Long before I danced my parents told me I ‘marched to the beat of a different drummer’.  I have had the privilege and drive to discover ways of being in my body and the world that exist outside the mainstream.  In order to find my belonging—a constantly evolving task—I have learned to practice radical presence as a spiritual discipline.  ‘Radical’ refers to a rooted and systemic approach to something.  Presence is here—now—and conscious.  Spirit is the magic by which each breath follows the last:  Somehow in between the first and last breath of a life something meaningful happens.  Discipline is the choice to practice.  I’ll let you put these ideas together as you see fit for you–for me they are most meaningful when I acknowledge that my body is wise.  Through my body I know things my mind can’t begin to fathom.  I belong here because I am here.

When I started my journey into somatics I wouldn’t have known what to make of radical presence, spiritual discipline, or the wisdom of my body, but that was before almost every strip mall housed a yoga studio.  Now there are amazing books about how “The Body Keeps the Score,” and how we can listen to the “Call of the Wild” through our bodies to heal the traumas life asks us to heal.  Maybe you’ve read these; if not I’ll offer a reading list at the bottom of this page.  As much as I recommend them, these books cannot replace the learning and growth that takes place directly through the body.  I can tell you that when I started practicing radical presence I started sitting and walking differently.  I went from chronic slouching—a teenager trying to be cool—to sitting and standing tall.  The shift went way beyond my physical alignment:  I started allowing myself to be seen.  This felt awkward—as if everyone was looking at me—and yet it also felt empowering.  I was more alive to time and space.  As my body literally changed shape, and as my movements changed, my social placement and experience of the world evolved too.

I grow when I’m willing to be afraid and engage anyway.  In my early twenties I was untouchable—my body was so sensitive to touch that I would freeze in fear.  Despite desperately wanting physical connection, healing, and intimacy, I was essentially incapable of receiving it.  People would advise me to relax, but you can probably imagine that their words didn’t help much.  I went to massage school.  I learned myofascial bodywork and other touch therapies, but the most important experience for me was being touched.  Massage school was exposure therapy.  Occasionally I’d come out of receiving a massage more tense than I went into it, but over time my body learned to allow others in.  Touch is potent medicine for working through physical and emotional trauma—even trauma we may not know the origin of—because it speaks directly to the patterns stored in our bodies.  Having done so much of this work, now my favorite forms of play involve sensual connection.  I teach contact improvisation—a dance of physical connection—because I am astounded at the joy and cohesion it creates within my body and with others.  It’s hard to get people to leave the studio when these dances are over!  This is some of the most powerful trauma healing I can imagine, and yet it also takes working up to.  I love helping people learn from the beginning, and I’m generally successful in helping people when they are willing to engage with their fear.  Fear is reasonable—it makes sense to be afraid of new and thereby unpredictable experiences.  Yet, the body learns by doing things that go far beyond reason.  The body can’t lie; certainly mine can’t.  Touch is as honest and vulnerable as it gets.  The amazing part, though, is that just like riding a bicycle, once the body learns to feel something it’s rarely forgotten.

My Qualifications:

I’ve done a lot with my body over the years.  I danced my way into a professional performing company in Santa Barbara, CA, through an MFA in Modern Dance at the University of Utah, and spent a number of years teaching college dance full time, mostly at Willamette University.  I’ve choreographed evening length dance performances.  A student of many somatic methods, I’m certified in Laban Movement Analysis, Pilates, Massage, and am working my way through a Visionary Cranio-Sacral bodywork certification.  I’m also in a mysticism school run by an accomplished MD who has studied energy work for as long as I’ve been dancing.  I’m a Licensed Massage Therapist in Idaho.

SomaWorks represents my mission and purpose in the world:

I am here to support your journey home to the innate wisdom of your body, whether you are just beginning that journey or have travelled it longer than I have.  I have seen so many ways in which we are connected even within our deep individuality, and it is my mission to serve our co-creation.  I have held many groups in which one person’s expression was exactly what another needed to see, feel, and hear.  It is my purpose to remind us that we each belong here, radically present in our bodies and with each other.  This is the medicine I carry, and it is the source of my own vitality.  I am devoted to this service.

A Somatics Reading List of the moment:

Call of the Wild: How We Heal Trauma, Awaken Our Own Power, and Use It For Good
by Kimberly Ann Johnson

The most readable and practical book on applying somatic healing to trauma in everyday life that I’ve seen yet.  I’m reading it now.  It’s written particularly for women, but applicable to all humans and maybe cats too.

The Body Keeps the Score
by Bessel van der Kolk

A modern classic—explores the power of embodied awareness using an objectivist/scientific lens.  While I have never been able to make it through cover to cover, I highly recommend it particularly for those who find it easier to try things when they’ve been evidenced by science.

Bone, Breath, and Gesture
edited by Don Hanlon Johnson

This compilation from somatic pioneers such as Feldenkrais, Bartenieff, Alexander, and Lowen was my bible for a while almost 20 years ago.  It’s full of brilliant simplicity.

Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma
by Peter A Levine

The beginning of somatic psychology as I know it.  It has been a while, I remember really enjoying it.

Radical Wholeness: The Embodied Present and the Ordinary Grace of Being
by Philip Shepherd

I’m reading this now.  Potent, dense philosophically, and deeply true in my experience.  He speaks to presence beautifully.

Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art
by James Nestor

This is sitting on my counter and I haven’t gotten to it yet.  All my friends love it.  Breath is the most fundamental movement and the gateway to how life lives through us.