Meet Kenneth Robinson M.S., M.T.S
Kenneth Robinson has worked for more than thirty years in the healing arts. He began as an addictions counselor, then as director of a family counseling center, and for the past twenty-five years as a body-oriented therapist and teacher. Throughout that time he has been a student of meditation and yoga, and for four years studied Alaya Process, a transpersonal approach to healing.
Kenneth received a Master’s degree in Counseling and Education from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in 1977. He received his Master’s in Theological Studies from the Divinity School at Vanderbilt University in 2007. He is a member of the Nashville Psychotherapy Institute and past chair of NPI’s Diversity Committee, which offers educational programs for the membership that promote diversity and multiculturalism. He also holds membership in the United States Association of Body Psychotherapy.
Beyond his practice, Kenneth is a poet, musician, and founding member of the music group Chant Ram. The music of Chant Ram leads kirtan, a form of meditation through music that allows participants to move to open-hearted awareness and self-expression through sound.
He has performed his poetry (individually, and in collaboration with Ana María Hernando) in Boulder, Denver, Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Vancouver, and in his hometown of Nashville, Tennessee. His book of poetry, The Year of Lovemaking and Crying, was released in 1999, with a second edition published in 2013.
Salka Archipelago, a poem-painting collaboration with Ana Maria was issued in limited edition prints by master printmaker Bud Shark in August 2013.
Chant Ram
Kirtan is a form of meditation through music allowing for open-heartedness and self-expression.
Point of View
“This work is mystic in the sense that direct contact with the transpersonal is seen as possible and necessary to experience our wholeness. ”
True living comes from being in touch with the feeling self.
Body sensation and physical perceptions are how we meet the world, join with it, and engage it. Many of our difficulties, our attempts to live according to another’s plan or dream or design, come from a loss of the feeling self. We need it to connect deeply with ourselves, so we may be guided by the music, messages, and visions from that creative core.
Sensitivity (to ourselves, to one another, and to the world) emerges as we slow down, breathe fully, appreciate, and give heart-full attention to our thoughts, sensations, and feelings. This is meditative awareness. This kind of awareness reveals to us how we make choices and allows us to rechoose if we so desire. Popular notions of meditation see it as a technique to relax and lower stress. It is more: It is a gate that opens to our deepest nature. Stress is most reduced by an open and loving heart, awareness of choice, and purposeful living.
This work teaches a way of being. We use somatics, creative expression, and meditative methods to work with the material of life in order to both deepen the sense of self and to see beyond the self to the far reaches of our consciousness. Our work is grounded in the understanding that true health includes a commitment to nonviolence, respect for the natural world, and service to others.
