Think about it. Close your eyes for a moment and create a mental picture of an unhealthy person. Your image may include a colorless and drooping face, an overweight body - possibly seated in a chair - or a tired form sluggishly climbing a flight of stairs, puffing at every step. Or perhaps an anorexic, emaciated body, moving along the path at a rapid pace, muscles and nerves strained with tension. . . . Now, imagine the opposite. See a person at the peak of health. Chances are you have pictured a healthy complexion and a well-toned, beautiful body in motion - running, or jumping with arms reaching out, or making love, or dancing. Dancing is a great metaphor for living - for being - in harmony, since the whole universe, the sum total of energy, moves as in a dance. The person dancing is the person at one with the universe. The person dancing is fully alive.

Without movement you have no dance, no work, and no play either. It's that elementary. Movement changes both the inner world and the outer world. Moving encourages movement. The more you move, the better you move. Energy creates energy - in a continuous, circling process - in a constant dance.

If you have a body with physical challenges, don't let that stop you. The National Center on Physical Activity and Disability (www.ncpad.org) has links to fact sheets, monographs, bibliographies, slide shows, and abstracts of current research on physical activity and disability.

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