Arching Backward is the story of an American woman who found herself suddenly and violently immersed in a mystical initiation for which she was not consciously prepared. For four years, Janet Adler's life was dominated by the transforming experience of a primal energy and the visions that were created by it. She was not seeking spiritual experience, nor was she a student of any particular mystical tradition. But the visions brought her into the realm of the sacred, transforming her body into a conduit for spiritual energy. The writings collected here record her visions and describe the way this contemporary woman dealt with the impact of this energy on her physical body, her work, and her relationships. Her story offers a guide for others on this journey and provides a powerful affirmation of women's experience of the spirit.
WOMEN'S STUDIES / SPIRITUALITY "Janet Adler has given us a riveting testimony of a fifteen-year-long process of whole-bodied awakening. I have never read anything to match the honesty, immediacy, and grace of witnessing, and I have no doubt that Arching Backward will become a classic in the literature of the sacred." --Sherry Anderson, coauthor of The Feminine Face of God "These stark and startling visions, fiery emblems of what we have wrought, have been borne forth bravely in a time when, because of human destruction, we hover between life and death." --Susan Griffin, author of A Chorus of Stones and The Eros of Everyday Life "The ancients tell of an eternal song, an eternal fire that silences the mind, cracks open the heart, reveals the mystery of birth and death. Janet sings us this song with the blood and fire of her own experience, beautifully." --Jack Kornfield, author of A Path With Heart "Arching Backward is an eloquent and lyrical prose poem, riveting testimony from a modern mystic. Janet Adler offers this narrative of her extraordinary journey traversing territory both intensely intimate and primordial, luminous and transcendent. This is a heroine's mythic journey, as fascinating as it is mysterious." --Daniel Goleman, author of The Meditative Mind Arching Backward is the story of an American woman who found herself suddenly and violently immersed in a mystical initiation for which she was not consciously prepared. For four years, Janet Adler's life was dominated by the transforming experience of a primal energy and the visions that were created by it. She was not seeking spiritual experience, nor was she a student of any particular mystical tradition. But the visions brought her into the realm of the sacred, transforming her body into a conduit for spiritual energy. The writings collected here record her visions and describe the way this contemporary woman dealt with the impact of this energy on her physical body, her work, and her relationships. Her story offers a guide for others on this journey and provides a powerful affirmation of women's experience of the spirit. JANET ADLER teaches Authentic Movement in retreat settings, universities, and institutes in the United States and in Europe. She has created two films: Looking For Me, documenting her work with autistic children in the 1960's, and Still Looking, a film reflecting the evolution of her work in Authentic Movement.
"Her numerous visions are spread out through the book like so many Tarot cards or photographs with no explanation. The effect is akin to walking through an abstract art gallery. One emerges with a nebulous sense of nerve-jangling impressions, which may be just what Adler, with her austere artistic temperament, intended."
