Comforting Thought: Keeping Together in Time

As I have always know intuitively: movement, dance and physicality of our bodies is the key to unlocking connection with other people and our connection to our inner feelings and true self. This was an incredibly powerful insight from ‘The Body Keeps the Score.’ This is why yoga feels good, cycling feels good, sex feels good, dancing at a concert with thousands of other people to a deep bass feels good. It is embedded into the deepest part of our mind it seems…

Collective movement and music create a larger context for our lives, a meaning beyond our individual fate. Religious rituals universally involve rhythmic movements. From the wailing wall in Jerusalem, the sung liturgy of the Catholic Mass, to the five times per day prayers of devout Muslims and Buddhist ceremonies. Music was the backbone of the Civil Rights movement in America. The book ‘Keeping Together in Time’ by William H. McNeill examines the role of dance and military drill in creating what McNeill called ‘muscular bonding’ and sheds new light on the importance of theatre, communal dance and movement.

The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma by Bessel Van Der Kolk