In my teaching, my therapeutic work, and my own personal practices I value generativity. As living systems we generate vitality. In opposition to entropy—the supposed law of the universe by which concentrated energy disperses—living systems organize and focus energy. We can generate aliveness and share it with others generously when we move together, whether that be through dancing or just conversation. Generativity and generosity are rooted in our embodied experience. For example, it’s very difficult to be generous when in significant pain. And, simultaneously, I often hear and experience that being generous with others is a key part of healing my own wounds. The word love fits in here somewhere, and it’s a significant force for healing! If we take a step deeper we find that making love, a terminology not to be ignored, results in future generations. When we procreate we send the life force we generate forward into the future.

As a parent I am constantly challenged by what I feel I should be doing for my son and my partner. I have ideas about what is and is not generous, and moral dilemmas arise for me as I consider how to best share my energy. I need to be functioning well as a generative being to share the energy I generate with others. If I share energy that I’m not generating sustainably, I will burn out and be unable to share much of worth. I just installed a solar power system in my vanagon that has similar limitations: If I draw more power than I’m generating I will eventually run the batteries down far enough that they get damaged.

Deep patterns are passed through generations. We inherit structures and behaviors from our parents that become us. Psychologists debate back and forth between how nature (genetics) and nurture (environment) create our behavior. The most important understanding to come out of this dualist exploration is that both nature and nurture have their effects, and both are provided to us by our families. I often hear clients speak of ‘congenital’ issues in their bodies that they consider inevitable. I tell the story about how learning new behaviors—including movement patterns—can prevent us from having the injuries and pains so often hopelessly ascribed to genetics. Just as we can inherit the dis-ease of previous generations, we can also heal it. To heal the past is a form of the generosity we send into future generations.

I recognize that my son faces an uncertain future in a world where we are not paying attention to how we generate and utilize energy of all sorts. As a culture we abuse fossil fuels just as we abuse ourselves: We so often use our energy up faster than we’re generating it. From climate change to depression, the results aren’t hard to see. With awareness we can learn how to generate energy in our bodies—I know this because it has been my life’s path. I believe the same is true for the larger living systems of culture and planet. That said, we live first and foremost as the living systems of our embodied selves. It is for this reason that I care so deeply for the study of movement: In our bodies we know how to take care of future generations. We’ve been doing it for longer than we can imagine.