— “Being aware of our thoughts and their effects helps us to care more conscientiously for our bodies.”
Valeria Teles interviews Catherine Ayano Nixon — the author of “Meditation and Movement for Self-Healing.”
Catherine Ayano Nixon is a meditation artist. She combines the creative mediums of writing, music, and art with the healing movements of meditation, yoga, and tai chi to express spirit. She creates and teaches in the Lowertown Arts District of Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Her preferred name is Ayano, the middle name her Okinawan mother gave her when she was born there in 1957. Catherine is the name of her African American father’s mother and became her name when she moved to the United States as a baby. Ayano and her brother and two sisters traveled and lived in Japan and Germany with their military parents. Her family finally settled in New Mexico.
In 1981, Ayano, who was called Cathy at the time, moved to Minnesota to attend University of Minnesota Law School after receiving her Bachelor of Fine Arts from New Mexico State University. Even after she started work as a lawyer, Ayano kept singing and writing songs, performing in coffee shops, and gifting her friends and family with artwork. In 1988, she started studying tai chi with local master, Douglas William Bowes, who had studied with T.T. Lliang, a master of the Yang Style lineage.
Ayano became deeply absorbed in the world of tai chi and began to expand her spiritual focus from Christianity to Taoism, which she was drawn to for its mysticism and a familiarity that came out of her Asian background. As her inner life developed, her outer life changed. Initially drawn to write stories inspired by the I Ching, an ancient Chinese oracle also called The Book of Changes, she wandered out of the practice of family law and eventually into public school teaching. After Master Bowes died, Ayano continued to teach tai chi to various communities in the Twin Cities.
In her work for People Incorporated, Ayano found it particularly challenging to engage people to take an interest in caring for themselves through healing movement. Of course, many people preferred chair massage, a more passive healing therapy. But movement requires people to be fully present and in their bodies. Feeling your body working with your mind, there is no avoiding what is there.
To learn more about Catherine Ayano Nixon and her work please visit: https://www.ayanoart.com/
— This podcast is a quest for well-being, a quest for a meaningful life through the exploration of fundamental truths, enlightening ideas, insights on physical, mental, and spiritual health. The inspiration is Love. The aspiration is to awaken new ways of thinking that can lead us to a new way of being, being well.
