My client and now friend Anne Enke has become one of my most vocal advocates. Actually, Anne calls herself an apostle of my therapies. Because her website AnneofCarversville has such a large readership, Anne hopes to use her own therapeutic experiences to educate people about body psychotherapy and my approach to healing body, mind and spirit.

Anne asked me to define my concept of body inhabitance and the goals of my Women's Circle workshops. I shared these words with her readers:

Anne,to elaborate on what inhabitance in the body is, I would simply say that inhabitance, is an emotional, psychological and spiritual commitment to be in an intimate relationship with one’s own physical body or ,as poet John O”Donoghue would say, “the soul’s clay body”. It is no surprise as our world becomes more impersonal that intimacy isn’t understood correctly, because it is rarely experienced. The very nature of intimacy is an active state of receptivity.Learning to be receptive to oneself develops body wisdom.

Intimacy is personal. There is nothing more personal than being inhabited. I am dedicated to helping individuals experience one’s own body as a dwelling place that encourages healthy communication, no judgement and allows one’s creative consciousness to express itself in its’ many languages and intelligences. Healthy inhabitance can be equated to living in your dream home with a family that loves, supports and recognizes you for who you are! It is no wonder than most have hung a sign on their own bodies that say” Gone Fishing”. Living in our bodies as our home place can be a foreign concept, especially if home life as a child was undesirable.

The purpose of the workshop is to awaken such awareness and feelings and offer new perspectives that challenge one to reclaim inhabitance in the intimate body as the best address in town.

 It amused me to hear that Anne's readers were positively charmed by my hat. Just between us, I have about 40 -- one for every mood of my creative consciousness. Ellen

Artist's Statement

Her Body Cannot Tell A Lie is my first spoken word/ dance performance. It is all about multi-layered communication with themes that speak to the heart of feminine mystery.

Through the spoken word text, the structured improvisational choreography and   music, this body of work reveals the personal and collective truths of women’s life experiences embodied.

The performance needs no translation as the message is experienced and evokes memories and emotions from the archive of the soul body .

The text is understood cognitively as well as viscerally when the languages of body and word meet.

The work  suggests that women, who are evolutionary hardwired to be life bearers, carry an unique constitution that is essentially necessary for the success of their physical, emotional and psychic survival.

Their capacity to remain vulnerable and receptive while demonstrating endurance and a prevailing spirit in the face of hardships, reveals a unique possession of power.

“Her Body Cannot Tell A Lie” exposes a woman’s natural impulse toward growth, mastery, willfulness, sacrifice, receptivity, vulnerability, love and loss.

My spoken word was written in the intimate language I call BodyWord®, that finds its origins of meaning inhabited within the anatomy of the body. It becomes recognized as a living language when experienced and felt with emotional and tonal resonance within the body, by both the listener (audience)  as well as the speaker.

Double entendres found throughout the text, reveals the transparent relationship between the body as the sole/soul story keeper and speech as a formative and informative power simultaneously.

My inspiration to write this work came from my own life experiences, as well as from women I have had the privilege to work with in my role as a professional healer, masseuse, facilitator of women’s circles and  body psychotherapist. I have listened to the deepest, most intimate feminine narratives, as my healing hands have helped women identify the corresponding impacts their stories have had on their bodies and their health. I have supported them in a creative healing process that “re-pairs” their mind/ body relationship. This healing work has informed me with a lifetime of wisdom on the emotional-mind-body connection and gives authenticity to this creative project.

~ Ellen Gayda
Founder of BodyWord®