At the end of November of 2011, I saw my dad take his last breath. I came back to the United States after participating in all the death-related rituals that helped organize my pain in México. New York City was not a place to live my mourning, and right around December of the same year, I felt an intense longing to become small again. I needed to work with children.
There were perhaps 30 people - mostly elderly, along with a few young families and some teenagers. What struck me was not devotion, but density: a quiet, shared weight of lived suffering. Not dramatic or loud - just present. Many faces seemed marked by difficulty. I had entered seeking calm. Instead, I encountered vulnerability. Then I looked up at the crucifix - Christ suffering on the cross - not as doctrine, but as an image.
There is something very Old New York about a young woman putting herself on the lineliterallyand daring the city to keep up. Not the nostalgic, sepia-toned New York of postcards and penthouses, but the one with bite: downtown after dark, sweat and bravado, art that doesn't ask permission and music that doesn't wait its turn. That is where Lexa Gates lives right now, and Her on the Wheelthe durational performance staged at Jeffrey Deitchfelt like a perfectly tuned provocation to a city that still understands nerve.
When an event, such as the death of someone close, affects you in a major way, a common idiom says the event "really hits you where you live." But where, exactly, do you live? Not in a country, state, city, house, or apartment, but inside your body? Until recently, I assumed everyone was like me, localizing "self" inside the head.
Lately, my sessions have been filled with clients reflecting on the tension that often arises during periods of transition. Some feel proud of their growth, while others feel discouraged by goals left unmet or intentions that quietly fell away as life became overwhelming. Many wonder what to do with this disappointment and whether to carry these unfinished hopes forward. As an art therapist, I guide clients toward practices rooted not in self-judgment but in intentionality, embodiment, and creative self-understanding.
On a Tuesday night in Atwater Village, Teresa "Toogie" Barcelo is creating a portal. With her arms stretched out, she beckons the participants of her movement workshop, Wiggle Room, to join her on the other side, where they will meet a renewed version of themselves. "Walk into the next iteration of yourself," she commands. The participants, who have spent the last hour squirming, shaking and humming, cross the invisible threshold. Their limbs swing loosely, their smiling faces sticky with sweat.
At the core of Pyaari Azaadi's diasporic artistic genius lies the belief that to do something fully and in an embodied way, one must immerse oneself in the storms of the heart, where our emotional and physical selves congeal as both metaphor and sacred koan. It is in that space - where even light is dimmed - that we live our truth, the elusive state that all people of conscience strive to hold.
Body image is learned and can be reshaped with awareness and compassion. Confidence grows when worth is grounded in values rather than appearance. Gratitude for what the body can do quiets criticism and builds connection. As a therapist, I often hear people say, I'll be happier once I lose weight, or I'd feel better if I liked how I look. Yet for most, that finish line keeps moving. True happiness rarely begins in the mirror.
Okay, welcome everybody. You can tell it's late summer. Nice to see you all. So, I think most of you, maybe almost everyone has been here before, so you know the drill. We're going to do an hour-long meditation, a guided meditation, and then after that I'll say some stuff and then you guys will maybe have comments or reports or things you want to say, or maybe ask a question.
Desire is a human way of passing from a physical attraction to a psychic and even a spiritual feeling. Being rooted in nature, desire can transform a merely natural belonging into a psychic or spiritual belonging which can remain sensitive [capable of feeling], thus peculiar to each. Desire builds bridges between our body and our psyche and our mind, but also between us as living beings,
"Dance, dance... otherwise we are lost." This oft-cited phrase by Pina Bausch encapsulates not only the urgency of movement, but its capacity to reveal space itself. In her choreographies, space is never a neutral backdrop, it becomes a partner, an obstacle, a memory. Floors tilt, chairs accumulate, walls oppress or liberate. These are architectural conditions, staged and contested through the body. What Bausch exposes - and what architecture often forgets - is that space is not simply built, it is performed.
This practice is about listening to the body as a source of wisdom and engaging it as a resource for resilience and responsibility. I needed a way to make money that would add energy to my art practice rather than depleting me. Working with others keeps my heart open and informs my artwork subconsciously,
