What a Body Knows

Finding wisdom in desire.

Kimerer LaMothe Ph.D.

The Pain of Being a Bodily Self

The pain of being a bodily self is so often — and paradoxically so — an invitation to move.

What Your Movement Signature Reveals About You

A recent study succeeded in measuring a pattern of muscular activation—a "movement signature"—unique to every human. What does a movement signature reveal?

Remembering Slavery: The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

In Ta-nehisi Coates's new novel, The Water Dancer, memory is life. It is also "just like dancing." Why?

Find the Flow -- Again

Recommit! A Guide to Finding Flow—Again

You are committed – really truly dedicated – and then, suddenly you aren't. What do you do when your enthusiasm for a project, plan, or relationship fades?

The Perils of People Pleasing

Most humans share a desire to please the people around us. We want people to be happy. We want people to be happy with us. What happens when we fail?

Devastated about Climate Change? Plant a Garden

What does planting a garden have to do with climate change?

The Mind-Body Problem That Wasn't

The “mind-body problem” provides ideological cover for violence perpetuated against “the body” – violence that comes to seem natural and inevitable in the service of the mind.

Love Your Body: The Dance of Martha Graham

Graham’s love of the body was fierce and full-throttle—radical for what it loves and how it loves, and for what it reveals love, and a body, to be.

The Gravity of Small Movements: Bodily Wisdom in Action

The practice of dancing nourishes the matrix of small movements that define our push and pull in relation to the earth.

How Living With an Ox Changed My Life

By pulling dead trees from our forests, Bright and Blaze changed our lives in a multitude of ways.

Tired of Research Studies That Tell You to Exercise?

This research study advances a radical idea: the movements that we make influence the thoughts we think.

This New Year, Be Surprised!

New Year’s Eve is a time to remember to stay alert to the possibility of surprises that will astound you with their grace and goodness.

Winter's Life-Affirming Extremes -- and Martha Graham

Winter where I live is a time of extremes -- a prying apart of pairs that otherwise can seem tightly nested. As my senses move between the two, I come alive.

Looking for Your Purpose? Start Trading Your Talents

There was a time in my life soon after college when I was obsessed with the Will of God for my life. I had to figure it out. My life depended on it. But I was stuck.

We Are Not Done Yet: The Fight for Women's Rights

We are not done creating a society that guarantees justice and equality for women.

When a Child Leaves for College

My third child left for college last week. You’d think by now I’d know the routine. Nothing is the same.

What's In a Dream? Do You Have One? Want One? Or Not?

Dreams are perplexing enterprises. They are prickly, complicated creatures. To follow a dream is to embark on a journey. By the end you will no longer be the same.

Radical Love: A Message for Our Time

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, writing at the end of the nineteenth century, has a message for those of us in the twenty-first: radical love.

I Have Five Children: Am I a Mother?

What does it mean to be a mother?

Dancing on Earth

Can ecstatic dancing promote ecological consciousness?

Pure Promise on a Bleak Day: Why Desire Needs Gratitude

What do you do on a bleak day when spring seems far away?

Live Theater: Do We Need It?

When the story is sung, danced, and acted, performers and audience members alike cultivate life skills that are essential for health and well being.

"To Dance is a Radical Act" and Nine Other Top Posts

To celebrate ten years of writing a blog, here is a top ten list of blogs I have written.

Dance More!

When you dance for joy other concerns fall into place. The dancing facilitates clarity of heart and mind. Priorities reorder themselves. More is revealed. More becomes possible.

Wisdom From the World of Dance

I offer a playful, very preliminary exploration of “wisdom” I have learned through the study of American modern dance and contemporary ballet.

Paying Attention: Consciousness of What?

Participants all engaged in specific patterns of bodily movement designed to help them acquire a consciousness of some thing—consciousness of what?

Why Practice Repeating Ordinary Bodily Movements?

Are the bodily movements in religious ritual simply symbolic? Why is the action of repeating ordinary bodily movements effective in promoting health and well being?

The Faith Project: Finding New Moves to Make

The Faith Project is on track to offer deeper understanding of how movement patterns – and practices of dancing – are at work shaping realms we assume are cerebral and spiritual.

Mourning a Young Life

I went to a funeral this weekend for a woman whose bright life ended far too soon. As I sat there, steeped in grief, I reflected again, anew, on how religion is dance.

Running for a Song

How do you write a song? someone asks. I am new to this game, and am almost embarrassed to answer: “I go for a run.”

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