ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how dance principles and the Kabbalah inform and permeate the author’s presence with patients. People often come to psychotherapy when they feel cut off from their roots. The soul, which connects human beings to the wonder and mystery of living, is the ground of being, like the roots of a tree in the earth. A tree cannot grow cut off from its roots, and it is the same for a person. Using images from the Kabbalah, as well as drawing from her roots in dance, and Jung’s concept of the transcendent function—a spiritual instinct related to growth and becoming more whole—the author approaches an invisible domain at the heart of depth work. The cosmic imagery of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, and the divine values and guiding archetypal spiritual principles of the Ten Sefirot (Will, Wisdom, Understanding, Love, Judgment, Compassion, Empathy, Endurance, Balance, Indwelling) invite soulful mediation between earthly body, meaningful emotions and spiritual consciousness. Analysis becomes a Kabbalah dance, cultivating spirit in the home of the body, with all its joys and sorrows.
