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Therapy for Women/Teens with Eating Disorders

Sara (MA)

I am starting a program for women and teens with eating disorders to use authentic movement as a means of self discovery. Would love to hear from others who may have taken the work in this direction.
thanks.

© 2008 Sara

The Authentic Movement Community Directory

Elizabeth Reid (Averill Park, NY)

The Authentic Movement Community Directory has a listing of 140 people who want to be connected to each other in practices of Authentic Movement.

Here is a small sample of recent requests (with permission from each person) that were made on the Authentic Movement Community Directory.

Lucy Mahler.....would love to start an AM class and/or peer group in upstate NY in the Catskills near Phoenicia, NY. Call if you are in the area.

Laura Hays....I am looking for other experienced committed movers to form a weekly peer group in the Berkshires of Western Mass. Please contact me via phone or e-mail interested.

Jeannine Salemi: I am a dance artist and dance/movement therapist (finishing my thesis). I would like to find a community of like minded movers/explorers/artists to practice with.

Joan Webb:Co-editor of A Moving Journal. Authentic Movement and Jewish mysticism. Integrated Kabbalistic Healing

Paula Sager: I teach Authentic Movement to individuals, small groups, and in workshop formats. I am interested in how Authentic Movement serves contemplative practice, creativity, and social change.

For more information on the Authentic Movement Community Directory go to:

http://authenticmovementcommunity.org/directory.htm

© 2008 Elizabeth Reid

A self arisen case of "authentic movement"

Forrest Smithson (Santa Rosa, California)

In 2005 I experienced a clear opening within me that the opportunity to heal into wholeness was before me. Briefly after that the words Radiant Heart became part of my regular thoughts. Those specific descriptors have been with me ever since.

About the same period, I had a desire to attend to some physical issues that had afflicted me for some time.

I discovered a Rolfing specialist with a very intuitive approach and worked with her for 8 months. A surprising byproduct of this physical therapy was an ability to map out my inner being, to locate and follow my energetic process as it revealed itself to my awareness, and to discover my own inner silence.

Concurrently I was experiencing more frequent occurrences of intense emotional triggers.
I resolved to respond differently to whatever arose. I sought out a gifted transformational therapist, Roberta Godbe, to assist me and worked with her for several months. This personal work quickly moved towards finding my own personal meditative process, a key element of which was a self informing process of organic movement.

As I moved into this self arising process, I again desired to work with someone on very specific terms. I found another very gifted practitioner of transformational coaching and embodiment, Amrita Davidson. My inner guidance was very strong at this point. I enrolled her to work with me, for a couple of hours every week, in total silence, and for her to follow, support and accompany my meditational movements and process.

For some time, the process of transformation and embodiment was quite intense. However, the self informing process and accompanying revelations were consistently reliable, in spite of being completely non-linear and experienced out of time, and the process was highly reinforced by the unfoldment of innate and highly personalized abilities and an expanding awareness.

After working with Amrita for about a year, an unwavering certainty led me to move to a place of complete reliance on an inner authority. I continued to deepen my personal practice. And even though I embraced much of this process in private spaces, I was continually directed to bring subtleties and nuances of this process within my ordinary daily life, and is now deeply embedded within my moment to moment awareness.

I frequently made notations of the discoveries and expressions of this process as it has evolved. About a year ago I decided to set up a personal website for making entries from those notations. This can be found at www.energeticawareness.com

Many times while this process has been unfolding, I have sought for forms of corroboration. Interestingly enough, at every turn, if I felt the need, I was able to discover outside forms of information that described practices or experiences that were similar to mine. One of which is Authentic Movement.

However, because of the deeply personalized and uniquely tailored course of my process, I have never felt a need to adopt or follow any formal practice, as I am being informed from the inside out, so to speak. My coming to know of myself and existence is through my direct and ongoing encounter with the unknown.

For myself, the act of expressing from wholeheartedness, of sharing from unity awareness, actually activates, deepens and evolves the pathways of truth within me, moving me through the maintenance of unity awareness towards sustainability of the awareness of all that I truly am.

In my case, the body prayer of authentic movement is a ceaseless motion of surrender into the openness of receptivity and acceptance, experienced as unity awareness within ordinary life

Forrest

© 2008 Forrest Smithson

Sensing Shakespeare's Language: I see, I move, I witness

Mary Jane Masiulionis (Buffalo, New York)

I am a graduate student completing my MA in English at Buffalo State College. I am working on my Master Thesis, proposing the concept of Authentic Movement as a way to approach teaching the meaning of Shakespeare's text. I believe it is essential to approach teaching the language of Shakespeare not just through a literary lens, but through what I call the "lived body" experience. A heightened somatic awareness can enable us to more fully discover, witness, and embrace our beings in the world. Authentic movement, as integrated as a discourse for approaching teaching Shakespeare's language can extend movement research, illuminating the possibilities grounded in bodily ways of knowing. Authentic Movement extends the student's ability to sense Shakespeare language in the body, taking the text off the page and embodying its meaning through the kinesthetic senses. In this thesis study, the body is the researcher and the movement the immediate source of data and meaning making. This research will define the relationship of the meaning of the text as understood through the practice of Authentic Movement. In Authentic Movement, Shakespeare's language and energy emerge from a physical awareness to a specific part of the body, felt internally through proprioception. Energy also surfaces from the body's relationship to the text through the kinesthetic awareness-- the brain's ability to recognize and respond to organic impulses. I hope this research will further illustrate the validity of Authentic Movement and its relationship to language, creating a new pedagogical discourse in teaching Shakespeare's text. Shakespeare's language becomes organic through working with the physical, the kinesthetic and the sensory. This thesis celebrates the important contribution of Authentic Movement in revealing the depth of language in its truth- to be present in the experience of language.

© 2008 Mary Jane Masiulionis

Dance Teacher, Artist

Ellie Boyle, (Nottingham, uk)

I am very interested in beginning an authentic movement class, please can you point me in the right direction, thanks.

© 2008 Ellie Boyle