Obey the Flower

In 2005 Kimerer LaMothe moved with her family to a dilapidated dairy farm in upstate New York. She was living her dream – eager to dance and write surrounded by the beauty of the natural world. Her children decided they wanted to be farmers.

With ample doses of honesty, wisdom, and wonder, Kimerer chronicles her adventures in creative living with her life partner, their four then five children, and a barnyard of animals.

In a series of essays spanning twelve years, Kimerer asks: Is dance a vital art? Can you teach creativity? Why milk a cow? Is nature for or against us? Must we feel pain? Why isn't good sex easy? How do you parent warring siblings? Is the Earth sacred? Above all, how should we live?

"The book is such a gift. It will be a touchstone for many who are on a quest for something they can't yet name." – Philip Ackerman-Leist, Author of Up Tunket Road and Rebuilding the Foodshed

"Obey the Flower is about life as a powerful creative act, or as historian Mircea Eliade says, 'founding the world' as sacred. Each vignette demonstrates a way - a way of love, integrity and grit. Yes, dance, movement and embodiment figure most of all from this dancing, Ph.D philosopher, but it's not only art as performance. It details the potential for creativity to be in everyone's life every day… It's truly a book 'of life' well worth a slow, contemplative read." – Dr. Deborah Welsh, Creative Art/Dance Movement Therapist