by Lavinia Plonka | Dec 3, 2021 | The Creative Body
“Learning is turning darkness, which is the absence of light, into light. Learning is creation. It is making something out of nothing. Learning grows until it dawns on you.” – Moshe Feldenkrais from Body Awareness as Healing Therapy: The Case of Nora...
by Lavinia Plonka | Nov 1, 2021 | The Creative Body
Around 15 years ago, a friend gave me a card she had made. I stuck it on my bulletin board. Today as I removed it to look at it (“What is this card anyway? Why is it here?”) I saw that there are many pushpin holes in it – obviously throughout the years, I’ve removed...
by Lavinia Plonka | Sep 1, 2021 | Movement as Medicine, The Creative Body
Are You Happy Yet? I’ve often wondered whether the founding fathers of this country laid some esoteric curse on its citizens when they declared our right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” What did they have in mind by making it a...
by Lavinia Plonka | Aug 19, 2021 | The Creative Body
Name(required) Email(required) Phone Emergency Contact Info Tell me a little bit about yourself, your movement experience and why you are coming (and “I just want to get out of winter” is a perfectly fine answer ☺) Do you have any physical, mental or emotional...
by Lavinia Plonka | Aug 2, 2021 | The Creative Body
I scroll down the NY Times feed with my morning coffee. Delta variant is threatening us. Delta 8 is offering to make me forget my fears. Delta Airlines is offering an escape with flexible cancellation. You know the rest of the headlines. I scroll and find that after...
by Lavinia Plonka | Jun 2, 2021 | The Creative Body, The Feldenkrais Method®
Misery or Samadhi? When I was a child, I had to practice my accordion for an hour every day. While I loved the sound of the instrument, I found the endless repetition tedious. I wanted to wail with rock ‘n roll songs, or improvise crazy gypsy sounding melodies...
by Lavinia Plonka | May 8, 2021 | The Creative Body
The other day, a friend told me about her new cleaning lady. “She’s lovely, hard working, and…she’s a liberal,” she grinned. I remember reading an article about the war in Afghanistan where the writer spoke about tribalism and how American ideals can never compete...
by Lavinia Plonka | Apr 2, 2021 | The Creative Body
There is a Persian folk hero named Mullah Nassrudin, the kind of wise fool you find in many cultures’ folk tales. In one story, Nassrudin is standing under a street lamp looking intently at the ground. A passerby asks, “What are you looking for, Mullah?” “A...
by Lavinia Plonka | Mar 2, 2021 | The Creative Body
Growing Neurons? Photo: Ron on an e-bike (2021) It was one of those unexpected February moments when the temperature blasted up to 70 and I turned to my husband Ron and said, “Hey, let’s take the e-bikes for a ride!” The relatively new bikes had been gathering dust...
by Lavinia Plonka | Feb 1, 2021 | Humor/CosmiComedy, The Creative Body
Photo by Ashley Batz on Unsplash I get an idea. Half-baked. Disparate elements. Nothing comes together. I pace. I ruminate. Then look up the word rumination and discover it has to do with thinking about the past. So if I’m not ruminating, what am I doing? I try to...
by Lavinia Plonka | Jan 14, 2021 | The Creative Body
Photo by Ron Morecraft My husband Ron and I ventured out yesterday to one of the many local antique/flea market venues, hoping for a safe, socially distant, adventure in shopping for nothing. As I perused potential end tables, and fantasized about a $700 antique,...
by Lavinia Plonka | Oct 11, 2020 | Body Language, Humor/CosmiComedy, The Creative Body
I go outside and look up at the stars in the winter night, imagining that the light is coming to me from millions, even billions of years ago. I think of myself, a speck on this piece of rock hurling through space, and I imagine someone 1000 years ago, looking up,...
