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Tag Archives: body movement

Ecosomatics, by Cheryl Pallant, Ph.D.

Ecosomatics: Embodiment Practices for a World in Search of Healing, by Cheryl Pallant, Ph.D.
Bear & Company, 1591434769, 224 pages, June 2023

A few weeks ago, I had an energetic anatomy healing with psychic healer Madison Lang. For over an hour, she scanned the energy of my physical body from miles away; Madison is located in Minnesota, while I’m in New Jersey. At times, she told me of symbolic images residing in certain parts of my body, such as a clock, representing influence from my maternal grandmother creating soreness in my arm. Other times, she focused her keen awareness on misaligned, extra, and stagnant energy in my body, clearing away blockages and rebalancing my physical body energetically.

The whole experience was phenomenal. And afterwards, I felt like a million bucks! Physical symptoms that had been lingering for months disappeared. My consciousness felt situated within my body again, rather than floating outside myself. My confidence improved, as I was more connected to myself from within rather than making judgements about myself from external standards or perceptions. Madison’s encouragement to release attachment to my pre-pregnancy body and attune myself to my current body– wider hips, a softer belly, and big nursing chest–help me to embrace where I am in life right now with gratitude.

It felt a bit synchronistic to begin reading Ecosomatics: Embodiment Practices for a World in Search of Healing, by Cheryl Pallant, Ph.D. shortly after my energetic anatomy healing, as though the Universe was encouraging me to continue to learn more about the connection between myself and my body. Dr. Pallant’s concept of ecosomatics, or “embodiment work for personal and planetary health”1, goes one step beyond the psychic healing experience I had and grounds it into the physical realm. It has been a wonderful resource on my journey of expanding my perception to be more attune to my body and cultivating my own somatic intelligence.

“For those who are attentive, my touching you provides information about you and the touch also provides you with information about me. The place of contact opens the gate to all sorts of information, especially for healers whose highly sensitive hands rest gently on the skin surface and in the subtle field of the body to detect heat, cool, tingles, pressure, and more. . . Every part of the body leads to a specific awareness, emotion, sensation, imagery, and/or memory, perceptible to those who notice.”2

In Ecosomatics, Pallant asserts that shifting consciousness through expanding one’s sensory perceptions and attuning to the natural rhythms of one’s body has the power to transform on both a personal and collective level. While modern social problems, inadequate healthcare systems, and ecological crisis are pushing humanity towards the brink of destruction, Pallant believes somatic awareness can be a source of healing that aids in the evolution of human consciousness.

As context for her point of view, Pallant goes right to the core of how bias and perception can influence belief systems. She acknowledges the safety of collective belief systems, but encourages readers to delve into discomfort and have the courage to expand their perception to be more inclusive of the intuitive and energetic aspects of ourselves not readily seen with our eyes. This integrative approach helps to release fears, anxieties, and limiting beliefs and opens a doorway for the evolution of consciousness through somatic intelligence.

Drawing upon her own career experience, which includes a Ph.D. in Somatic Writing, certification in Reiki and Healing Touch, and training in Process-Oriented Psychology, Authentic Movement, and yoga, Pallant provides first hand experience of her own journey of discovering the healing ability within herself. She also provides plenty of client anecdotes that aid readers in believing that this somatic shift in perception is achievable.

But her approach to this topic is not a subjective one; Ecosomatics is filled with explanations from fields such as psychology, sociology, quantum physics, and neurobiology. Pallant also expertly weaves together her personal experiences with insight from experts in other related modalities focused on integrating mind, body, and self, such as Healing Touch, 5Rhythms, and Body-Mind Centering, to give readers a wide-range of approaches to somatic healing.

“Common knowing privileges logic, reasoning, and head-centered knowing. Missing is a comprehensive sense of the body that includes intuition, embodiment, energetic, and spiritual awareness that is integrative rather than fractional. Missing is a place and appreciation for uncanny experiences and impressions that don’t readily fit into our belief system.”3

A key theme of Pallant focuses on is interconnection. My favorite chapter, “The Ecology of Self” discusses topics such as energetic resonance, how people’s energy and emotions can be projected onto others, the impact of both fear and love in our lives, and the concept of “we space”. She writes, “Nascent in our development are intrapersonal practices that contribute to coming to know what lives in our shared personal spaces.”4

I really enjoyed contemplating the idea of sharing energetic spaces and observing this energy exchange throughout the week in different places I went. At first, I noticed how much my energy felt scattered and seemed to change based on the vibe of where I was and the energy of those around me; I was losing connection to myself and trying to camouflage into the energy around me.

But by actually doing the “Try This” exercises Pallant offers throughout Ecosomatics, I began to ground back into my own body and become more aware of the somatic experience I was having instead of leaving/ignoring the sensations of my body. I’m still working on my embodiment, but through these exercises, I am coming to understand what Pallant means when she writes:

“By stepping embodied into the fullness of who we are, what takes place is a transformation and a coherence of personal well-being that extends to all sentient and insentient beings and marks us as responsibly partaking in the ecology of self and the planet. What takes place is alignment with the present moment, which reaches out infinitely.”5

The final chapter, “Embodiment Practices”, is one that I’ll definitely be returning to time and time again. Pallant provides different practices for the reader to do in order to cultivate their sense of embodiment. These range from transforming fear and worry into love to balancing masculine and feminine energy to aligning with one’s flow through creative expression.

The one practice I’ve done so far was intended to help develop my intuition, using what I’ve learned about embodiment to discern between fantasy and my intuition. As someone who is clairsentient, it is helpful to be able to feel embody when connecting to my intuition and learning where emotions reside within my body.

All in all, Ecosomatics is a wonderful resource for those interested in expanding their perceptions to be more inclusive of their physical experience. Pallant puts forth a compelling thesis for why embodiment is vital to the growth of our consciousness and does a great job teaching readers how it can be done. The healing potential is infinite. This read is sure to shift how readers perceive themselves in the world around them, awakening them to the experience of embodiment and as a result more acutely attuning to the surrounding energy.

Heal Yourself and the World with Tai-chi, by Bob Klein

Heal Yourself and the World with Tai-chi: How to make your life powerful and become a healer, by Bob Klein
Artistic Video, 189219869X, 428 pages, January 2021

Reading Bob Klein’s Heal Yourself and the World with Tai-chi: How to make your life powerful and become a healer was truly an epic voyage. At just over four hundred pages of pure text, this book is an ocean of experience and wisdom that can help the reader come to a deeper, harmonious resonance with themselves and, by extension, the rest of the world.

As Klein advises, simply reading this book cannot bring you the healing understanding indicated in the title. That can only be gained through an embodied practice. However, as a motivational aid and discussion of the fundamental principles of Tai-chi, his book is a perfect starting point for those (like myself) who are intellectually interested in the practice, but have yet to take the first physical steps on this path.

Klein presents a fascinating tour of the guiding principles of Tai-chi and zookinesis with a writing style that is both easy to comprehend and full of profound insight. His constant use of metaphor and analogy often grounds his exposition through humor, and allows him to clearly communicate ideas that might otherwise be quite “heady” and abstract. For instance he writes:

“The image you use to influence the body should be passive – like hitting a gong and letting the sound do the work of reaching everyone’s ear. . . Once you hit the gong, you don’t need to then run over to everyone and push them toward the dining room.”1

This style is a perfect reflection of one of Klein’s main points throughout the book: that modern human beings have become terribly divorced from embodied experience. Our awareness is all too often solely localized to our heads: our mind as opposed to our body.

Again, this is why reading the book isn’t ultimately going to impart the transformative knowledge that Klein talks about. Alongside the book, he recommends using videos (if not attending classes) to develop the expanded awareness necessary to heal oneself and the world.

However, Klein also notes that only taking classes or learning the Tai-chi forms may not yield this embodied awareness either, as he laments that many contemporary teachers possess only a shallow understanding of Tai-chi’s power. Similar to the typical yoga classes that you find nowadays, they are all form and no substance: simply an exercise for the body.

This is one of the main reasons why I found Heal Yourself and the World with Tai-chi so stimulating: it is a companion text to the practice which allows one to find the deeper power of Tai-chi when a suitable teacher/class isn’t available. In our time of remote/online classes – rather than traditional, in-person mentorship of the past – Klein’s book is perfect for marrying a purely form-based practice to the deeper wisdom of your “body-mind.”

This book is most definitely not an instruction manual for the Tai-chi forms, so if that’s your only interest, Klein’s book is probably not for you. Nor is it solely a discussion of the practice of Tai-chi itself. There is an incredible breadth to the topics in the book, and it often feels more like a spiritual treatise than a text about the practice. But this is in no way a bad thing, and is precisely the reason that the book is an ideal supplement for the physical practice of Tai-chi. 

The winding flow of Klein’s style carries you along from one topic to the next, weaving an integrated philosophical narrative while always bringing you back to the grounded, embodied discussion of the practice. If you are a reader who likes short, contained sections with lots of page-breaks and subject headers, you might have a little difficulty moving through this book. But I think that Klein’s way of writing perfectly reflects many of the principles that Tai-chi helps you to learn. The book itself exemplifies these ideas through its holistic presentation and through its demonstration of the interconnectedness of its various topics.

Sometimes you might get the sense that the text is a little repetitive, but I never found this to detract from the book. In fact, rather than being directly repetitive, I think it’s more that Klein takes you on circuitous detours in his exploration of a given topic. So, when he returns to the original point, this is what might give the impression of “I’ve been here before.” However, you have come back to the idea with new insights, metaphors, and explanations that were gained in the interim. I love the organic feel that this writing style lends to the book – it feels like Klein is guiding you through explorations of a living landscape rather than leading you down a dry, flat road.

Again, this reflects another principle emphasized by Tai-chi: awareness that is not one-dimensional. We are obsessed with linearity in the modern age: straight roads, squared-off architecture, rational/scientific modes of thought. While none of these might be “bad” per se, the accumulation of linearity in our lives gets us stuck outside the rhythms and patterns of Nature. Klein presents the intriguing point that flat walking surfaces, such as our floors and sidewalks, contributes to one’s awareness staying confined to the head, rather than being distributed throughout the whole body.

We don’t have to be aware of our environment (and can “get things done” in our minds) because the ground is so predictable – and yet, we might trip over the slightest imperfection. The unfortunate consequence is that, while convenient in some ways, traveling across linear ground removes us from being aware – being present – to the here and now.

Although many of the principles that Klein discusses will be familiar to those familiar with Taoism and other spiritual traditions originating in Asia, I think the aspects of Heal Yourself and the World with Tai-chi that sets it apart from other books are two-fold. First, Klein’s self-exemplary style – the form of the text is aligned with its content – and second, his emphasis on embodied practice rather than purely intellectual understanding. These two features allow this book to truly stand out as an enjoyable journey over Klein’s ocean of wisdom.

Cosmic Dancer Oracle, by Sedona Soulfire and Tess Whitehurst

Cosmic Dancer Oracle, by Sedona Soulfire and Tess Whitehurst, illustrated by Elinore Eaton
Llewellyn Publications, 0738767107, 44 cards, 148 pages, 2020 

The Cosmic Dancer Oracle by Sedona Soulfire and Tess Whitehurst perfectly captures the soulful integration of mind, body, and soul. This deck is a mixture of radiance and delight, as the cards beautifully show the flow of energy within the relationship between body and spirit. Elinore Eaton, the deck’s illustrator, has magnificently expressed the dynamic rhythm of the movement as a form of self-expression in this illuminating, brightly colored work of art. Working with this deck has been an exciting journey, as it’s invited my body to participate in the process of connecting with the unseen to glimpse the answer I seek and revitalize my spirit.

I’ve always enjoyed exploring my intuition through my body. I actually wrote my thesis on the importance of teaching in a way that promotes one’s kinesthetic intelligence, or the body’s knowing, as a learning tool. This project evolved into me dancing the principles of eco-psychology and documenting the self-reflection process. Countless hours were spent discovering my body’s intelligence, while also researching how impactful dance can be as a form of therapy. It is for this reason that I absolutely adore and appreciate Soulfire and Whitehurst’s intention in creating this deck.

As the introduction states, “Life really is a dance. Sometimes it’s time to sparkle and shine, and sometimes it’s time to retreat and recharge. Some days you’re called to lead, and others you’re called to follow. At times it’s appropriate to improvise, and others call for well-practiced choreography. What’s more, invisible currents of energy and vibration coalesce in ways that create and animate everyone and everything in the Universe (seen and unseen), even the passage of time.” 1 This deck has done a wonderful job of portraying this sentiment visually, while also providing guidance for the reader to use movement to anchor the oracle cards’ messages in their own body.

There are 44 cards in the Cosmic Dancer Oracle, and every single one is unique. The deck truly represents the range of emotions people are able to share through their bodies. Blending cosmic energy and elemental power, the cards offer the reader intuitive images that are sensational visual representations of dancers using movement to embody a sacred oracle message. Truthfully, the artwork on the cards is some of the best I’ve ever seen in an oracle deck. Looking through the deck, each card fills me with the excitement akin to going to a museum exhibition of my favorite artist. Eaton’s imagery activates my psyche and speaks directly to my soul. Some cards make me want to get up and dance, while others help me to honor the need to rest. As I look from card to card, each one’s energy activates both my body and intuition.

The accompanying guidebook is uplifting and straightforward in the guidance offered. Messages affirm the importance of ancestry, offerings, surrender, and creative flow. It feels as though I am receiving a gentle spiritual reminder when reading the message for the cards I’ve pulled that help me to shift my focus towards love, openness, and unity with the current situation I am inquiring about. The guidebook’s messages further help to facilitate connection to one’s body by offering a movement, pose, or dance for every message. I’ve really enjoyed following the guidance and doing this, as I feel like it imparts the cards within into my embody reality.

For instance, the card I pulled today was Clear The Vessel. This was very apt to how I was feeling, as I had just finished deleting emails back to 2018 to do a bit of techno-cleansing to prepare for the new year. The guidebook offered a breathing posture of moving into a stance with my feet shoulder-width apart, extending my arm upward, pressing together my index finger and thumb, and doing rapid breathing. As I did this pose, I instantly felt my energy becoming grounded and excess energy being released through  my body. It made me feel purified, relaxed, and ready to move onto my next task.

Overall, Cosmic Dancer Oracle is a wonderfully intuitive and well-integrated deck. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to add a bit of mystic movement to their life. The artwork is gorgeous and makes it so this deck can be used for oracle reads, meditative visualization, and altar creation. All my readings with the deck thus far have been just what I needed to hear in the moment. This is definitely a deck that’s not going to get dusty, as I’m sure it will be used it frequently.

Kinesic Magic, by Donald Tyson

Kinesic Magic: Channeling Energy with Postures & Gestures, by Donald Tyson
Llewellyn Publications, 0738764132, 272 pages, August 2020

Integrating our bodies with our magical practice — there’s nothing I love more! But sometimes it’s hard to find a systematic way to do this (aside from watching The Magicians and seeing how the characters use their hands to cast spells, which I absolutely have incorporated into my own workings). I’ve occasionally found books on mudras for the astrological signs, and I am also familiar with the correspondence between body parts and zodiac signs, but never had I discovered a method to blend it all together. This is why I absolutely love Kinesic Magic: Channeling Energy with Postures & Gestures, in which Donald Tyson has created a comprehensive guide that shifts the practice of magic from complex rituals in arcane grimoires to the bare essential of one’s body. The techniques, despite being surprisingly simple, are a powerful way to work the fundamental energies of Western magic.

Tyson is a prolific author and expert in Western occultism. During his studies, he noticed a gap between Eastern and Western practices due to the exclusion of the body in most occult systems in the West. Eastern traditions include the practice of yoga as a method of transforming energy and connecting to energy of the Universe. Therefore, Tyson, who had alluded to how one could use their hands in magical works in his previous book The New Magus 1, decided to create his own system. A reader should be aware this is something Tyson created on his own based on his extensive experience and knowledge, but in no way does this detract from the effectiveness of these practices.

For those of you who may not know, the definition of kinesic is, “the study of body movements, gestures, facial expressions, etc., as a means of communication.” 2 In Kinesic Magic, most of the focus is on body movement and gestures, rather than facial expressions. The first chapter, “The Twenty-Four Postures,” is the fundamental postures used in this system (the rest of the book focuses on hand-gestures). These postures are essentially the foundation of the workings one may be doing, including invoking, banishing, projecting, channeling, binding, and manifesting. Every posture has a hand-drawn image of a man in the posture along with a written description and information on how it can be used.

It’s worth spending time familiarizing yourself with these postures since they are the basis of all the workings in the book. I found it to be quite an informative experience to feel my body in these different postures. Purposely integrating my focus, will, and body was harder than I thought it would be, but with practice, the postures became more intuitive. It took me about a week to learn these foundation postures before continuing on with the book. One could absolutely keep on reading without them memorized, referring back to them when needed, but I wanted to have truly mastered the postures before I went more deeply into the following chapters.

There are three types of hand gestures covered in the book: elemental, planetary, and zodiac. Tyson believes these forces are at the heart of Western occultism and also the first teaching that initiates of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn receive, which is one of the most influential systems of ceremonial magic. Every section is packed with information that offers the reader a thorough overview of these topics, in addition to the gestures of how to work with the energies.

Chapter two, “The Five Elements,” dives into the history of the five elements of the Universe: fire, air, water, earth, and spirit. Discussed is how philosophers Aristotle and Plato perceived the elements, including diagrams and vivid descriptions of the properties of the elements and how they interact with one another. Next, there is an overview of the Medieval medical concept of humours that asserted people’s disposition was dependent upon their dominant element. Then Tyson details the elemental spirits as well and includes workings you can do to connect with them.

This pattern of giving a detailed overview of the topic, going through each energy that has a gesture, then explaining the glyph of the energy is also done in the chapters “The Seven Planets” and “The Twelve Zodiac Signs.” These sections are filled with astrological information, and I found them to be more detailed than many beginner astrology books. I feel everyone will certainly get what they’re seeking due to the multiple angles Tyson uses to educate the reader about these energies, ranging form color and chakra correspondences of the zodiac signs to the works that fall under the domain of each planet. These sections are overflowing with creative ideas on how to work with these energies using postures and gestures, including meditations to simply connect with the energies without any elaborate working.

Though I have to tell you, there are SO MANY innovative workings Tyson offers to the readers. Here are some the ones I’ve personally practiced working: To Channel an Element3, The Planetary Spiral4, Meditation on Mars5, Ruling Planets6, Zodiac Squares7, and Invoking the Birth Sign8. I’ve filled up my notebooks journaling about the experience and meditations that have come from using the technique of working the postures and gestures for these purposes. For instance, using my body and mind to create a connection to the zodiac squares was a whole new perspective in understanding how the energy flows between each sign. It’s very neat to be able to embody these abstract concepts and relate to them through not just the wisdom of our intellect, but the wisdom of our bodies as well.

Overall, Kinesic Magic: Channeling Energy with Posture and Gestures is truly groundbreaking (trust me, I wrote my master’s thesis paper on the use of kinesthetic intelligence as a form of education, and the resources are few and far between on this method of learning). It’s a book brimming with exercises that can greatly enhance one’s magic working by including the body. There is so much information in it, one would be able to dedicate months, possibly even an entire year to experimenting with the workings. This is a must-have for anyone who has an interest in further integrating mind, body, and spirit. Tapping into the body’s wisdom has greatly expanded my awareness of possibility. Plus, all the workings in the book can be done without needing to collect or purchase anything at all. The simplicity is a reminder of the magic inherent within us, especially when we connect our will with our body.