About Teresa

I am a lover of beauty, wonder and awe - a seeker of grace, connection and loving presence. My greatest teacher is Life and my pathway to understanding is my Body.

As a child there was nothing sweeter or more natural to my “Be-ing” than dancing. I was often found moving through meadows and fields, across dance floors or recital halls. Movement was my sanctuary - the place I turned to, again and again, to reconnect with the vitality of free expression and the deep peace of BE-ing in my body. Read more...

In my late 20s I began a journey that would take me into the depths of embodied healing, spiritual inquiry, earth-based wisdom, community engagement, and movement as a path of liberation. I came to realize that my perception of life deepened and transformed through direct experiences that were grounded IN life, IN the body, IN relationship.

As the visionary and steward of Rooted and Rising, I serve individuals and communities by weaving my love of dance, somatic inquiry, archetypal and depth psychology, earth based wisdom, and whole systems healing into simple yet powerful explorations of embodied emergence. I trust that each individual, group and ecosystem has a natural rhythm - an organic intelligence that longs for harmony and coherence - and my role is to attune, guide, and co.create with these rhythms; make space for vital intelligence to arise within a field of ease and curiosity; and weave threads of integration that are current, compassionate, and congruent.

I bow to the teachers and lineages that have shaped my relationship to Life and my capacity to serve with humility, integrity and compassion for the complexities of the human experience. I devote myself to practices and rituals that deepen my capacity to listen and respond, be guided by curiosity and wonder, trust the ancient wisdom of the body and contemplate rather than claim to know.

It would be my great honor to dance alongside you as we grow and learn and step onto paths of greater freedom, aliveness, and creative potential, together. Join me for group classes, workshops or individual coaching sessions in St. Paul/Minneapolis or online via Zoom.

Education + INFLUENCES:

• Organic Intelligence, Coaching program (2021-2023) + Biology to Cosmos (2023) - Steve Hoskinson

• Somatic Experiencing, Beginning I, II, III (2021) Intermediate I (2022) - Alicen Halquist & Joshua Silvae

• Contemplative Dance, Year 1 (2019-2020) - Alton Wasson and Daphne Lowell

• SomaYoga, 500 hrs (2018-2019) - Ann Maxwell and Molly McManus, Yoga North

• Soul Based Coaching (2017- 2018) - Annemiek van Helsdingen, Academy for Soul Based Coaching

• Open Floor Teacher Training (2015-2017) - Open Floor International 

• Ipsalu Tantra, Level 1(2015) - Claudia Weitkemper

• Global Somatics: Breathing Freely, Following Flow, Knowing Bones (2013-2014) - Suzanne Rivers, Green River Dance

• Dancing Freedom Facilitator Training (2012-2014) - Samantha Sweetwater

• Yoga Study, 230 hrs (2012-2013) - Yoga Center of Minneapolis

• Therapeutic Massage, 600 hrs (2002) - Health Enrichment Center

• Pre-Nursing and Latin American and Caribbean Studies (1993-1995) - Northwestern Michigan College

InSPIRATION + Teachers:

• Coaching - Clean Coaching (David Grove); Organic Intelligence (Steve Hoskinson); Soul Based Coaching (Annemiek van Helsdingen); Symbolic Modeling (Penny Tompkins, James Lawley)

• Conscious Dance - 5Rhythms (Gabrielle Roth); Authentic Movement and Contemplative Dance (Alton Wasson, Daphne Lowell, Janet Adler, Mary Starks-Whitehouse); Body-Mind Centering (Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen); Butoh (Gadu Doushin); Dancing Freedom (Samantha Sweetwater); Movement Medicine (Ya'Acov Darling Khan); Open Floor (Andrea Juhan, Kathy Altman, Lori Saltzman, Vic Cooper)

• Communal Healing - Elder Kaia Svien, Samantha Sweetwater and Thomas Hübl

• Social Justice - Adrienne Maree Brown, Dr. Leticia Nieto, Layla Saad, Resmaa Menakem, Rev. Angel Kyodo, Sharon Day, Susan Raffo, Winona LaDuke

• Somatics - Moshé Feldenkrais, Suzanne Rivers and Thomas Hanna

• Teachings, Writing and Presence of: Anna Halprin, Bert Hellinger, Bill Plotkin, Bree Greenberg, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Christopher Wallace, David Whyte, Francis Weller, Janet Adler, Leticia Nieto, Marion Woodman, Mary Oliver, Mary Starks Whitehouse, Pema Chodron, Peter Levine, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Samantha Sweetwater, Sophie Strand, Stephen Jenkinson, Stephen Porges, Susan Raffo, Thomas Hübl, Toko-pa Turner, and Tyson Yunkaporta.

Organizational Memberships:

• International Conscious Movement Teachers Association