Who am I?

I’m someone who finds answering this question uncommonly difficult.

Hmm. . . it’s that I doubt a timeline, a list of qualifications, passions and pastimes is the measure of a person. Because I see a life — yours and mine — more like a series of relationships experienced — sometimes by choice, often by fate. Of course some relationships yield richer experiences than others — but ultimately I think what matters is quality of engagement. That is, how deep the impression? How courageous, how generous my response?

So I’ve thought it best to share here some of the relationships I’ve had.

A Relationship with Place

As a child I lived in different countries — on farms for the most part — in Spain, the UK, France, and central Illinois. There were pros and cons to all the moving about. It gave me an appreciation for different cultures — but also a sense of rootlessness. An ability to adapt, a healthy resistance to acculturation for sure — but also an acute (tyrannical) sensitivity to norms and expectations.

A Relationship with the Natural World

I grew up outdoors working around, with and often it seemed for animals! Cows, dogs, cats, deer, raccoons, frogs, owls, bugs and birds — it ran the gamut. But most of all I worked with horses. I started riding horses at age 3 and made a profession of it after colleg . I didn’t stop until I was 34.

A Relationship with the Imaginal

The circumstances of my childhood meant that I was often a newcomer at school — and a foreign one at that. Which meant enduring requisite outsider time before becoming friend eligible . Why yes. . . somewhat painful. But the upside of solitude is often relationship with the imaginal realm — the liminal space where two seas meet.

A Relationship with Rhythm, Music, and Dance

As a child I’d dreamed of becoming a ballet dancer — but given my above-mentioned relationship with place, the dream didn’t get very far. I learned to train horses instead. But later in life when an injury obliged change, the opportunity presented to learn flamenco dance. Hmm. . . what’s true is I had no idea of the demands of this relationship nor how profoundly it would change me.

A Relationship with Others

Listening, deep understanding, expression, — it’s the ultimate dance. So eventually — perhaps inevitably — curiosity, fascination, and a visceral need to make sense of self and others led to formal study — an MSW followed by certification in integral and somatic coaching, conflict resolution, studies in archetypal depth psychology, and most recently training at the Circling Institute in Berkeley, CA. I work with people as an integral coach with an emphasis on somatics. I teach dance/movement. I learn from everyone.

A Relationship with Life

There’s a Spanish expression — vivir con arte. It doesn’t quite work in translation. The idea is that art should be a way of life; that it should find expression in all one does. It calls for a poetic base of mind. For me, it means that whatever the medium — be it riding horses, writing stories, performing, teaching dance, drawing, painting, participating in or leading a group, care-giving, or just living day to day — I must endeavor to do it creatively, with expression, and the highest concern for the world I inhabit.

So there we are. And I fear I’ve been rather vague. But if by chance you’re still curious — do please look at the Creative Page. Maybe what I’ve posted expresses what I can’t! Or even better — reach out with an email. I’d love to hear from you.

Cheers,

Fiver