by Lavinia Plonka | Dec 19, 2013 | Body Language, Movement as Medicine, The Creative Body, The Feldenkrais Method®
As fortune would have it, I’ve been to the beach a few times in the last couple of weeks, walking long distances on sand packed so tight you can ride a bicycle, although most people power walk or jog. Each step leaves a footprint in the sand, just enough to tell the...
by Lavinia Plonka | Dec 4, 2013 | Humor/CosmiComedy, The Creative Body
I look around my home office and realize that almost everything was given to me. Galen gave me the glow in the dark rosary blessed by the Pope. Yael gave me the “hamsa” that hangs over the door, a Middle Eastern guard against the evil eye. The framed photograph of...
by Lavinia Plonka | Nov 17, 2013 | Movement and The Spirit, Movement as Medicine, The Creative Body, The Feldenkrais Method®
Modern science has identified a “God” portion of the brain. This purportedly offers us our near death experience of the white light, angels, celestial music and other things we associate with the afterlife and mystical experience. So how does the body...
by Lavinia Plonka | Oct 21, 2013 | Body Language, The Creative Body
It seems so obvious, and yet so often…we forget to breathe.
by Lavinia Plonka | Oct 12, 2013 | Humor/CosmiComedy, The Creative Body |
In a recent TED talk, psychologist Kelly McGonigal proposed that we suffer from stress because we believe that stress is….stressful. Citing a number of studies, she told her audience that people who believed that stress is exciting or productive did not get...
by Lavinia Plonka | Sep 28, 2013 | Body Language, Movement as Medicine, The Creative Body |
Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais said that we move according to our perceived self-image. And we are stopped by our perceived limitations. In one of my many careers, I was a mime, which meant I made money creating illusions: imaginary adversaries, objects and challenges...
by Lavinia Plonka | Aug 8, 2013 | Humor/CosmiComedy, The Creative Body |
I call him Joe. Every morning during my meditation, he begins his ritual. He flies to my living room window and stands on the clothesline hook, staring at his reflection; his arch enemy, his evil twin, looking out at him from the glass. Then he begins. Bang....
by Lavinia Plonka | Jul 29, 2013 | Body Language, Movement and The Spirit, The Creative Body
Someone recently shared her greatexcitement at a simple meditation by Thich Nhat Hanh. “I breathe in peace, I breathe out and smile.” She said she couldn’t believe how her emotional state changed simply by smiling as she exhaled. The other day, I was...
by Lavinia Plonka | Jul 16, 2013 | Humor/CosmiComedy
“To pay or not to pay, that is the question.” I was sure Shakespeare had created Hamlet. The dark Dane, the brooding Prince of existential angst seems quintessential Bard. Hamlet is the most translated, quoted and performed play in the history of the world. It’s...
by Lavinia Plonka | May 23, 2013 | The Creative Body
You are everything And everything is you The Stylistics A few years back, I went to the “Bodies” exhibit in New York. Some clever entrepreneur had used a proprietary freeze drying method to preserve cadavers in various postures; playing golf,...
