Dr Karen Barbour

Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa, greetings everyone

June 20 2022: I have now been in the USA for three weeks and am finding my feet, learning to walk under the shade of the towering trees of Mississippi and acclimatizing to people and place. Grounding myself in our Eastwest Somatics Institute community and with colleague Professor Kelly Lester at The University of Southern Mississippi, I am resting in our shared practices of Land to Water Yoga, Shin Somatics Bodywork and Intuitive dance. It was an honour to share the nuances of my interpretations of somatic yoga and eco-somatics with the extraordinary people who find their way into the Eastwest Somatics Institute – dance artists, yoga teachers, philosophers and environmentalists all drawn to Sondra Fraleigh’s phenomenology, body work and somatic movement. https://www.eastwestsomatics.com/

I am grateful to the Fulbright programme, to my home institution The University of Waikato to be here as a Fulbright New Zealand Scholar undertaking research. https://www.fulbright.org.nz/

Mānawatia a Matariki!

I am conscious that in Aotearoa New Zealand, my home, we celebrate Matariki and winter solstice this week: Matariki is our new year as aligning with the appearance of the Matariki star cluster on our horizons (also known as Pleiades). And here in Mississippi it is summer solstice and Juneteenth (a day to celebrate the end of slavery). This is an auspicious time – for celebration and remembrance – and acknowledging the world as it is changing around us all.