Anna lives on the slopes of Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, California. When seven women were killed on the mountain over a period of two years [1979-81], she led the community in dance rituals that they collectively created to purify and to reclaim the mountain. Each time Anna began a community workshop/ritual, she had a dream. Anna commented, "I was not conscious of the dream's influence while the dance was being created. It was not until after the dance was completed that I was able to see the connection between the dream and the dance."

Anna shared this dream as the first of many relating to Mount Tamalpais and the killings committed there:

I was clothed in black, walking up a mountain alone on a steep path. As I walked up out of the trees I encountered a very hostile, unseen and powerful force, which I physically sensed as wind. This malevolent force pushed me off of the path down into a ravine. I then decided to take a much longer path which circled the mountain.

During part of my journey I rode a white horse along a stream, dismounting the horse to lead it when the path I was on became very narrow. I went through a tunnel, and then I noticed, near the top of the mountain, an opening. This opening led down into the inside of the mountain. In the room I saw a tribe of tiny people who were dancing a very patterned, ritualistic dance around a fire. The people looked like they were hewn out of the clay of the mountain itself: they were mud-people!

When the people became aware that I was watching, they welcomed me and invited me to join in their dance. As I danced with them in their measured, forceful, and grounded dance, I felt incredibly alive, connected, and whole. I began to feel a very powerful presence emerging from the fire, and a shimmering began to fill the entire cave. The dance became faster and faster and seemed to generate more and more fire and power. Then, all of the dancers were led out of the cave, and together we followed the original path to the place where I had been pushed off. We again came upon the violent force, the wind that had prevented me from passing. But now, enveloped by the group presence, the force was transformed. As a unit we were able to go together to the very top of the mountain, where, once again, we danced.

"It was only after having gained strength from the dance, and proceeding together as a group force, that we were able to transform the frightening power on the path into something positive and sustaining. It was only then that we could go to the very top of the mountain."

Anna commented on the ways in which the dream came to guide the development of a dance ritual that she named In the Mountain:

As a result of this dream--and I only made this association later--I did this dance in a format that I had never before used. I had not performed in an indoor conventional theater in fifteen years, but it seemed absolutely necessary for this dance. I treated the theater as if it was an underground kiva and the stage a circle. The dancers, wearing black and white, ran in a circle to create energy for fifteen minutes as the audience arrived. The pathway into the theater was lighted by candles set in sandbags.

It was only later that I recognized that we were wearing the dream's black- and-white colors, and that we were looking down into the mountain of my dream, seeing the dancers and the fire!

Like in the dream, this unity enabled the performers to confront the killings as fire, danced by Anna herself in a violent and erotic duet in which she and a male partner alternated the roles of both killer and victim. Then all dancers performed both roles, in this way confronting and exorcising the killer within.

Finally, during the dance of regeneration, the spirit of the mountain was invoked and transformed the fire into a healing force.

Following the performance, Anna invited the dancers and viewers to sleep in groups with their heads together to form dream-wheels. The next day the participants shared dreams. Anna commented,

It was amazing how many people had dreams which incorporated the elements of nature. It seemed to me that in the dream-state people were able to assimilate the dance as a personal myth..."

The procession was for the purpose of vanquishing the evil spirit and returning the mountain to the people... A few days after the In and On the Mountain rituals were performed, the murderer was caught!