On the importance of staying in our bodies, slowing down to be with our own body's living systems and sensitivity, and getting to know the deeper life of our anatomy as an antidote to the fast-paced, electronic world that is evolutionary new to the human body.

Guest Andrea Olsen is a pioneering embodiment educator and expert on experiential anatomy, the author of  a triad of books on the human body and its creative and intuitive expression. For the last three decades  Andrea  has been a Professor of Dance  and Environmental Studies at Middlebury College in Vermont.

She is a long time collaborator with embodied mindfulness pioneers  Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen of Body-Mind Centering and Janet Adler of Authentic Movement.  

Andrea also teaches at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California,  bringing body education and mindfulness practices into graduate courses on global communication.

This episode's Wisdom Quotes:

“Understanding that body is part of Earth is an essential component of human awareness. Our bones, and our breath, and our blood are the minerals and the air and the water around us, so that when you arrive someplace new, after a few days of drinking the water or eating the food from that place, you become that place. So the idea of separateness starts to fade and this larger model of interconnectedness becomes more primary in our awareness.”

“We are not naming the bones and the muscles to distance ourselves from the body but to consider these parts as family. To be able to name your femur or tibia or the fibula is like knowing your relatives and making the inhabitation of this wonderful structure that we’re in more familiar while retaining the mystery.”

More about Andrea Olsen's work : www.andrea-olsen.com, www.body-earth.org

More about host Stefana Serafina's work: www.intuitivedance.org