Anna Mintzer, Independent Licensed Ishtara Teacher

The ultimate magic is you.  It was you all along.

 

I have always felt a deep longing to truly know myself.  From a very young age, as far back as I can remember, I aligned with my artist soul and creative spirit.  I grew up constantly creating—performing, singing, writing, dancing, painting, imagining… Somewhere in all that play, in trying on personas of different characters, I yearned to be known; as me, by me.  What would life look like then?  How far could my creative life force reach?  How many people could recognize their own aliveness in mine?  Without perhaps comprehending it at the time, I dreamed of being a contribution to the collective remembrance of who we really are: all of it; limitless; love; light; dark; magic; medicine; we, who can hold rupture and rapture; we, who are all connected; we, who have existing within us the whole night sky and all the stars in it.

 

Through the years, in this inquiry of “who am I, really?” I looked outside myself for answers.  I gave much of my power away to external sources, often allowing reflections and assessments that were not my own to overshadow my innate inner-guidance.  Self-trust became cloudier and a thing of mystery; that voice of my unbounded little girl artist became leashed and harder to hear as the voice of comparison and perfectionism grew louder, masking itself as truth.  Yet, even during the times when I felt the most lost, the most tamed, my heart held a deep knowing that under all the layers of illusion my purpose and magic lay in wait, and I would feel my power, my self, stir with life beneath the surface. 

 

My body was patient with me, so patient, as I was so mean to her, abandoned her, shamed her; she waited until I received and followed each ping lighting up my path as she led me to teachers and mentors who saw me (and supported me in seeing myself) past the illusions, who stood for me getting to live a life beyond my wildest dreams, who helped me unlock my body's own inherent genius.

 

The work of Ishtara is so much more than a movement practice to me.  While it has gently and wondrously healed so many of my body stories, including mending my relationship with dance after growing up in classes that often fed my own critical body expectations and pressures, it has also touched every aspect of my life.  It is balm for simply living in a human body.  It has opened the floodgates of my authentic expression.  It has deepened my capacity to be in presence, relationship, and co-creation with my body and therefore all of life.  It has connected me to the deepest parts of myself and acquainted me with my miraculous body in ways that continue to grow me, support my unfolding, and set me free.

 

I am so excited to meet you on the path and reintroduce you to your miraculous body.

 

I am devoted to your magnificent homecoming.  As a teacher of the Ishtara Method, I am committed to holding a safe container, rich for exploration and full of permission for truth, reflection, and beauty (in every sense, in all its forms) with love and compassion.  I will meet you in the dark, I will meet you in the light.  It is a profound honor to hold this space as a guide, as a woman in the river with you, and as a mirror to reflect back the ultimate magic that is you—that was you all along.