Georgia Mitchell began following the movement of life energy long before she could explain it to you. As a second generation Reiki practitioner, she was initiated into the Usui Shiki Ryoho lineage of Japanese natural healing at six years old — having been practice-treating her dolls for some years prior. At that point in life her career goal was to become a dancer-teacher-nurse — somatic facilitator wasn’t part of her lexicon back then.

Endlessly fascinated with the movement of energy through the body, Georgia began an informal study of Chinese medicine in 2012, while learning to cultivate Chinese medicinal herbs. She also discovered Qi Gong, translated as “skill with energy,” and began an ongoing study with Robert Bates of Bellingham, WA in 2015. Qi Gong encompasses a vast system of movement and meditation forms, traditionally passed down within specific regions and families in China, and becoming more broadly accessible in the West in recent years. Unlike Tai Chi, which has roots primarily in the martial lineages, Qi Gong originated within the Chinese medical tradition and ancient Taoist longevity practices. Georgia began studying with Lindsey Wei in the Wudang lineage of internal martial arts and Taoist meditation in 2022, and with Liz Koch at Core Awareness™ in 2023, exploring primal movement through the psoas. She also relocated to the beautiful Willamette Valley of western Oregon.

Georgia spent ten years in the fields of ornamental and restoration horticulture, cultivating her understanding of life energy in the growing and harvest of plants. Her work as a native plant seed collector, traversing five counties in northwestern Washington and across the Cascade Crest, honed her eye for the flowering and maturation of native seed across the landscape, an expression of the movement of qi through ecosystems. Her work with organizations and businesses has coincided with generational transitions in the workplace, and here too, Georgia’s eye is tuned to the evolutionary movement of energy. As within the body and natural world, institutional development possesses an inherent arc of movement, an arc that requires supportive conditions in order to grow and mature in a healthy manner. By deeply studying body and land, she offers insight and guided process for the institutional transitions that require us to individually and collectively metabolize change and create new patterns.

Growing up in the Silver Valley of northern Idaho, Georgia witnessed the ecological impacts of mining pollution, the societal pain of poverty, and the slow regeneration of the Coeur d’Alene River basin. Here she experienced the foundations of her lifelong inquiry into the interplay between environmental and personal trauma, and the practice of movement arts as a method of reintegrating mind, body, and the larger world. Learning both Reiki and the foundations of Aikido, a Japanese martial art, in childhood, her relationship with somatic practice is long, deep, and multi-layered. Contrary to the beliefs of modern culture, the path of transformation through the body is slow; it requires patience, perseverance, and letting go. It recognizes that life is shaped by forces beyond our control. It is a path about beginnings, and endings, and beginning anew.

acknowledgements

A big thank you to Dan Haberly and Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area for the wonderful photography. Appreciation also to Clayton Holmes, Aaron Lee, and Erik Mclean on Unsplash for the Services, Contact, and Land Repair page images.

Gratitude to the original inhabitants of the Willamette Valley, Klamath, Cascades, and coastal ecoregions: the indigenous nations and native species. May these lands and waters be restored for your benefit.

Thank you.