HEROINES OF THE PATH

My special link to Margaret: Meher Baba's first letter to me (1947) was written in her hand.

I first met "Miss Craske," as her ballet pupils invariably call her, in the fall of 1946, when she arrived from London to take up her position as ballet mistress of Lucia Chase's Ballet Theatre. It was her first job on her return from seven years in India with Baba. . . years that had told on her health. She was not sure she could handle such a position, not only because of her health but because of her long absence from the professional world, her total immersion in the incredible discipline of following the Avatar on His home territory, as part of His intimate Circle. But Baba loves to throw you from one opposite of maya to the other, from absolute seclusion to great worldly activity, just as He alternated His seclusions with His whirlwind public darshan tours and work with the masses.

Margaret was born in Norfolk, England in 1892. Her father was owner of a small coastal fleet. She started studying dance at an early age; and was always very athletic. At 18 she took up ballet and progressed quickly. She studied with the famous Enrico Cecchetti in the private London studio he ran from 1918 to 1923, while he served as teacher for the Diaghilev Ballet Company. She says of Cecchetti, "He was already old when I met him . . . he was a darling . . . he would bend his head and look under his eyes at you as if you were a criminal. And he did occasionally give us a tap with the stick. That's not legal now. He was a very fine teacher. One loved him."

At the end of her study with him, the Maestro gave her a certificate indicating she was qualified to carry on his teaching tradition — a rare honor. Today her own book, The Theory and Practice of Allegro in Classical Ballet (1920), co-authored with critic Cyril Beaumont, is a classic reference on the famed Cecchetti method, and she is considered the world's leading authority.

She danced with the Diaghilev Ballet Company but her performing career ended abruptly with tuberculosis of the Achilles tendon. Thus she took up her incredible career as a teacher. She founded her own ballet school in London in the Thirties. She is philosophical about the loss of a stage career: "I hurt a tendon. I couldn't dance for some time, and then I was getting older . . . so what!" she says now.

In one year she lost five people dear to her — her parents, a teacher, a friend, a sweetheart. In a depressed mood she searched for a place to get away and heard from a casual acquaintance about a retreat in East Challacombe, Devonshire, run by a man named Meredith Starr. When she went down there for a rest, she was much drawn to a photograph of Meredith's spiritual teacher, Shri Meher Baba. Meredith had recently been to His ashram in India and was expecting Him to visit England.

As we all know, Baba came much sooner than expected and the small group of souls drawn to Starr's retreat had the privilege of being the first "aspirants" Baba contacted in the West. They included Mabel Ryan, Margaret's partner in her dance school, Delia de Leon, Kitty Davy, and Kim Tolhurst. Baba nicknamed a small group "Kimco" of which Margaret was a part. They were the "lighthearted" ones, as distinguished from those who were spiritually "serious", addicted to long hours of meditation, etc.

Margaret met Baba at the home of Kitty Davy in London. It was she who first opened the door for Him. At that moment, she saw Him as "a vision of gentleness, grace and love that touched the heart immeasurably." At the end of that momentous day, she says, "I only knew that from that moment, whatever rough treatment He may have afterwards handed out, there has never been a moment's doubt as to His being the embodiment of Love and life."

In 1933 Baba called a group of women to India to be with Him permanently. Margaret gave up her ballet school to go. But they were all sent back in a few weeks. She reopened the school and continued teaching, taking part however in Baba's many trips to the West. She describes some of the episodes in her delightful book of reminiscences The Dance of Love.

In one amusing incident at Portofino, she went out on the terrace to enjoy the moonlight, peeked in the window, and scared her roommates silly, who took her for a ghost. When told the story, Baba said, "There's one thing I admire about my Western disciples (pause) — their courage!" Once, on the train to Marseilles, Baba, whose compartment adjoined Margaret's, said He would tap on the wall 3 times if He was awake, and if she was too, she was to reply with 3 taps . . . meaning? 'I love you.'