We are thrilled to bring you the second issue of Conscious Dancer. Great feedback from around the world is letting us know that this is a welcome addition to lives everywhere. One reader warmed our hearts when she picked up the magazine and laughed, “I love it! Now I can show this to my family when they ask me what I do!” That comment tells me that this magazine is a banner for dancers everywhere to wave. People have suggested that this is actually a social movement, so by featuring Anna Halprin, we are honoring a movement pioneer. Her life’s work has inspired modern thinking about the body as the seat of con­sciousness, by using movement and improvisation as keys to unlock the body’s wisdom.

Reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s book, Dancing in the Streets, made me understand why practices like Biodanza and NIA have such popular appeal today. What she refers to as “the constituency for collective joy” is alive and well in practices like these. We’re happy to promote spirit-filled movement as an easy pathway to connection.

We invite you to look at this magazine as if it’s a dance. Warm up with an invocation and ring our epiphany bell. Try out a new modality and share the dance floor with your family. Feel the energy of Rumi’s timeless message and then bring the life force inside with fermented foods. Check out our favorites and hang out with our sponsors backstage. Please allow yourself to experience what we have to offer, and make room for your friends in the closing circle.

When springtime blooms we’ll go green with the season to bring you the latest on the growing field of “eco-somatics.” We’ll share with you our favorite green superfoods and let you know what we love most about dancing in nature. You’ll learn exciting new ways to create community space and meet more of the people who are making a difference.

I sincerely hope you are celebrating with family and friends this holiday season, and I’ll leave you with a few questions to ponder as we head into the New Year. It has been said that all living things are made of love. If this is so then the real questions are: How do we choose to experience the love that’s inside us? How do we choose to express it to others? And how can we use our love to make this world a better place?