Praise for Family Planting

This is a story that has been told before, of course, because moving to the country is a great fantasy and dream for many. But rarely has it been told with this kind of honesty and psychological insight. There's a great deal to learn here, no matter where you live.

Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet

With endless reports of environmental and financial disaster, Family Planting offers a rare ray of hope. Kimerer LaMothe artfully weaves together philosophical vision and social criticism to create a work that opens new ways of seeing and being. This book is a pleasure to read and will leave you with questions we have been avoiding far too long.

Mark C. Taylor, Columbia University, author of Field Notes and After God    

Sensuous and intriguing.  LaMothe’s narrative of her family’s experiences alone is worth the read. It is so deliciously written, you could make a meal out of it.

Shannon Hayes, author of Radical Homemakers and Long Way on a Little

Family Planting is a book about LOVE, and the dynamic, yearning, moving, painful, sublime truth of being human. LaMothe uses her own life in connection with the roots and branches of her own family tree as a laboratory for conscious living. Beautifully written and True.

Susan L. Franklin, Psy.D. Clinician in private practice

LaMothe has done it again and delivered yet another profound and exuberantly told book that interweaves her experiences of living on a farm with insights into relationships with parents, partners, and progeny. She offers a rich, deep, and accessible philosophy that is a joy to read and an inspiration to live by.

Colby Devitt, Author

An incredibly loving and knowing heart beats on each page of this book.  This is precisely what “waters” the roots of Kimerer LaMothe’s readers.  Yes, Family Planting unearths deep roots of the human condition – we are an impulse to connect; love is the condition that enables us to become who we are; struggles and challenges are gateways to rebirth; we must practice, not merely know of, our connectivity to the natural world; the sprouting of the seed within all of us is quickened by bodily movement: movement creates and recreates who we are!  All of these and more.  Yet, ultimately, it is LaMothe’s heart that makes all the difference.  She shares nothing that her heart does not know.  It is this that enables her readers to find themselves – to root themselves – in her timeless wisdom and to then emerge into a rejuvenating and vibrant life-enabling world.  LaMothe’s heartful language is like dew that refreshes the morning in us all.

Gay Lynch, Ph.D., Dominican University              

Praise for What a Body Knows
"Do our bodies know better than we do? "What a Body Knows: Finding Wisdom in Desire" is a guide for readers for gaining a greater grasp of what their bodies want and how to interpret them better. There is great value in gaining an understanding of the body's instinctual wisdom, which so often goes ignored for so many reasons. Hunger, lust, boredom are all signals used by the body, and author Kimerer LaMothe hopes to educate readers on interpreting those signals more correctly. "What a Body Knows" is a choice pick for self-help and philosophy collections."

Midwest Book Review

"In our lives, we find ourselves fighting urges, both physical and psychological. Sometimes our stomachs tell us that the jelly-filled donut will somehow be the answer to whatever ails us, or maybe we're just hungry. We find ourselves attracted to someone in that base, primal sexual way. And yet at other times, another soul is inspiring to us, we see something in them that we want to see in ourselves. We aspire to experience "mountaintop" over the moon events, life-changing; feeling as one with some higher power. Yet taken at face value, most times we fight the voice inside. We tell ourselves we mustn't give in to our desires. We are told that our urges are dangerous, frivolous, inappropriate.

Author LaMothe's book will tell you these natural forces are guides to show us the right direction, the proper path. Society and the way in which we have been taught over time tells us that our minds are in control over our bodies. Our minds know what's best for us. And we hardly are aware that that's how we function; the mind driving the body. LaMothe's book encourages us to push off those thinkings, those teachings that are second nature to us, and to learn to take residence in our bodies again, get in tune with the senses and become more conscious of the way our movements respond to our inner urges. What A Body Knows - Finding Wisdom In Desire guides us to view our physical forms as something more than a container of our spirit, a form to carry our souls.

The book is broken into categories, showing the 3 influences we are driven by intuitively -- Food, Sex and Spirit. Throughout the book, LaMothe teaches simple exercises, ways to teach ourselves to really listen to our bodies, force ourselves to live in the moment.

A good many books these days offer ways to teach us how to live in the moment... What A Body Knows will appeal to the student within, as a learning tool, an aid to guide you in living meaningful lives".

Sacramento Book Review

"I simply cannot praise the book enough! The prose is positively brilliant. It is full of sparkling gems of insight and astonishing, concise yet profound formulations. The nature passages remind me of Annie Dillard. It is truly a remarkable achievement!"

Miranda Shaw, Ph.D., Professor of Religion, University of Richmond, Author of Passionate Enlightenment: Women in Tantric Buddhism and Buddhist Goddesses of India

“It has been a holistic pleasure to read this book, to live with this book. The book beckons its reader to live the text, to respond to reading the pages with all forms of movement: new life, change, growth and new, more evolved bodily consciousness. This text should have quite an impact on those lucky enough to read it. Bravo.”

Courtney Bickel Lamberth, Ph.D., Assistant Dean, Lecturer on the Study of Religion, Harvard College

"A provocative, humorous, and deeply personal exploration of modern western culture's dysfunctional relation to desire. Tracking our obsessions with food, sex and spiritual fulfillment, LaMothe charts an original path -- satisfying to a scholar and rich in stories of farm life -- that yields uncommon insights relevant to our time. A wise and wonderful book!"

William M. Throop, Ph.D., Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs, Green Mountain College

“LaMothe mixes descriptions of living as a mother, dancer, and writer at beautiful Hebron Hollow farm with reflections on all the desires that move her. It is such an affirming book, generous and welcoming of desire as a source of guidance for life!”

Kathleen Roberts Skerrett, Ph.D., Associate Dean, Grinnell College

"LaMothe points us back to our most primitive and meaningful source of knowing, the body. She beautifully uses her own experience to illustrate the path of discovering what her body knows and the wisdom in desire. This is something to be savored and contemplated."

Susan L. Franklin, Psy.D., Clinical psychologist in private practice

"Nietzsche meets Elizabeth Gilbert - if your best friend were a brilliant philosopher this is what she'd write.
This is an incredible book which I read in one day, hungrily devouring its insights and delights. LaMothe combines the authority, disciplined thought and brilliance of a true philosopher with the humor and homespun anecdotes of a person you'd like to have tea with. She's Nietzsche meets Elizabeth Gilbert.

Focusing her Harvard-trained philosopher's mind on the back of a cereal box, she guides you through the core elements of what matter to us in our daily lives - how we eat, have sex, and engage our desires to live meaningful lives. She encourages us to experience all of our senses as we move through our lives - to breathe to move and to move to breathe.

The book is stuffed with nuggets of wisdom, wonderful stories of the author's personal journey and analysis polished by years of practicing and teaching what she communicates. This is lived, embodied, feet on the ground, dancing-in-the-wind philosophy that is brilliant and inspiring.

What a Body Knows is a delicious, sensual gem. If your best friend were a brilliant philosopher this
is what she would write. I highly, highly recommend this book!"

Colby Devitt, Author

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