The Common Body

Book excerpt: In this fascinating book, dancer, choreographer, and visual artist Paula Josa-Jones combines her two greatest passions--movement and horses--in order to help us develop somatic awareness: Consciousness of breath, integrated and coherent motion, and development of movements and touch into sensitive channels of communication. Through stories and exercises, Josa-Jones demonstrates how connecting with the horse can develop this awareness. The body and mind of the horse and the human, she writes, are connected at the deepest levels--anatomically, energetically, psychically, spiritually, and emotionally. And because horses are authentic beings--their inside feelings and intentions match the outside expression and behavior--our interactions with them can help us become more aware of our inner emotional landscape and its relationship to what we are expressing outwardly. Horses offer us the opportunity to become more trustworthy and more comfortable in our own skin.By listening inwardly, feeling the connections between our mind states and our expression, we become more attuned to the currents passing among us, more able to blend, empathize, and act with balance, sensitivity, and kindness.