When Ya’Acov Darling Khan was 22, he was struck by lightning. Dazed, but otherwise unharmed, he came to on the grass where he had been playing golf as a summer storm closed in. Later he would come to see this near-death experience as his summons to the sacred path of the shaman.
After 30 years — and a grueling apprenticeship with indigenous healers in the Arctic and the Amazon, Darling Khan, along with his wife, Susannah, have built a global following for their School of Movement Medicine in England. The call to action? To reboot your life and begin healing emotional pain by surrendering to the beat of Darling Khan’s drum. This involves tuning into the silent promptings of your body and gyrating, swaying or leaping like they did in Paleolithic times.
“There’s an incredible feeling — a creativity, an energy, a life force — that’s awakened in people when they simply allow themselves to be moved by rhythm,” Darling Khan says via Zoom from his home in the English county of Devon, where drums acquired on his travels adorn the walls. “We’ve developed a very down-to-earth, practical way to connect with that innate intelligence — and be in community as we’re doing it.”
While ecstatic dance has been around for eons, Darling Khan’s work is finding a new and expanding audience as more people question the limits of conventional methods for treating depression, anxiety and trauma.
[To read the rest of this article by Matthew Green, click here.]
[Illustration: LESLIE DELA VEGA/OZY]
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