you have been teaching and inspiring me since our very first meeting some three decades ago, when the touch of your hand on my chest opened a flood of feelings that astonished me, especially since your immediate perception of what was going on inside my emotional, as well as physical being was absolutely right on. In the years since, you have invited me to play and share touch and moving, to become your friend as well as your student, to learn from you and dialog with you with utmost generosity.

The longer we know each other, the more you continue to amaze me, teach me, encourage, support and inspire me through the example of your unceasing curiosity and inexhaustible enthusiasm for absorbing the many facets of life inside and around you, through your capacity to stretch the fabric of your knowledge and understanding and extend it limitlessly, through your ability to make connections and weave multiple systems and ideas into excitingly different paradigms, through the way you delight in finding the humorous, and through the absolute joy with which you meet living. You model for me liveliness and abundance as woman, teacher, friend and human being. Thank you.

I wish you a wondrous 88^th birthday.

With love always,

Eva

Reflection on Inspiration: A Lasting Impression of Aileen Crow by Jayda Cooke

 

I met Aileen through my grandmother, Tommie Cooke. We would go and have cookies and tea and work on our “sub” personalities. On one particular occasion I had just gotten out of a rough relationship with an equally tumultuous breakup. There has also been a rainstorm and Aileen’s lovely front yard was bright with sunshine and flowers, but also wet and strewn with leaves and branches from the passing storm. As we sat in her kitchen letting the sunshine flow over us we meditated on our subs, letting them speak to us so that we could draw them out and put them into physical form. Suddenly I burst out laughing. I realized that I had experienced a hurricane- my ex was a hurricane! He tore my life apart, leaving me with a broken, soaking wet heart. But, I suddenly saw the calm and beauty that arrives after a storm; the sunshine on the dripping leaves, falling through the dripping water, healing all the broken bits with new life and energy and love. Aileen and my grandmother and my sister (who had come along as well) were the sunshine I needed upon my face and my heart. I laughed so hard and felt such joy. Aileen was so tickled by my reaction and quickly helped me put my experience into physical form. My hurricane “sub” took physical shape as a large doll head with wind-blown whipped hair scattered with leaves and flowers, beauty among destruction. Although I live too far to visit with Aileen I try to take a moment to reflect on my subs and myself when life become particularly frustrating.

Cruciferously yours,
Jayda Cooke
Nutrition Management
College of Health Science and Technology
Rochester Institute of Technology