Poetry writing – including a poem about the meeting with her birthmother in 1984 – continued until she was 50, after which her creative energy became almost dormant for a decade. When, quite unexpectedly, it re-emerged, it was through choreography for circle dance groups. This is now Jenny’s passion and she is grateful for the influence of her main teachers: Julie Bell and Chrisandra Harris in Nottingham, Judith and Raymond Thompson in Exeter and Val Dawes in rural Devon, who leads workshops for those who love Friedel Kloke Eibl’s dances in particular. Recently, Jenny has embarked on a 3-year course run by Friedel and her daughter, Saskia. This opportunity to study the deeper aspects of dance has arrived at just the right time, as a 7-year course of healing through sound comes to an end.
Jenny sees all circle dance as an opportunity to integrate mind, body and spirit: to heal the individual, the community and the wider world. She first came to it in 1996 while beginning to recover from her third bout of severe depressive illness. The music she uses is widely varied and she believes that there is no real divide between the sacred and the secular: if music – of whatever kind – touches her heart and inspires her to create a dance, that in itself is to be honoured.
Jenny now lives in Exmouth, Devon, with her husband, Noel; here, by the sea, she finds the energy much more conducive to creativity than it was in the city. In the last few years, she has begun to write poetry again - and regularly illustrates her poems, both old and new, for the eco-journal GreenSpirit. She is also an experienced Reiki practitioner - and a somewhat less experienced comic actor. Besides having a son, Alex, who is married and lives in Nottingham, she is the owner of an adult tricycle, Triksi.
