Poetry and authenticity with Tārāvajrī

In this conversation, I am speaking with Tārāvajrī. Leslie McCormick (Taravajri) is a somatic creative, licensed somatic psychotherapist, registered dance movement therapist, poet, and ordained Dharmacharini with the Triratna Buddhist Order. In this conversation we discuss poetry as companion, our shared love of our teacher, Zoe Avstreih, and the phenomena of touch and sound in authentic movement. Tārāvajrī is passionate about embodiment as political resistance: moving from the inside-out and supporting movers into loving relationship with their authentic somatic expression, she denies the patriarchal gaze, fights sexual consumerism, and disappoints Eurocentric, anthropocentric, and heteronormative expectations; instead, she centers felt experience as gateway to personal and transcendental truths. As a long-time practitioner of both authentic movement and Buddhism, Leslie is committed to sharing an embodied spirituality. Keenly interested in the role of beauty in human development and transformation, Leslie regards Truth as the greatest beauty and the simplest, effective expression of Truth as, perhaps, the highest art. She runs workshops and groups in which movers shape works of choreography and writing from the raw material of somatic exploration.Leslie maintains a private practice and makes her home in Tucson, Arizona, the lands of the Tohono O’odham and Pascua Yaqui people. For more information, visit tucsonsomaticpsychotherapy.com.