Embodied Spirit, Conscious Earth: From Embryology to Embodied Relational Spiritual Practice

Linda Hartley here brings together the wisdom and learning from nearly five decades of study, practice and teaching at the forefront of somatic movement, embodied awareness, somatic and transpersonal psychotherapy, and spiritual disciplines. The interrelationship of Body, Mind and Spirit weaves its way through the book - taking us beyond a dialogue between them to the transcendence of unitive consciousness, where an immanent or embodied spirituality is glimpsed. The book draws closely on three sources - Release Work; Body-Mind Centering; the Discipline of Authentic Movement - to show how they can inform a practice of consciously embodied movement. As well as condensing her lifetime’s experience, Linda suggests a way to: - explore our own embodied awareness - understand the patterned impact of conception, embryological development, birth and infant development - rediscover our connection with the consciousness of the Earth and the more-than-human world - find a healthier relationship with our planetary home and the collective body - explore the relationship between the matter of body and the mystery of Spirit, through the arc of human development from conception to death.

Linda Hartley’s career has spanned the fields of somatic dance, somatic movement education and therapy, and transpersonal somatic psychotherapy. She has worked as a therapist in private practice, as well as teaching independently and for many organisations in the UK and Europe. In 1990 she founded what would become a 3-year ISMETA Approved Training Programme in Integrative Bodywork and Movement Therapy, based on the three foundations of Body-Mind Centering, Authentic Movement and Somatic Psychology. She has written several books including the bestselling: ’Wisdom of the Body Moving’.